The Most Expensive Breakfast

We drove 12 straight hours from Virginia to Orlando, arrived late at night, and decided to get a big breakfast in the morning.

Since it was the lady's first time to Disney World, she had a priority to-do list:

• Character breakfast with Mickey-shaped waffle
• Mickey-shaped ice cream
• A bunch of other things that I now forget 

The character breakfast is where you eat, usually a buffet, and Disney characters walk around and allow you to take pictures with them.  It sounds cheesy and unnecessary, and it is, but once you're there it doesn't seem horrible.  We walked into the Contemporary Resort.

The Contemporary was built in an era where concrete was considered modern. When you compare it to other Disney World hotels, it seems too cold and serious. I think only business/conference people stay there, my Disney professor said that only boring, cold people did.  The feature that gives the hotel any character is that the monorail runs through the lobby:

The mural in the lobby is by Mary Blair, who the lady thinks was either a genius, or drug-induced nut. (Blair had an astigmatism, and was also an alcoholic).  It's a Small World is an acid-trip through Blair's mind.

Inside this hotel are a few restaurants, including the character buffet Chef Mickey's, recommended to us by a friend who claimed the food was better than other buffets with less screaming kids.

We were seated right away, despite not having reservations.  Some old Dutch guy was our waiter.  The buffet was stacked: french toast, waffles, pancakes, blintzes, donuts, fruit, capers and lox, candy, "breakfast pizza", meats, hashbrowns, a potato/pepper/cheese mix, eggs of many types... it's just excellent.  And of course, they had the Mickey Waffle:

 

Blintzes and something on the left, cereal and CANDY (!?) in the clear canisters.

 

We sat next to a window that overlooked the Magic Kingdom, with the iconic castle and Space Mountain in view.  She cried because it was her first time at Disney World, it was the first morning after a long drive, and there she was overlooking the place as Mickey and other "classic" characters went to each table mugging for photos and autographs.

Overall, the food was really good.  But then there was the bill.  It was around $70 (for the both of us).  This was the most expensive breakfast I will ever have, far more than breakfast at the Ritz in Dearborn, MI.

But the $70 price tag brings in the idea of "experience as a commodity", a distinctly 20th century realization that Disney has perfected.  This breakfast wasn't $70 worth of food.  The price involved having your picture taken with Disney character-suits and being able to look out over the Magic Kingdom.  Having a picture taken is far more important to children, as is the episode where a song started playing and the characters danced.  For $35, she was invited into the Disney culture of paying for memories.
As Adorno said,

The cultural commodities of the industry are governed by the principle of their realization as value, and not by their own specific content and harmonious formation.  The entire practice of the culture industry transfers the profit motive naked onto cultural forms.