First off, do resorts get any prettier than Disney World’s Grand Floridian? I mean, come on! Gorgeous! My sister and I absolutely love high tea. We grew up going all the time with our grandparents on cruises, so of course I had to take her to try out the high tea at the Grand Floridian in the Garden View Tea Room for her 19th birthday. It did not disappoint.
You do need to book this in advance because times for high tea at the Grand Floridian do fill up. Both my sister are huge fans of the book Pride and Prejudice. So of course I had to get the Derbyshire Tea package, just because Mr. Darcy owns half of Derbyshire. However, I pronounced it like they do in the movie, but our waiter pronounced it phonetically. I was a little put off by that. Maybe I’m just a snob — ha!
The Derbyshire Tea package was $45 and included various finger sandwiches, cheeses, fruits, a scone, a tart and my choice of dessert and tea (duh). It also included a glass of Veuve Clicquot, which happens to be my favorite champagne. (We had it for the toast at my wedding.) Because she’s not 21 yet, my sister opted for the Bedfordshire Tea package, which is $30 and is essentially the same exact thing as the Derbyshire Tea package, just without the champagne. A $15 upcharge to include a glass of Veuve didn’t seem like that bad of a deal when you consider how expensive a bottle is.
For the teas, my sister got the Earl Grey, which the server warned tasted more like licorice than regular Earl Grey. My sister didn’t seem to notice the licorice though. I opted for the nutty chocolate tea because it sounded like it was going to taste like Nutella. While it was good, it wasn’t Nutella good. Then again, few things are.
The sandwiches they brought out were all very good. In order of how I liked them, there was a curry chicken sandwich, a golden beet and goat cheese sandwich, a cucumber and cream cheese sandwich, and an egg salad sandwich. This actually surprised me because cucumber and cream cheese and egg salad are usually my two favorite kinds of sandwiches. However, I wasn’t huge on the bread they paired with the cucumber, and the egg salad had a bit too many chives. Overall, they were all yummy, especially that curry chicken one. The scones came with butter, apricot jam and lemon crème. The lemon crème was definitely my favorite. It was delicious!
For dessert, my sister chose the strawberries and cream—so beautiful! It came with a sprinkle of red sugar in the Grand Floridian logo, and she said it tasted as good as it looked. I got the assorted pastries, which included two macaroons (love!), a chocolate-dipped strawberry and a puff pastry in the shape of a swan, filled with a strawberry cream. Amazing!
Everything was absolutely delicious and well worth the price. Plus, they even gave us each a rose at the end of tea. A Briar Rose, get it? (If you don’t get it, you’re not a true Disney fan.) We were so full from this (our reservations were for 4:15) that we didn’t even notice that we didn’t eat dinner before the fireworks at the end of the night. I highly recommend afternoon tea in the Grand Floridian’s Garden View Tea Room!
A photo posted by Disney Desi (@disney.desi) on