The Garden View Tea Room

The Garden View Tea Room is tucked quietly away in the back of the Disney's Grand Floridian Resort lobby. It's easy to miss as you make your mad dash to the ever popular 1900 Park Fare. But somehow, this seems completely appropriate. Far from a ‘mad dash’, the Garden View Tea Room is a quiet gem that I can easily recommend you tuck away for your next Disney visit. 
My first visit to the Garden View Tea Room was quite a few years ago now. We were on an trip with my parents, and I thought it would be a nice thing for my mom, my daughter, and myself to do on a free day in our itinerary. All the generations enjoyed our experience so much - I knew I would be back. Just last month, I visited Walt Disney with a girlfriend who had never been to the World before. I thought this the perfect fit for us, and booked the reservation for 3:20 on our arrival day. 

As you enter the Grand Floridian from the monorail, the Garden View Tea Room is downstairs at the opposite end of the lobby. The Tea Room itself is hidden behind a half wall, and easily goes unnoticed as your eye goes to the windows, and not the room itself. 

Because the travel gods were on our side today, our arrival day tour of the monorail resorts had us in Grand Floridian about an hour ahead of schedule. We inquired at the podium if it would be possible to check In early. They asked us to give them a chance to seat those who arrived on time for their reservations, and then they would seat us early if they had room. This all worked out, so instead of 3:20, we actually were seated at 2:15. 

The room itself is feminine and lovely. Pinks, greens, flowers, and serenity. Although children are welcome (and incredibly adorable), this is very much an experience for a little prince or princess, not a rough and rowdy little pirate.  There are gentlemen in attendance, but by far, women of all ages were the main clientele. 


You can order a full tea service with multiple light food courses from the menu, or simply order a la carte. Because we were hungry and had no firm dinner plans, we both chose the full tea. But I think an afternoon of tea and dessert would be lovely as well. My companion and I both chose the Buckingham -- tea service, finger sandwiches, scones, and dessert. There are many varieties of tea to choose from. I couldn't decide, but knew that I wanted something decaffeinated. Sleeping in a strange place is hard enough... I didn't need caffeine in my system. The server was wonderful, gave me a wink, and asked me to let her surprise me. 
She returned with her personal concoction of a mixture of orange, passion fruit, vanilla, pomegranate and black current teas. It was perfect. But as with any high tea, the presentation here is half the fun The tea cozies, lumps of sugar, Royal Albert Bone China, and fine silver are utterly civilized.

The finger sandwiches were watercress and cucumber, curried chicken, roast pear and gorgonzola, egg salad on garlic potato bread, and shrimp salad. They were accompanied by a sweet onion tartlet. 

After we had lazed over our tea and finger sandwiches for while, our server brought our next course: scones, strawberry jam, strawberry tartlet, and devonshire cream. There was not enough cream to my companions liking, so I gave her mine. And she gave me her tartlet. It was a win - win. 

For dessert, even though it was not on the menu, my server brought me the trifle. My companion was looking forward to the strawberries and cream. 

As in many Disney restaurants, the people watching here is a part of the fun. Across the room from us sat several women with 3 little princesses, all in their finest. They girls were not Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutiqued, but simply had on lovely Minnie Mouse themed dresses, with bows in their hair. It was precious. We struck up a conversation with the mother and adult daughter next to us who had been coming to the Tea Room together every year for 20 years - and had the same server every time! The daughter had come as a child, became a part of the student intern program, began her professional career as an employee of Disney in their entertainment division (she looked like she could have been very good friends with Cinderella, but all I got from that comment was a wink). Now, she worked in public relations.

But the most impressive sight was the couple who had gotten married at Disney earlier in the week. They decided to truly make a memory and came to tea totally dressed for the occasion. It was fun to see.

Help Around the Mouse always encourages folks to make room in their itineraries for free space. Disney is so much more than theme parks! The Garden View Tea is a perfect example of a treaSure that can so easily be missed if you spend all of your vacation running from attraction to attraction. Take some time to smell the roses! Including the ones on the Royal Dalton China.