One year ago, Walt Disney World fans united around a common enemy. It was around this time in October when the Cake Bake Shop, already controversial for replacing ESPN Club and offering an upscale dining experience at the BoardWalk, posted its first menus outside the restaurant.
Disney diehards immediately tore into these. It was a mix of mockery and outrage the likes of which we hadn’t seen in a while. It was also a rare moment of unity. Rather than arguing about whether the Rivers of America was ‘obsolete’ or if Cars belonged in Frontierland, or whatever else was the controversy of the day, Walt Disney World fans all agreed that Cake Bake prices were astronomical.
Being familiar with the other Cake Bake locations and likely differences in rent between Indiana and Walt Disney World, I was expecting high prices. But I was nevertheless shocked. I’ve been doing this a while–it takes a lot to shock me at this point. But you know what? Kids menus with $18 PB&J sandwiches and $18 grilled cheese, $8 Cokes, $26 eggs, and $26 fruit plates will do it!
Cake Bake must’ve heard the chorus of complaints, because the Cake Bake Shop menus were updated before the restaurant even opened with lower prices pretty much across the board. It was quite the roller coaster week, but it felt like fans had prevailed, and won by whining. (Emboldened by that, we tried similar strategies for saving Rivers of America and MuppetVision. Lightning did not strike twice.)
Here’s hoping some good ole fashioned internet outrage can work its magic once more, as Cake Bake Shop has announced a new Dinner with Santa Claus dining experience during the Christmas season and–surprise, surprise–it is pricey.
It also looks and sounds kinda awesome, and something we’d love to take our daughter to experience if they ever have a coupon day. Here are full details via the Cake Bake Shop’s Dinner with Santa Claus page:
Celebrate the season with a festive evening filled with sparkling cocktails and Champagne, hors d’oeuvres, dinner, dessert, and a family gift to take home. Delight in a family photo and special visit with Santa Claus himself. Dinner with Santa Claus at Cake Bake Shop is available on the following dates:
November 18, 2025
November 25, 2025
December 2, 2025
December 9, 2025
Three-Course Holiday Dinner
Prepared especially for this festive occasion, we have crafted a delightful three-course dinner to sprinkle your evening with holiday cheer. The menu begins with sparkling holiday Champagne and cocktails, an elegant hors d’oeuvre, followed by a sumptuous main entrée designed to warm the heart, and concludes with a seasonal dessert, sweetly inspired by the magic of the season.
Professional Family Photo with Santa
Included with your visit, each family will receive a beautifully captured photograph to download from Disney PhotoPass to treasure for years to come. Every family will have the chance to meet Santa Claus himself, sharing their Holiday Pixie Glitter Wishes® while basking in the magic of the season. From twinkling smiles to whispered wishes, this special moment is designed to become a sparkling memory, a keepsake as timeless as Santa’s own story.
A Sweet Gift from Santa
Santa has hand-selected this delightful cookie just for you to take home and assemble with your loved ones. And it’s in the shape of our Bubbles the Bear! Inside you’ll find a handmade sugar cookie and all the ingredients you need to make a scrumptious cookie good enough for Santa. This enchanting activity extends the magic of the season into your home, letting you continue the celebration as you craft a dessert as whimsical as it is delicious.
Dinner with Santa Claus Includes
Adults: $200 per person
Up to Three Beverages (Additional beverages are available for purchase)
An Entrée of Your Choice
A Seasonal Dessert From our Menu
A Professional Family Photo with Santa Claus
Digital download through Disney PhotoPass
A Gift to Take Home
Children: $150 per person
Any Beverages of Your Choice
An Entrée of Your Choice
A Seasonal Dessert From our Menu
A Professional Family Photo with Santa Claus
Digital download through Disney PhotoPass
A Gift to Take Home
Kindly note, price does not include tax and gratuity. Full, non-refundable cost is required at time of reservation confirmation, including tax and 24% gratuity.
You can learn more or request a reservation for Dinner with Santa Claus at Cake Bake Shop here.
Our Commentary
The easy play here would be to dunk on Cake Bake Shop for the exorbitant pricing of its Dinner with Santa Claus. And to be sure, this is extremely expensive. For the cost of this Santa Claus character dining experience, if you want to call it that, you could do Breakfast à la Art with Mickey & Friends at Topolino’s Terrace — Flavors of the Riviera and Story Book Dining Dinner with Snow White at Artist Point, and still have money left over. You could probably do both of those plus a fireworks dessert party once a more reasonable tax and tip are factored into the mix, if you want to really splurge.
While the price of Dinner with Santa Claus is objectively expensive, there’s also the subjective side of this that I find mildly off-putting. Perhaps this is partly because I first saw this on Instagram, where the chorus of comments is inexplicably, unanimously positive (although engagement there is often vapid and insincere), but there are elements of the announcement that just strike me as unnecessarily pretentious. That’s the vibe of Cake Bake, in general, though. Needless capitalization and accent marks, hoity-toity word choices, etc.
I’ve learned to mostly ignore this. It’s what the target audience for Cake Bake seems to like, so who am I to spoil their fun? Even if it’s a style I happen to find grating, I’ve come to accept that a bit of personality in writing isn’t the worst thing. Disney press releases are similarly flowery; at least it beats the vanilla language of AI slop!
I’ve also learned to mostly ignore this because I’ve found myself in the position of reluctant Cake Bake Shop defender. The restaurant doesn’t deserve all of the hate it gets, and frankly, if more Walt Disney World fans were willing to give it a chance, it would become one of their favorites. The primary appeal of Cake Bake Shop is very similar to what made so many fans fall in love with Walt Disney World in the first place.
I’ll admit that when initially seeing this Dinner with Santa Claus announcement, I was intrigued! I love Christmas and it’s great when restaurants and resorts offer special (bespoke if you want to use pretentious language) experiences for the holiday season.
