Boardwalk Inn & Villas – Character Breakfast




This fabulous NEW character breakfast features Rapunzel, Flynn Rider, Ariel (aka. The Little Mermaid) and Prince Eric. The food is fresh and made to order from a fixed price menu. The meal includes a pastry skillet (all you can eat), and choice of a fruit cup or yogurt cup and a main entree. 

Since this breakfast is rather new it’s been a little challenging trying to get an advanced dining reservation but I kept checking back on the Disney site to see if anything came about, particularly a little later in the morning as we are not early risers. I was able to snag a 10:35 reservation a few weeks prior to our visit. 

My one concern about this breakfast is the location. If you are not staying in an Epcot resort it can be a little time consuming and even somewhat of a challenge to get to. Even if you drive you have to take your chances as the Boardwalk Resort parking lot could be full. The breakfast is located at Trattoria Al Forno which is on the Boardwalk at the Boardwalk Inn & Villas in the old Kouzzina/Spoodles location.

We drove over and when I told the guard why we were there she really didn’t even know what I was talking about. Was pretty surprised that she was not familiar with this breakfast yet? Not sure if she was filling in but I think management has some training to do. She told me there “might” be some parking in the far lot but if not I would have to park at one of the theme park parking lots. With a 10:35 reservation (and the $10 per person no show fee) I was a little worried at first but once we drove back to the lot there was plenty of parking.

Now if this would have been peak season or a holiday weekend it could have been full so I think they are going to have to take this into consideration during the busier times to figure out a way for people holding reservations for breakfast to have somewhere to park.

It took another 10 minutes to walk to the restaurant once we parked so keep that in mind as well. We actually checked in a few minutes prior to our 10:35 reservation and we’re told we’d probably sit around our reservation time however we were not seated until almost 10:50. This breakfast does go until 11:00 but of course if you are seated you will get to eat and see the characters.

As we were waiting, we got to watch each character head into the dining area through the main doors because they announce each character which is a bit different than how the other character meals work. It is very cute how they all make their entrances. Then they make their way to the back of the restaurant and work their way to each table.

Once we sat we were greeted fairly quickly by our server. She brought over a skillet with 4 pastries. They consisted of a little rainbow muffin, a chocolate chip twisty croissant-like pastry, a fruited danish and an adorable sunshine puffed pastry shaped like the suns from Tangled. All were very good and very fresh. I had ordered some of the wonderful fresh squeezed orange juice which was extremely refreshing on this hot and humid morning but also had coffee because I needed that caffeine for the day.

We went on to order the fruit cup and the yogurt parfait. These are rather small but you can always get more of these as well as the pastries. The fruit was fresh and contained a nice variety and the yogurt had a little home-made granola bar in it and was topped with some fruit and honey.

I ordered the The “Swimmer’s Delight” which is an egg white omelette with salmon, spinach, goat cheese, mushrooms and tomato served with roasted potatoes. I asked for no salmon and no mushrooms as everything is made to order so you can make modifications as needed.

My daughter ordered the “Tangled Eggs” which is scrambled eggs with fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh tomato and basil with gravy, roasted potatoes and bacon. She is a very “simple” eater and asked if she could get the tomato and basil on the side which was no problem. She also skipped the gravy but wanted to the cheese.

As we waited for the main entrees Flynn Rider visited us first. He was so into character we almost thought he stepped right out of the cartoon followed by Rapunzel. They posed for photos and made their way around the restaurant.

Prince Eric was next followed by Ariel in her beautiful turquoise gown. It’s very fun to strike up a conversation with them. Everything they talk about is related to their stories. 

We did wait quite a while for our entrees. I kept turning back to look at the open kitchen and it was quite busy, but our server did return several times to keep us posted and to make sure we had more pastries.

When our entrees were finally served they were wrong. There was salmon on my eggs and goat cheese inside but no spinach or tomato. My daughter’s entree was almost right but they totally forgot the cheese. Our server quickly returned with a scrambled egg plate with cheese to replace hers. Mine took a little longer. I had tried to pick out the salmon but it was cooked into the egg and as I mentioned they forgot the spinach and tomato. They took it away while I waited though it would have been nice if they left the potatoes but they didn’t. Finally a new entree arrived. It was very tasty and hot.

The food quality is definitely a step up from a buffet because it’s fresh so you can definitely tell it is made to order, however it took too long. We didn’t really notice at first because we were watching the characters for a while but by the time we ate they were gone and it was about 11:45 – remember we sat at 10:50. I thought this was a long time to wait for breakfast but since we had the pastries, fruit, coffee and characters we were ok with it.

The server even brought us a few extra chocolate chip pastries to go. I think this was a gesture to make up for the long wait and the mistakes. It is a new breakfast so I understand they are still working out those kinks. And it was enjoyable for the most part. I was able to use my annual pass discount so that made a difference. I think I would have appreciated if a manager had come by to visit our table. I think that maybe Flynn or Rapunzel may have to jump in and help next time if there is an issue;)




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