Taste of Disney

I had previously dined at Trail’s End Restaurant (located at the Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground) once before, when I had breakfast there during my October 2014 trip.  Because I had enjoyed my breakfast and was curious about their dinner offerings, I decided to try their Weekend Brunch Buffet to get the best of both meals…

We arrived about 10 – 15 minutes early for our 10:35 reservation, and had to wait until pretty close to our reservation time before we were called and seated inside the restaurant, which was decorated for the holidays.

As you can see the restaurant was quite busy, which was quite different than what I experienced during my last visit to Trail’s End for breakfast on a weekday morning.  So it seems that their weekend brunch is quite popular.

Our server came to our table to take our drink orders before inviting us to help ourselves to the buffet.  While I could have ordered (my son had not turned 21 yet) one of these alcoholic beverages for an extra charge…

…I opted to stick with drinks which were included in the brunch price.  I got coffee plus my son and I both got a jar of Moonshine juice…

 

 

Despite what the name suggests, this is non-alcoholic and is actually the same POG (passion fruit, orange, and guava juice) that is served at many Disney World restaurants for breakfast.

Then it was time to visit the buffet stations to make our choices.  Before I show you the photos which I took at the buffet, I must apologize for their quality.  I was using my son’s fancy camera lens in an attempt to get even better photos, but obviously I wasn’t using it properly because the photos I took were not very good.

So let’s take a look first at some the breakfast offerings starting with a few of the pastries…

Some mini-muffins, including what looks like pumpkin muffins topped with pepita (pumpkin seeds)…

Not sure about these, but maybe pecan cinnamon rolls??…

And then this pan of warm cinnamon rolls…

These did not look nearly as appealing as they did when I had breakfast at Trail’s End in 2014…

Another thing that looked less appealing this time was their French Toast Bread Pudding…

 

Here is what it looked like in 2014…

 

But of course the Mickey waffles remained unchanged…

 

 

 

 

Next for some of their egg options, starting with Scrambled Eggs…

And Mini-Vegetable Frittatas…

And last there was their Country Benedict with Pulled Pork…

 

This looked like a big sloppy mess compared to how this looked in 2014…

Next there were Biscuits & Sausage Gravy…

 

Potato choices included Tater Tots…

Breakfast meats included Bacon and Pork Sausage links (photo was too bad to post)…

 

 

And at their Carving Station was Brown Sugar-glazed Applewood-smoked (Fresh) Bacon and Smoked Turkey…

Their Cold Station included Melon and Strawberries…

Citrus Yogurt and various salads…

And Shrimp…

 

They had a small table off to the side which had Chili, Cheese Grits, and Oatmeal…

Next some of their Lunch Offerings, starting with Baked Macaroni & Cheese…

 

 

A mix of Potatoes, Red & Green Peppers, and Onion…

A Vegetable mix of Broccoli, Zucchini, Carrots, and maybe Squash…

 

And this Bowtie Pasta dish…

There were Mashed (skin on) Potatoes…

Served with chicken gravy…

And Fried Chicken…

I noticed that both times I visited the Buffet stations, the fried chicken included mostly just small pieces of dark meat (legs and thighs) and wings.  I’m very picky about my chicken and only eat breasts.  On my second visit I was able to find one breast in the big platter of fried chicken…

The fried chicken was one of the main reasons that I wanted to try their Dinner Buffet, as I had heard it was very good.  But for me, this was just okay.  Not as good as the fried chicken at 50’s Prime Time.   The macaroni & cheese though was very good, as was their turkey which was on my first plate.

Also I had heard/read that Made-to-Order Omelets and Eggs were available here but I didn’t see any indication of this at the buffet line.  So when our server came to the table to check on us, I asked about this.  She gave us a list of the available options, which I thought I took a photo of but can’t find it.  If I remember correctly it listed several different ingredients which were available for their Made-to-Order Omelets and a few other egg options like sunny side up fried eggs, etc.

My son omelet choice included pulled pork and cheddar cheese (not sure but I think that was it)…

He really liked his omelet and I also enjoyed mine…

I had several ingredients in my omelet including ham, bacon, cheddar cheese, green pepper, and tomatoes.  There might have been more, but I don’t remember and I they are not listed in my notes.

So overall I was a bit disappointed with our brunch at Trail’s End.  While the omelets, turkey, and mac & cheese were good, the rest of the food that we tried was just okay/nothing special.  One positive though was the price of $23.00.  Relative to other Disney buffet prices, this was quite reasonable.  So with this in mind, I would give Trail’s End a bump up to a rating of 4 stars.  This was the same rating that was given to it by both Yelp and Trip Advisor reviewers.  Also Trail’s End is currently ranked #164 best of the restaurants in the Orlando area and #34 best at Walt Disney World.