Garden Grill Breakfast FINALLY Returns

Two years and 11 months. That's how long we have been waiting for the return of our favorite breakfast spot at Disney World. And this week is FINALLY the week that it returned (and we just happened to be at Disney this week too!!!) Disney closed for over three months back in 2020. When they reopened in July 2020, it was a modified opening with very few dining options available. Slowly, over the last, nearly three years, more and more dining options have been returning. This slow roll out of dining options has not been due to a lack of guest demand. We have seen the parks busier and more crowded over the last two years or so than we ever have. I also don't think that it's due to any safety concerns (again, we have returned to "fill in all available space" over a year ago). I believe that this slow return to normal has been more of a staffing issue.

Restaurants and other retailers have been severely short staffed since everything shut down in 2020. Disney Parks were not immune to that either. Disney has an amazing program called the Disney College Program. Tens of thousands of college students from all over the country apply for a chance at a coveted spot in the program every year. Due to the pandemic and subsequent closure of the parks, Disney shut down this program and laid off all of those college kids in March 2020. This program accounts for about 10% of Disney Cast Members in the parks (what Disney calls their employees). One year later, in June 2021, the program returned and we saw an influx of restaurant reopenings. However, Disney still took their time and did not reopen many of the popular character meal dining options. Just this year (2023) we have seen the return of several larger, previously high-demand, restaurants with character meals open, which brings us to the point of this post.... Garden Grill breakfast!

Enough of the back story. Let's get to the reason everyone is reading this... the meal review. Let's cover the basics before we get into it. Garden Grill is a restaurant located in The Land Pavilion in EPCOT (where Soarin' is). The restaurant itself rotates very slowly above the Living With the Land ride. Don't worry, it's not going to make you sick (I can't do spinning rides). You barely notice the rotation. You just look up and the scenery is different. You do need reservations and it is recommended to make the reservation 60 days in advance. Breakfast is a character meal dining experience and features Farmer Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Pluto. As with all character meals, you're paying for the experience more than the food. The cost is $42 per person ages 10 and over, and $27 per person ages 3-9 (under 3 is free) plus tax and tip. It does qualify for DVC and Annual Pass discounts. I assume it will be one Table Service meal credit when Disney Dining Plans return in next year in 2024. With that being said, this is an "all you care to enjoy" family style meal. This means that they bring the food out in a large skillet and the whole table gets the same thing. Allergy menus are available and they will bring that separately. I'm allergic to egg, so they brought me an egg substitute scramble and they brought my family a separate bowl of regular scrambled eggs. Since it is an all you care to enjoy, they will bring you refills of anything you like.

The first thing I am going to mention is that the much beloved (especially with our family) cinnamon roll sticky cake is gone. This ooey-gooey monkey bread style cake was the entire reason we loved this restaurant so much. In its place is now a dry loaf of cinnamon bread. While it was fine, it was NOT the ooey-gooey deliciousness that we loved so much. It had good cinnamon flavor but was missing any kind of moisture. It really needed an icing drizzle on top. This first picture is what I was expecting, and the second picture is what I got. You can see the amazing cinnamon roll sticky cake in the bottom right of the first picture. Let's just say... we were less than impressed with this cinnamon loaf.

The fruit they bring is just sliced watermelon. They used to bring a selection of different fruits. Maybe their fruits will be seasonal, or maybe this is all we get now. I guess we will just wait and have to see about this part.

The main course is brought in a large skillet. I do apologize that I didn't get a decent picture of it. You'll just have to check out my YouTube @carouselofcastles for a video review as I was recording instead of snapping pictures.

The very first thing we noticed was that the chocolate sauce was missing (pictured in the bottom middle of the first picture). That is another change that we hated to see. They used to bring a melted chocolate sauce for you to pour over your Mickey waffles and fruit. We were told that they no longer do this. It's a shame too. That chocolate sauce set this breakfast apart from all of the others with generic Mickey waffles and syrup. The bacon, eggs and standard Mickey waffles were all the same as before.

Now, let's get into the positive changes. Steak. That's right. It was a pleasant surprise to see grilled flank steak with a delicious Ranchero sauce on top replace the basic sausage links. The steak was cooked to a perfect medium. It was sliced thin and was tender enough to cut with a fork. I initially thought that I would rather have the chocolate sauce back over the new offering of steak, but after my 3rd slice of steak, I changed my mind. Did I mention that this is an all you care to enjoy meal with unlimited refills?

The cheesy potatoes were also amazing and were a nice change over the tater tots they had before. Now, I love tater tots and eat them weekly at work. But these cheesy hash browns were near perfection. They do have a home fry option as a plant based offering if you don't want/can't have the cheesy goodness. While we are talking about plant based offerings, there is an impossible sausage option as well as the eggless scramble that I mentioned earlier. Mickey waffles also come in a vegan version as well.

Non-alcoholic drinks are included with this meal. You can get coffee or hot tea along with a soda or juice. We LOVE the POG juice. This is Passionfruit, Orange, and Guava juices mixed together. It's our favorite juice ever. They used to bring the juice out in large Mason jar classes. They switched to these tiny little cups that remind me of a child's play toy. Not sure why they made this change because I assume they still had the old glasses. It seems like an unnecessary expense to me. I guess they were wasting too much juice in the normal human size glasses. They do have vanilla soy milk to go in you coffee if you can't have cream. I'm not really supposed to have dairy, so I saved my stomach with the soy milk because I wasn't going to pass up those amazing cheesy potatoes.

Overall, there were more positives than negatives. I'm not a big fruit eater, but the fruit is really about the only thing my kiddo would eat. I wish they would have more fruit offerings added back. Heck, just throw a handful of blueberries on the plate for some extra color. The ONLY thing that is preventing me from giving this a 10/10 rating is that awful cinnamon loaf and lack of chocolate sauce. I just can't get past how dry the loaf was. For someone who had never eaten there before, it would be an amazing meal. But I had expectations that were not met. The character interaction was spot on and the steak was fantastic. For these reasons, I'm giving it a 7.5/10 rating and DO recommend this as a breakfast option for first time guests.

I hope this helps to give you a starting point when trying to plan your Walt Disney World Vacation. For help booking a room or Disney Vacation Package, check out Jillian with Destination Dreaming Travels. She's a FREE travel agent waiting to help you book your most magical vacation ever.

For planning help and Pro Tips, check out my social media

Instagram TikTok Facebook or YouTube

© 2023 Weatherberry Media, LLC