Victoria & Albert's

Like, is it really the pinnacle of the Disney experience or is it just something you haven't done? And because you can't do it, you know, the forbidden fruit.

Well, I think it's like Victorian Alberts.

It sounds great, but is that something I would really actually enjoy or just the fact that I could say I went to eat there was cool?

Well, I'll put it to you this way.

Wow

... absolutely like the fine dining gem of Walt Disney World, and it's way cheaper than Victoria & Albert's.

And it's not as ornate-

Yes

Yeah.

Right.

And honestly, I did Victoria & Albert's new menu like a week before we did Monsieur Paul, and I preferred Paul.

And I could only fully confidently said it, say that because I did them so close together, so they were so fresh in my mind.

So let's wander into the Empress Room a little bit.

Oh, and by the way, there was a live harpist that played in the Promenade Lounge, much like there is at Victoria and Albert's.

So very classy.

And then you would step into what they would describe as the grandeur lounge.

However, just to be difficult, I am going to say that Toledo, and even though I think that's on the rise, and I think more and more people are figuring out how good that place is, I think that might be the most underrated dining experience, a fine dining experience on Disney property.

Because look, out of the best meals of my life, at least three, uh, uh, Ashante, um, Victoria Alberts, and, and my favorite meal ever, uh, with great company, was Takumite.

Um, I mean, that's the best meal I've had on this planet.

And I, and you know, after that you have to go to like a Waldorf Astoria or Four Seasons or some b- kind of restaurant that's all in French.

And one more restaurant that you love.

Well, if I only get one more, then I'm going to do Victoria and Albert's.

Of

course.

We were so fortunate a couple years ago.

We actually had a f- a, a listener who became a very good friend of ours, um, took us to Victoria & Albert's.

Cool.

And so-

Love it

... we got to do Victoria & Albert's, um-

Nice

... about two years ago, and just absolutely incredible.

The table service restaurants here are a plenty.

You have the Grand Floridian Cafe, you have 1900 Park Fair, Narcoossee's, Citrico's, and of course, there is the famous and insanely expensive Victoria and Albert's, which is a bucket list meal for all true Disney fans.

I'm going to link to my friend Elizabeth in the show notes because she was lucky enough to experience a meal there and it was fascinating to hear about.

The Grand Floridian also has the Enchanted Rose Lounge, which is themed after Beauty and the Beast, but in a very classic.

Citricos.

Victorian Alberts.

The bar.

What is the name of the bar now?

the Grand Floridian.

If you have never gone to Victoria and Albert's.

Oh, I know.

I still need to make it there.

The crowds in the streets were immense and there were some 34,000 visitors present in the building during the opening ceremony.

