OK, so time for me to address the cakes we had for our trip last month.
First up, my mom's cake...
This is the better of the 2 cakes. I say better because there are still issues.
1. I asked for buttercream with fondant decorations. This is clearly all fondant. Not only is my mom not a fan of fondant (specifically asked that I not get fondant)...it increases the price.
2. The measuring tape hashes are very sloppy.
3. I don't know what they were talking about with there not being enough room on the tapes. I could have EASILY written the message on the tapes as I'd requested ... it's just a matter of using a fine tip brush.
All in all, my mom loved the cake and it at least looked like enough of my vision to make me happy.
My cake was a disaster. I will preface this by saying that I do intend to complain, but it's low on my priorities right now. I think my sketch is on the previous page of this thread...I'm not sure what happened, but I hated my cake...
Where do I begin???????????
1. I'm not sure why they made a backdrop edible image of the Disneyland queue. My sketch was nothing like this...it only isolated that one part in the center with the face and pretty much screamed "not an edible image." Sad, but I had a nightmare pre-trip that they'd drop the ball and do something like this. Even the height/perspective is completely wrong.
2. I have no idea why Donald has a sun around him
3. All of the Mary Blair concept art requested around the base was completely omitted
4. The 40 mouse ears on the front look more like odd rabbit ears
5. The hand painted details are very sloppy
6. There is no combo of gold and silver like I'd requested ...an extremely obvious detail in the queue
7. I have no idea how they warped the idea of "white, silver & gold basic shapes- like triangles and rectangles in the queue" to be odd edible images put together like my kids' collage projects - well, except for that awkward white rectangle in the mess of strange images
8. The cake flavor was wrong. Yes, we debated fillings, but the actual cake flavor never changed in any of this... well, until they decided to neglect that request as well.
The only bright spot...if you want to call it that...was Donald. I at least knew ahead of time that they wouldn't dress him in a lei and hula skirt. I'm not sure why as it's a fairly simple process and there is a ton of Disney licensed merch with Donald dressed as such. Still- he was the best part of the cake + they didn't charge me $115 for him like YC/BC will often charge for painted Donald.
All in all, the cake felt like one big lazy copout. I would have just appreciated some honesty...if they couldn't handle my requested design...they should have just told me no. I had a far more simple Plan B that I would have liked a lot better than this mess.
Part of me feels bad for being so harsh in my words, but I'd be embarrassed to charge anyone for a cake like this...especially when a sketch and detailed instructions were involved. I'm sure someone worked hard, but it just wasn't even close to what I'd requested. Sorry for such a Debbie Downer cake post, but after making it to WDW after such an awful start to our vacay...it really upset me that my cake was so ugly.
The good news...I think the kids are going to do some kind of Small World themed party. Sometimes when you want something spectacular done right...you just have to do it yourself!
