Vegan Princess Breakfast at Napa Rose in Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel (August 2019 Update)

Welcome to Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel! Let’s eat some vegan food!

First, a few details about this breakfast:

1. It has been running for a few months now, and I did a previous blog post about it the first week it opened when one of my followers was so nice as to share their photos and review with me! So please check out that post in addition to this one. Because of the hefty price tag (see below), I have not had a chance to experience this myself yet, but today I’m happy to able to share the experience of another one of my awesome followers with an update on some new options they’ve rolled out!
2. Reservations are a must. Make them on the Disneyland app on your phone, or here on the Disneyland website.
3. Although it is in the hotel, you do not need to be a hotel guest to do this breakfast. All of the restaurants throughout the Disneyland Resort Hotels are open to the public.
4. Hours: Thursday through Monday between 8:00 AM and 12:00 PM.
5. Pricing:
   • Adults: $125 (tax and gratuity not included)
   • Children (ages 3 to 9): $125 (tax and gratuity not included)
   • Credit card guarantee is required for all reservations
   • Cancellations received within 24 hours of event start will be charged $25 per person, including no shows
   • Includes 5 hours of complimentary valet parking with validation at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa

Below you can read the review of Michael and Mary, who experienced the Princess Breakfast in August 2019. You will noticed that a few vegan options have been added since the last time I posted about it:

“Well, this was quite the experience! I can tell you about the princesses we met (Belle, Aurora, Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas, and Rapunzel), or about the zillions of incredibly friendly cast members there if you like. But I’ll stick to the food for now!

We had a nonvegan at the table with us, so we got to see how their food was for comparison. Things started with a few sweet breads and lemon curd for her; my family got puff pastry with almonds and a really, really impressive mixed berry jam. I think that stuck out the most as an example of what the kitchen can do – it wasn’t all that unique on the surface, but was so amazingly made that it was very special.

Puff pastry with jam and (happy coincidence) most of the cocktail menu:

We were then served a tower of appetizers. They were likely the same as the ones you mentioned previously. Corn salad in bread to mimic the nonvegan’s mini lobster roll, an open-faced cucumber sandwich (not sure what they spread on it, but I’m not typically a big cucumber fan and I loved it), brûléed bananas with blackberry jam (nonvegan got the same but with Nutella and wrapped in a crepe. Ours was good but I’m sure we missed something in the translation), and coconut chia pudding with fruit (nonvegan got the identical pudding. It was stellar). It all got served on a “tower” that felt very fancy. The nonvegan did get served a beignet that we got no equivalent of.

Appetizer tower:

The main course for nonvegans is a buffet. Which is honestly kind of ridiculous for $125 per person. The buffet had fruit (all ripe and reasonably good quality, with things like blackberries and cherries that usually don’t make it to buffets) and roasted asparagus with cherry tomatoes for vegans. The roasted veggies were definitely tasty. Lots of nonvegan options that didn’t matter to me!

The chef showed up at our table with a team of waiters to “sweep” the table with vegan food for the main course, which was quite special and much nicer than a buffet! We got the standard vegan gluten free Mickey waffles that I’ve had at other DL breakfasts, though they were probably the best-browned ones I’ve had. I typically hate them (I just don’t like gluten free most of the time), but they were tolerable for me; people who usually like them will likely love them at Napa Rose. We got tofu scramble that honestly tasted more like tofu than anything else. It was likely seasoned with salt and pepper and not much else, and was cooked (maybe boiled and strained?) but not pan-fried or browned.

It seemed to at least have been prepared by someone who knows how to salt food, and tasted like decent tofu to me. I’d say that anyone who likes the taste of tofu itself would like the scrambled tofu, and thankfully my kids are in that group! They were focused on the Mickey Waffles at Breakfast, but we took the leftovers back to the hotel and they devoured it for dinner. A lot of places excessively season tofu with the assumption that no one likes the actual taste of tofu. My kids love tofu, but don’t like a lot of seasoning, at least if it’s spicy, so this was perfect for them.

Finally, we were given patties of Impossible burger shaped and cooked like breakfast sausage patties. They tasted like burgers, not sausage, but that’s not a bad thing and we loved them. They were served with pickled miniature peppers that were interesting and a good counterpoint to the Impossible meat.

Vegan mains:

Dessert was a vegan chocolate cake pop (really fudgy and tasty), a vegan macaron, a shot glass of sorbet (again not that imaginative but so well made that we all loved it), and a shot glass of coconut tapioca pudding. All were quite good.

Desserts:

In addition, there was a cocktail menu with nonalcoholic options. Mocktails were $7 or $7.50 apiece; cocktails were in the $15 range. We enjoyed our mocktails (mixes of juices and sodas; one on the menu was sweetened with honey but could be made with another sweetener. All the rest of the mocktails were vegan. Didn’t look into cocktails because we don’t drink!). None was overly-sweet or one-dimensional. That said, there wasn’t an option that wasn’t fruity and basically sweet.

Mocktails:

Basically, the food was sometimes inspired and sometimes uncreative, but it was always made well and everything was good (maybe except the bread for the corn salad roll, which was dry). The kids got a bunch of little gifts (necklaces for girls, swords and shields for boys; little drawstring backpacks; trading pins; autograph books with pens that cost $9 apiece in other stores at Downtown Disney). The experience overall was nice; fancy-ish but still kid friendly and I didn’t feel out of place in a tee shirt and shorts. I can’t say definitively if it’s worth the incredibly high price, but if I put the cost out of my mind I have nothing bad to say about the experience.”

 

That’s all for now! Please check out my other blog posts for complete guides to eating vegan in Disneyland, California Adventure, Downtown Disney, and the Hotels:

Your Guide to Vegan Options at Disneyland! (June 2019 Update)

Your Guide to Vegan Options in California Adventure! (June 2019 Update)

Your Guide to Vegan Options in Downtown Disney! (June 2019 Update)

Your Guide to Vegan Options at the Disneyland Resort Hotels! (June 2019 Update)