We have a young daughter who isn’t quite old enough for the meal this year, but it’s definitely something we’d consider in the future. Or at least, I thought we would until seeing the price. That probably makes it a no-go for us, unless Walt Disney World brings back VIPassholder month and this is among the 40% off meals. That seems doubtful, but I’m not giving up hope for a Christmas/Festivus miracle.
Minus the price, this scratches me right where I itch! More Walt Disney World restaurants should be offering special experiences like this. If there’s a market for this (and there assuredly is), there’s a market for something downstream of it that charges ~$79 per person. We’ve made the case elsewhere for more upcharges returning to Walt Disney World even if they’re not for us (see Little Big Things Walt Disney World Needs to Bring Back); it’s hard to request things like this on the one hand, but then criticize them when they’re offered.
I would also add that Disney is no stranger to exorbitantly-priced character meals, as the Disney Princess Breakfast Adventures at the Grand Californian Hotel costs $149 for kids or adults.
And that’s currently being housed in a temporary flex space in the convention center while Napa Rose is being reimagined. We’ve never done that for the same reason we won’t do this, but if I were in the market for a $150 character breakfast, I could easily justify a $200 character dinner.
Notably, the Disney Princess Breakfast Adventures is offered for multiple seatings from 8 am to 11 am every single day, and books up fairly far out. So not only is demand clearly there, but supply is high. It is less bespoke, you might say. By contrast, Dinner with Santa Claus at Cake Bake has 4 dates in total during the holiday season, and they’re each one week apart.
Given that, a better comparison might be Tiana’s New Year’s Adventure at California Grill, which was $800 last year. (If I recall correctly, that sold out.) This isn’t to attempt justifying the high price of Dinner with Santa Claus; just to point out that when it comes to offerings that are limited capacity and niche, sell outs are common even at high prices.
There’s a lot of demand for premium experiences like these; people are willing to splurge on offerings that feel custom-made and personalized. It’s not just these specific examples, either.
We’ve seen a proliferation of pricier prix fixe menus at restaurants (Takumi-Tei and Monsieur Paul being two of many examples that immediately come to mind) in the post-reopening era. Even as revenge travel has faded, people still are prioritizing experiences; there’s a larger subset of consumers willing to splurge on luxury-level ones.
That’s true not just at Walt Disney World or Disneyland, but pretty much wherever you go. It’s perhaps worth noting that the Dinner with Santa Claus pricing for the Indiana location of Cake Bake Shop is $200 per adult and $135 per child, so not really that different from the BoardWalk location. So much for Walt Disney World price inflation!
All of this is to say that, while I wouldn’t pay $200 for Dinner with Santa Claus at Cake Bake Shop, I don’t doubt for a second that there’s an ample audience for this. I also don’t begrudge those consumers who are willing and able to pay for such an experience, nor do I really fault Cake Bake Shop for meeting that market.
I’d also add that if there’s this hypothetical scenario where I won ~$750 in the lottery (guess that means I was doing scratch-offs?) and could only spend that on taking our family to Dinner with Santa Claus or buying Lightning Lane Premier Pass, I would do the dinner without hesitation. If that top-tier line-skipping is “worth” over $400 at Magic Kingdom, than surely this meal is underpriced at “only” $200!
To end on a sincere note, we dined at Cake Bake Shop last Christmas and had a positive experience. The menu was undeniably expensive, sure, but we ordered smartly (for the most part) and felt that the restaurant was not out of line with other Walt Disney World locations.
To the contrary, had I not been deeply ingrained in the fan community and unaware of the pricing controversy, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. That’s largely because the overall experience was downright magical, with the restaurant’s interior transformed into a veritable winter wonderland. It was resplendent, by far the most gorgeous dining room at Disney during the holiday season.
I’ve written this elsewhere, but if Walt Disney World offered a Candlelight Processional Dining Package at Cake Bake Shop, that would be the ultimate Christmas dinner-and-a-show or date night experience at Walt Disney World. It would be expensive, but it would be truly special and memorable. And isn’t that why we keep revisiting Walt Disney World–for those memories that form the foundation for lifelong nostalgia and sentimentality?
This is probably why I’m a bit forgiving of Cake Bake Shop for the Dinner with Santa Claus pricing…and am maybe, possibly leaving the door open to doing it in the future. (Probably not, but maybe if I really doubledown on my investment in scratch-offs!) It’s also why Cake Bake Shop was on our shortlist of restaurants to revisit during our Christmas-time trip to Walt Disney World.
Cake Bake is not going to make the cut for Christmas 2025 because one of us (not naming names) would rather eat with Winnie the Pooh, but it was in the running. All of this to say, if you previously dismissed Cake Bake Shop out of hand for a regular meal, we’d encourage you to reconsider. I really believe that many Walt Disney World fans, even those who hate on it, would end up loving it if they gave Cake Bake Shop a chance. Here’s our full review: The Best Thing About Walt Disney World’s Controversial New Cake Bake Restaurant Is Not Cakes.
It’s also worth remembering that almost all Christmas entertainment still runs between Christmas and New Year’s Eve (some runs even further into January), so check out our Ultimate Guide to Christmas at Walt Disney World for more planning tips with regard to which holiday entertainment you might want to see on New Year’s Eve. For Walt Disney World trip planning tips and comprehensive advice, make sure to read our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of Dinner with Santa Claus at Cake Bake Shop? Will you be booking this or is it not for you? Let’s say you have the money and are willing to spend it…is this your ideal event or would you prefer splurging on something like Lightning Lane Premier Pass? Have you dined at Cake Bake Shop since it opened? Would you ever do it? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Hearing from you is half the fun, so please share your thoughts and questions in the comments!
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