So, Monday afternoon after Caroline's first nap of the vacation, we headed back to the Magic Kingdom for a little more cuddle time with some old friends before our dinner reservations at Chef Mickey's.

We also caught the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It Street Party again and the girls were really starting to get into it.  They look like old pros, don't they?

Dinner at Chef Mickey's that night was lots of fun, BUT the absolute slowest paced meal of our trip... and when you're dining with two cranky toddlers that's not such a great thing.  It's a buffet, of course, so the slow pace was limited to the drink service and the characters.  Well, once character.  Mickey, in fact.  We saw all the other characters two or three times but Mickey was stubbornly not to be seen.

Here's Minnie's first stop by the table.  She was really excited to see the photos of herself in Caroline's picture/autograph book.

Next to swing by was a certain Donald Duck. 

Caroline gave him a little peck on the bill for signing her book.

Donald, quickly picking up on Leilani's hesitance, played a little peek-a-boo from a safe distance.

And, this really <ahem> quacked me up, he snuck up behind Sara and Leilani so we got a picture of Leilani with him without her suspecting anything.

Pluto came by and signed Caroline's book, too.  Which was great, because when we saw him earlier at the Magic Kingdom he wasn't able to sign anything.  Don't ask me why.

Not sure what's up with Caroline's total attitude pose here, and I'm really not sure what's up with that guy at the table behind us and his daughter who appears to be posing for a picture with the back of Pluto while he was hanging with Caroline.  Weird. 

You can't tell in this picture, but Goofy was checking himself out in the episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that was playing on my video iPod to try and keep Caroline from losing it while we were waiting around for Mickey.

Finally, we asked our server to bring Mickey by because it had been a couple of hours.  They were very accommodating and she (finally) brought the big cheese over to our table.

Caroline was being very insistent about being the one to hand the pen to the characters to sign her book ("I can do it myself!")  This made me very nervous, as it's my general policy not to allow her to handle anything that isn't washable.

This is when I realized I should have been more worried about handing a non-washable pen to Mickey, whose vision is a little limited and wears white gloves.  His glove smeared his signature and I was horrified that his glove was now purplish.

But, he didn't care.  And Caroline sure didn't care.  She was so thrilled to finally get to see Mickey.  You know, in case you couldn't tell from her expression.

I haven't mentioned up to this point that in a very serious and surprising departure from our previous trips to Walt Disney World with food allergies, none of our advanced dining reservations (ADRs) were flagged with Caroline's allergies prior to our arrival.  Even though I had gone through the process of filling out the "Guest with Food Allergies" form and submitting it to the Special Diets team.  I suspect the breakdown was twofold: in making all of our ADRs for this trip, I used the brand new online reservation booking system rather than phoning Disney Dining.  I booked ADRs over the course of about a month or so and it wasn't until the very end that they had added an option online to flag an ADR with a food allergy like the telephone reps do.  So, almost none of our ADRs were appropriately flagged in the beginning.  Then (here comes the second part of my twofold theory), when I submitted my Gust with Food Allergy form to the Special Diets Team... my trusted team member, Brenda, who has always handled our requests in the past, was OUT OF THE OFFICE!

Which leads me to an interesting question.  When you work at the best vacation destination on earth, where do you go on vacation?  I'm picturing Brenda going to a small town in Texas and having to do all my everyday stuff: grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, blogging.  Probably not, but this is my theory.

Anyway, even without our ADRs being flagged in advance, without exception all of the restaurants were able to accommodate us without the advanced warning.  Let me stress that this is not the preferred way to approach dining at Disney World with food allergies.  But, the chef came out to speak with us at Chef Mickey's and even brought Caroline out an allergen-free, gluten-free cupcake to enjoy after dinner.

And he told me that they receive their shipments of allergen friendly products on Tuesdays.  Not all restaurants at Disney have the same shipment day, but if you're thinking about doing Chef Mickey's on your trip, I would shoot for a Tuesday or a Wednesday!

Here's Caroline with her cupcake:

Notice in the background that there is an empty high chair.  Leilani and her parents gave up right as Mickey finally showed up and went home to bed.  Luckily for us, Caroline was full of energy after that nap... and the giant pile of icing on that cupcake.