REVIEW: This Might Be the BEST Holiday Dining Experience at Any Orlando Theme Park

Who’s down for a feast in Whoville this holiday season?

We heard the Grinch was carving the roast beast this Christmas, so we recently went to Universal Studios Orlando to try The Grinch & Friends Character Breakfast. From the holiday theme to the taste of the food, we have lots to share with you on this character dining experience!

This dining experience is located in Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure, and is available several times each day. Tickets have to be purchased like a park ticket. That can be done online and then picked up at the ticket booth outside the gates. The breakfast is located in Seuess Landing at Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoopendous. Once you get there, check in with the Team Members outside, and then they’ll take you to your table.

There were a bunch of different Whos wandering around and talking to the tables. We got to meet 5 of them (a fashion designer, an actor, Cindy Lou Who, and two others). The Whos spend a good amount of time with you! Three of them sat down with us and had full conversations, two of them made suggestions and said they’d come back and hear from us — which they actually did! We probably had 15-20 cumulative minutes of one-on-one Who time.

They give you a signed card from the Grinch, and whenever you’re ready (you can go before or after your food), you can go outside with it and wait to meet him. They punch it with a heart so you can keep it!

We waited 12 minutes to meet the Grinch, and it’s a true meet & greet. The regular non-breakfast meet and greet had a 120-minute wait that morning, so this was a MASSIVE time saver!

The breakfast is $58.99 per adult and $32.99 per child — with no upcharges offered. The menu is surprisingly varied, with lots of interesting options. You can get juice, coffee, and soft drinks AND/OR the Grinchmas Sour Apple specialty drink — all included! You also get one entree (adults are welcome to order off the kids’ menu — which did have green pancakes), and the table gets the welcome wheel cinnamon rolls.

At the end of the meal, you get a packaged Grinch Cookie — that same cookie is $5.49 if you get it out in the park. If we had to estimate — we’d say this would be a ~$30/person meal in a regular situation. We think that with the special drink, a coffee, a Grinch Cookie, an appetizer, and an entree, it would’ve been closer to $40-$50. Just for the food alone!

Alright, let’s talk about what we ate. First, we tried the Cinn-a Who Welcome Wheel. This is for the table to share, but just with one or two people, it’s absolutely massive.

We were impressed with it. It wasn’t dry at all, and it had tons of icing. The middle was equally gooey and cinnamon-y to most of the roll, which is, of course, a very high compliment.

This was VERY sweet. So, if sweet is not your thing in the morning, this is going to be tough to enjoy. We also loved the addition of the berries to help cut the sweetness just a tad.

Then we had the Mt. Crumpit French Toast. We seriously can’t think of ever having better French toast. We can’t go around saying the best French toast we’ve ever had was at the Grinch character breakfast in a theme park!

The toast itself was so well-made, and it’s the kind that is fried crispy and golden brown on the outside. We said on camera that if you look up golden brown in the encyclopedia, there’s a picture of this.

Then it had real crushed pistachios for some nutty texture, and the toast was filled with this incredible pistachio cream that still had some shreds in it for texture. It was sweet and nutty — we would expect cream like this out of a French bakery. The plate has Nutella, but it’s not all over the toast, where it creates sweetness overload.

Of course, we did try the Grinch Cookie. It was a great treat once we finished. Again, you can find this cookie around Suess Landing, so it’s nothing too special at this dining experience.

To drink, we did end up getting the specialty drink, the Grinchmas Sour Apple. This was surprisingly good. It was very sweet and had an icee-like quality, so it tastes like a movie theatre slushie as opposed to a non-icee slush. The sour apple flavor was really tasty and had the flavor of sour without the zing that makes you pucker.

The foam on top gave it a frozen butterbeer texture once you stirred it in. Plus, it just looks cute. We love the straw that looks like a candy cane. It’s an insane thing to drink at breakfast time, but kids would love it, and it’s included! Plus, it’s Christmas time!

Overall, this was a fun Christmas experience with delicious food and treats. We 100% recommend this to anyone looking for a holiday dining experience. As for us, we’ll be doing this again!

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Would you try this place? Let us know in the comments!

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