lord macaulay was much impressed with the exhibition for he wrote after the opening i was struck by the numbers of foreigners in the streets all however were respectable and decent people i saw none of the men of action with whom the socialists were threatening us i should think there must have been near three hundred thousand people in hyde park at once the sight among the green boughs was delightful the boats and little frigates darting across the lake the flags the music the guns everything was exhilarating and the temper of the multitude the best possible i made my way into the building a most gorgeous sight vast graceful beyond the dreams of the arabian romances i cannot think that the caesars ever exhibited a more splendid spectacle i was quite dazzled and i felt as i did on entering st peter's i wandered about and elbowed my way through the crowd which filled the nave admiring the general effect but not attending much to details and again on the last day he wrote alas it was a glorious sight and it is associated in my mind with all whom i love most i am glad that the building is to be removed i have no wish to see the corpse when the life has departed the royal party were received with acclamation all along the route it was a complete and beautiful triumph a glorious and touching sight one which i shall ever be proud of for my beloved albert and my country wrote the queen six million people visited the great fair during the time it remained open in one respect however it could scarcely be considered a triumph for this country it was still an ugly and in some respects a vulgar age the invention of machinery had done little or nothing to raise the level of the public taste for what was appropriate and beautiful in design that an article cost a large sum of money to manufacture and to purchase seemed sufficient to satisfy the untrained mind generally speaking the taste of the producers was uneducated and much inferior to that of the french most of the designs in carpets hangings pottery and silks were merely copies and were often extremely ugly england at this time the first among the industrial nations had utterly failed to hold her own in the arts machinery had taken the place of handwork and with the death of the latter art and industry had ceased to have any relation public taste in architecture was equally bad a revival of the art of the middle ages resulted only in a host of poor imitations thirty or forty years ago if you entered a cathedral in france or england you could say at once these arches were built in the age of the conqueror that capital belonged to the early henries now all this is changed you enter a cathedral and admire some ironwork so rude you are sure it must be old but which your guide informs you has just been put up by smith of coventry you see some painted glass so badly drawn and so crudely coloured it must be old jones of newcastle john ruskin who was in many ways the greatest art teacher of his age was the first to point out the value and the method of correct observation of all that is beautiful in nature and in art in an address on modern manufacture and design delivered to the workingmen of bradford he declared without observation and experience no design without peace and pleasurableness in occupation and all the lecturings and teachings and prizes and principles of art in the world are of no use so long as you don't surround your men with happy influences and beautiful things inform their minds refine their habits and you form and refine their designs but keep them illiterate uncomfortable and in the midst of unbeautiful things and whatever they do will still be spurious vulgar and valueless at the time however the exhibition proved a great success and the duke of coburg carried most favourable impressions away with him he says the queen and her husband were at the zenith of their fame prince albert was not satisfied to guide the whole affair only from above he was in the fullest sense of the word the soul of everything even his bitterest enemies with unusual unreserve acknowledged the completeness of the execution of the scheme so far from there being a loss upon the undertaking there was actually half a million of profit the proceeds were devoted to securing ground at south kensington upon which a great national institute might be built this undertaking the purchase of the ground was not carried through without great difficulty and anxiety the queen's sympathy and encouragement were as always of the greatest help to her husband and he quoted a verse from a german song to illustrate how much he felt and appreciated it when man has well-nigh lost his hope in life upwards in trust and love still looks the wife towards the starry world all bright with cheer faint not nor fear thus speaks her shining tear the great exhibition was sufficient proof if any had been needed of how the prince with his wife laboured incessantly for the good of others without his courage perseverance and ability there is no doubt that this great undertaking would never have been carried through successfully he recognized the fact that princes live for the benefit of their people his desire for the improvement in all classes was never-ending and from him his wife learnt many lessons which proved of the greatest value to her in later life when she stood alone and her husband was no longer there to aid her with his unfailing wise advice a second exhibition was held in eighteen sixty two and so far as decorative art was concerned there were distinct signs of improvement art manufacture had now become a trade phrase but manufacturers were still far from understanding what art really meant as an instance of this one carpet firm sent a carpet to be used as a hanging on which napoleon the third is depicted presenting a treaty of commerce to the queen particular attention had apparently been paid to the shine on napoleon's top boots and to the queen's smile the prince's great wish was to restore to the workmen his pride in the work of his hands to relieve the daily toil of some of its irksomeness by the interest thus created in it and where the work was of a purely mechanical nature and individual skill and judgment were not called for he wished the worker to understand the principles upon which the machine was built and the ingenuity with which it worked his schemes for the building and equipment of museums of science and art were arranged with the purpose in view that both rich and poor should have equal opportunities of seeing what improvements had been made throughout the ages and how vast and far-reaching the effects of such improvements were on the lives of the whole nation it was under his direction that the pictures in the national gallery were first arranged in such a manner as to show the history and progress of art in his own words our business is not so much to create as to learn to appreciate and understand the works of others and we can never do this till we have realised the difficulties to be overcome acting on this principle myself i have always tried to learn the rudiments of art as much as possible for instance i learnt oil painting water colours etching lithography c and in music i learnt thorough bass the pianoforte organ and singing not of course with a view of doing anything worth looking at or hearing but simply to enable me to judge and appreciate the works of others it is interesting to note how closely the views of the prince agreed with those of john ruskin in matters of art and literature ruskin declared that it was the greatest misfortune of the age that owing to the wholesale introduction of machinery the designer and maker were nearly always different people instead of being one and the same person he declared that no work of art could really be living or capable of moving us to admiration as did the masterpiece of the middle ages unless the maker had thought out and designed it himself it was largely owing to his teachings that the arts and crafts movement under william morris and walter crane arose a movement which has since that time spread over the whole civilized world in eighteen sixty two together with some of his friends morris formed a company to encourage the use of beautiful furniture and to introduce art in the house morris himself had learnt to be a practical carpet weaver and dyer and had founded the society for the protection of ancient buildings all the work of this firm was done by hand as far as possible only the best materials were to be used and designs were to be original they manufactured stained glass wall-paper tapestry tiles embroidery carpets etc and many of the designs were undertaken by edward byrne jones dante gabriel rossetti the poet painter holman hunt best remembered by his famous picture the light of the world and others formed what was known as the pre-raphaelite brotherhood to instruct public taste in creative work in art and literature at the kelmscott press some of the most beautiful printed books of their kind were produced under the direction of morris ruskin like so many others of his time was greatly influenced by carlyle and his views on the condition of england question were practically the same he bewailed the waste of work and of life the poverty and the sweating he urged employers to win the good will of those who worked for them as the best means of producing the best work he preached the rights of labour that high wages for good work was the truest economy in the end and that beating down the wages of workers does not pay in the long run he declared that the only education worth having was a humane education that is first of all the building of character and the cultivation of wholesome feelings you do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not but by making him what he was not was the theory which he endeavoured to put into practice by experiments such as an attempt to teach every one to learn to do something well and accurately with his hands in common with wordsworth ruskin held that the love of nature was the greatest of educators he believed that the world is too much with us late and soon getting and spending we lay waste our powers the beauty and the everlasting marvel of nature's works were to him as to the poet of the lakes the real road to knowledge come forth into the light of things let nature be your teacher an education of not the brain alone but of heart and hand as well all three working in co-operation was necessary to raise man to the level of an intelligent being ruskin's teachings fared no better than those of carlyle at first and though he is spoken of sometimes as being old-fashioned yet his lesson is of the old-fashioned kind which does live and will live for like dickens he knew how to appeal to the hearts of his readers he is one of the most picturesque writers in the language a man of great nobility of character and generous feelings who had a tremendous belief in himself and knew how to express his thoughts in the most beautiful language some of his books for example sesame and lilies and unto this last are probably destined for immortality chapter ten CHAPTER XI.

