Garden Grove, Friday, 10/7
Before the trip, I looked for reviews on the Garden Grove, but didn’t find many. The ones on Trip Advisor and Yelp were so terrible, I couldn’t believe them. All of the food and drinks we got at the Swan during the trip were very good. Moreover, we would get a 20% discount with
AAA there so if only a few items on the buffet were good, it would still be worth it.
After dodging rain everywhere we went that week, it was a pleasure to walk downstairs and go to dine right inside the building. GG turned out to be a total delight. Both our server and one nearby were from north Jersey. We talked to them quite a bit; they were such nice young men. On the whole, we were thrilled with our resort, and I have to say that the workers there were one big reason. Every encounter we had with every worker was so pleasant. I know that Disney employees are purported to have an edge in customer service, but the workers at the Swan were absolutely fantastic during our stay.
With five of us there, we ordered a pitcher of Phins and Feathers, a craft beer made exclusively for the Swan and Dolphin resort. It was excellent, but there was one problem—we got the last pitcher and wouldn’t be able to order a refill. It had a pleasant grapefruit flavor that is often present in IPAs. We tried a pitcher of sangria after we finished it, but it was no where as good as the beer. Or the sangria you can get in Newark, NJ, as the nearby server let us know when we ordered it.
For the table, they bring out a basket of fried seafood—butterflied and fried shrimp, calamari and hush puppies. They also give you a platter that contains one stuffed lobster half for each person. I tried a hush puppy and it was tasty, but I’m allergic to shrimp and put-off at the moment by calamari, so I didn’t have any of those items. The shrimp looked good though.
The crab legs were very good here. They were bigger and easier to clean than the ones they had at Cape May. I took a cup of melted butter and had that with my lobster half, which was totally yum. Next to the Caesar salad, they had a basket of baked parmesan crisps that included rosemary and sesame seeds. They were meant to be a garnish for the salad, but I could have eaten a bowl of them like chips. Everyone at the table loved them.
They had a chef at the carving station with a hot stone plate to cook your prime rib to order. It had the usual accompaniments—au jus and horseradish sauce. The green beans and mashed potatoes on the buffet were excellent. Both were clearly fresh and homemade. I tried a little salmon and some chicken, but I was pretty stuffed after everything else.
We didn’t get to see any characters because the parks were closed so Pluto and Goofy didn’t come to work that day. One of the workers commented that they were “improvising” because of the storm. There were only two things that I thought were improvised. One was the soup—it was New England clam chowder when we got there, but was refilled with turkey and rice. The other thing is that I would expect rolls or biscuits or some kind of bread to be offered, but there wasn’t any.
The dessert offerings were similar to Cape May, a selection of tiny tarts and cakes. The key lime tart was very good, and there was a chocolate thing with pearls on it that I really liked too. The price of this buffet was about the same as Cape May, using a 20% discount at both places, AP at Cape May and AAA at Garden Grove, for $29 per head before tax, tip and adult beverages. I have a soft spot for Cape May because we’ve had so many nice meals there over the years, but Garden Grove’s food was as good or better. There are more items offered at Cape May, but the better quality of the crab legs and the addition of the stuffed lobster at GG make up for that. If we had characters, that would have taken it over the top. And the fact that you don’t need an ADR and can go whenever it’s convenient made GG a better choice for us overall.
