I'm finally back with my report on ordering a cake from Yak and Yeti at Animal Kingdom! I mentioned in my previous post that I called the number listed here, and they gave me the number for Yak and Yeti. I did a 6" chocolate cake with vanilla icing, Celebration Sprinkles and Icing Flower, a personalized message and two personalization colors. I emailed in the order form on 12/21, then followed up on 12/28 since I didn't get a "Got it!" or any kind of response. They did respond to that message to confirm that nothing else was needed. Now, to wait. The cake was for my DM's birthday, which wasn't until the last day we were in the parks (1/2)!
Finally, we go to Animal Kingdom! Check in at Yak and Yeti took a little while, but we eventually got seated for our late lunch. At first, there was nothing on our slip that was printed at the hostess stand. (Based on this thread, I probably should've mentioned it then, but the birthday girl was too close!) Luckily, my mom is in the bathroom when our waitress brings our drinks so I get a chance to check on it then. She doesn't know anything about it, but says she'll check in the back.
She comes back (still while DM is in the bathroom - there were lines everywhere!) and asks if it says Happy Birthday Mom, and I confirm that it's the one. Whew. We enjoy a tasty meal, and after clearing our plates, the waitress gives me a covert questioning look and I give her the nod that we're ready.
She brings out the cake - with lit candles! - and even sings happy birthday to my mom. My mom is TOTALLY surprised, and our waitress (Brittany) seems to be having almost as much fun as we are with playing her part in the surprise!
Brittany was great throughout the meal, but she really did an awesome job with presenting the cake, IMHO.
Ta-da! So after oohing and aahing over the Disney cakes on this thread, it's obvious that this one isn't quite as fancy. Apparently celebration sprinkles are little Mickeys (cute!), and the personalization colors are just piped onto the basic cake. It's pretty much like what you could pick up at your local grocery store, and it tasted about like that too (pretty good, but not OMG good). But for only $21 (added onto our bill at the end of the meal), it was worth it to surprise my mom and not have to upend our whole plan because I didn't realize that Yak and Yeti was managed by a different company (oops!).
Even though it "Serves 4", between the three of us, we only ate about half of it there at lunch. The waitress had to go to the back and get the cake box to put the leftovers in, then we shoehorned that into a regular ol' Disney shopping bag (I really didn't plan ahead well, lol). We tried to keep it upright, but by the time we got back to the room that night, it had been mushed all over the sides of the box, so we ate a little in the morning but sadly ended up wasting a lot of it...
So there's the cake report! I think it was worth the $21, but I'm hoping next time to plan better and do another surprise cake somewhere else (birthday or no - there's always a reason to celebrate when you're at Disney!).
.
.
.
((Edited to add: I can't remember if it's posted elsewhere, but in December 2018, the cake prices at Yak & Yeti were
6" (serves 4): $21 +tax
8" (serves 8): $32 + tax
10" (serves 16): $45 + tax
12" (serves 18): $50 + tax))