ALBERT THE GOOD the year eighteen sixty one was a black year for the queen on march the fifteenth her mother the duchess of kent died she had been living for some time at frogmore a pleasant house in the windsor home park and here in the mausoleum erected by her daughter a statue is to be seen she was sincerely loved by every member of her household and her loss was felt as one affecting the whole nation in the words of disraeli she who reigns over us has elected amid all the splendour of empire to establish her life on the principle of domestic love it is this it is the remembrance and consciousness of this which now sincerely saddens the public spirit and permits a nation to bear its heartfelt sympathy to the foot of a bereaved throne and to whisper solace to a royal heart the death of the queen's mother came as a great shock to the prince consort the queen was for a time utterly unable to transact any business and this added to his already heavy burden of cares and responsibilities in the following november the king of portugal died the prince had loved him like a son and this fresh disaster told so severely upon his health that he began to suffer much from sleeplessness the strain of almost ceaseless work for many years was gradually wearing him out he had never been afraid of death and not long before his last illness he had said to his wife i do not cling to life you do but i set no store by it if i knew that those i love were well cared for i should be quite ready to die to-morrow i am sure if i had a severe illness i should give up at once i should not struggle for life on the first of december the queen felt anxious and depressed her husband grew worse and could not take food without considerable difficulty and this made him very weak and irritable the physicians in attendance were now obliged to tell her that the illness was low fever that the patient himself was not to know of this the ministers became alarmed at his state and when the news of his illness became public there was the greatest and most universal anxiety for news in spite of slight improvements from time to time the prince showed no power of fighting the disease and on the evening of the fourteenth of december he passed gently away it is no exaggeration to say that the death of the queen's beloved husband saddened every home in the land it was a sorrow felt equally by the highest and the lowest he died in the fullness of his manhood leaving her whom he had loved and guarded so tenderly to reign in lonely splendour in the dedication of idyls of the king to the memory of prince albert tennyson the poet laureate wrote break not o woman's heart but still endure break not for thou art royal but endure remembering all the beauty of that star which shone so close beside thee that ye made one light together but has passed and leaves the crown a lonely splendour when one looks over the vista of years which have passed since that mournful day it is with sadness mingled with regret for it is too true that a prophet is not without honour save in his own country albert the good was like many other great men in advance of his times and not until he was dead did the nation as a whole realise the blank he had left behind him even so late as eighteen fifty four greville writes in his diary of the extraordinary attacks which were made upon the prince in the public press letter after letter he noted appeared full of the bitterest abuse and all sorts of lies the charges against him are principally to this effect that he has been in the habit of meddling improperly in public affairs and has used his influence to promote objects of his own and the interest of his own family at the expense of the interests of this country that he is german and not english in his sentiments and principles that he corresponds with foreign princes and with british ministers abroad without the knowledge of the government and that he thwarts the foreign policy of the ministers when it does not coincide with his own ideas and purposes and again it was currently reported in the midland and northern counties and actually stated in a Scotch paper, that Prince Albert had been committed to the Tower, and there were people found credulous and foolish enough to believe it.

But English gratitude is always such, to hate the hand which doth oblige too much.

These words of Daniel Defoe helped to explain something of the attitude of a part of the nation toward the Prince in his lifetime.