Trail’s End Brunch Review
Millennials rejoice: brunch is served at Trail’s End. That’s right: BRUNCH AT TRAIL’S END. The venerable eatin’ joint at Fort Wilderness Campground. On paper, this Walt Disney World dining option has everything millennials love: kitschy ambiance, Instagrammable foods, a place to wear plaid shirts, good value for money, and brunch. On the cusp of the millennial generation myself, I can tell you that I like all of these things, so I’m not judging.
Truthfully, I don’t think millennials are the target demographic for brunch at Trail’s End. After all, they don’t even serve avocado toast. (Egregious.) It seemed like a bit of an…uh…older crowd, which I can only assume means that millennial trends are being picked up on by others. Anyway, brunch at Trail’s End is glorious.
Basically, it’s like the best elements of the Trail’s End Breakfast Buffet and the Trail’s End Dinner Buffet. In fact, I’ll be honest with you: if you’ve already read my reviews (links above) of those two meals at Trail’s End, this brunch review is pretty much pointless. It’s basically a copy/paste job with some new “jokes” mixed in, almost all of which are decidedly unfunny (see above)…
Not really, but I am going to keep this review succinct. The main reason why is because it’s unclear how long it’ll even be relevant. When Trail’s End began offering brunch around this time last year, it was every Saturday and Sunday. This still might be the case, but DisneyWorld.com’s page for Trail’s End lists different the exact dates, and it’s not every weekend.
However, that listing does not include the date we had brunch here, so unless I stumbled into the woods, accidentally ingested some peyote, and imagined the whole thing, that schedule is at least partially wrong. I’m not really sure what to make of the schedule, but I do notice the (supposed) brunch dates are progressively decreasing.
In other words, I don’t know if Walt Disney World is ending this brunch at Trail’s End “experiment” or what. In any case, brunch at Trail’s End is exceptional–a meal we highly recommend.
Essentially, you have everything (to my knowledge/memory) that’s normally available on the Trail’s End breakfast buffet, plus some dinner items and desserts.
On the breakfast side, the standouts are the breakfast pizza, Mickey waffles, eggs benedict, and omelet station (I think this last one is unique to brunch, actually).
On the dinner side, all you really need to know is that there’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese. I’m pretty sure you’d live to be 120 years old if this is all you ever ate.
Clearly, Ponce de Leon is a crappy explorer because the fountain of youth is hiding in plain site at Trail’s End.
Moonshine is available during brunch. I think this is the same fruit cocktail that’s served by a variety of different names at other Walt Disney World breakfast spots. That doesn’t make it any less delicious, though.
Brunch at Trail’s End also features an assortment of desserts, but the only ones to mess with are the French Toast Bread Pudding and Apple Cobbler.
I had two helpings of the bread pudding, and could barely get out of my chair afterwards, but I wouldn’t do anything differently. That stuff was amazing.
You’ll want to steer clear of the usual suspects on the Trail’s End brunch buffet. Namely, any unnecessary “filler” that gets in the way of all-you-can meats. If it has the word “salad” in the name, skip it.
However, and much to my dismay, there’s one meat you should also skip: the Brown Sugar-glazed Applewood-smoked Bacon at the carving station. I love fatty foods, but even I could not stomach this. It was fatty to the point that it was disgusting. I’m guessing this is a normal occurrence, as Josh notes the same thing in his review on easyWDW. At least the ham was good.
We did one of the last seatings, and about halfway through our meal, the breakfast foods were switched over to dinner. I’m not sure whether this is the norm, and I was already stuffed by this point so I couldn’t really take full advantage. Something to keep in mind, though, if you want to try a potential hack that will give you dinner at the lower brunch price-point.
Overall, I think that’s about it. If you’re staying at Fort Wilderness on one of the rare occasions when brunch is offered, or if they change the schedule and more brunch dates are added, you should absolutely do it. I consider breakfast at Trail’s End one of the best breakfasts at Walt Disney World, and this is basically a better version of that plus the best elements of dinner, for only a few dollars more than breakfast would cost (and a few dollars less than dinner). From my perspective, that makes it a no-brainer. I’m not sure why this was not more popular (or maybe it was, and they’ve scaled it back for other reasons), as it’s an exceptional meal that I’d highly recommend.
Want more dining tips? Check out our 101 Delicious Walt Disney World Dining Tips. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts…
Have you had a chance to experience the elusive brunch at Trail’s End? Did you enjoy it? If not, have you had breakfast or dinner at Trail’s End? Would you recommend any/all of those meals? Any questions? Hearing from you is half the fun, so please share your thoughts in the comments!
I just simply love the trail’s end buffet.. I cannot go to Disney and not go to the trails end. The food there is so good especially for breakfast ,it’s a very low key restaurant, it’s quiet, it’s not a character and when you go you have to order moonshine it’s orange guava and passion juice..
We did Easter brunch at Trail’s End and it was glorious. The eggs benedict were probably my favorite, but everything that I tried was really good. My husband did try the bacon and said that it was fatty, so I didn’t bother getting any. I was also glad to see that the had jungle juice (aka Moonshine) but it seemed slightly more watered down than it does other places….although that might have just been an anomaly the day we were there. They also did not have the omelet station set up, which is kind of a disappointment since that is one of the highlights for us of breakfast at Crystal Palace. All things considered though, it was a really good meal and we would definitely do it again.
I just did our ADRs for our December trip and I booked brunch there. Was just going for breakfast so this is an added bonus!
I too am confused by the dates of brunch. We did it on a date they don’t list, and now have it booked again for a weekend in the fall. At least when you select a date on the calendar that seems to be accurate. Oddly, I hate fatty meat but enjoyed many bites of the bacon. It sounds like your other carving station meat was ham. It was turkey when we went and it was out of this world good. I heard a server say that the turkey is unique to brunch and Thanksgiving, but I don’t know how true that is.