A Detailed Review of Disney’s Trail’s End Restaurant

Trail’s End Restaurant is a resort table-service dining experience found at Fort Wilderness Resort in the Magic Kingdom Resort Area. This is the only table service restaurant found at this resort. All other dining options are quick service, lounge or counter service. Now if you’re unfamiliar, Fort Wilderness is Walt Disney World’s campground. There are campsites here for fifth wheels, tents and tent trailers. There are also cabins located around the resort property. This property is home to the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue, Mickey’s Backyard BBQ, Tri-Circle-D Ranch and Chip-n-Dale’s Campfire Sing-A-Long.

Trail’s End Restaurant is found at the northern end of the resort property. Neighbouring Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue, Tri-Circle-D Ranch, a playground and the resort’s beach. It’s a buffet style restaurant, with minimal seating. Which isn’t a problem because it’s a tucked away venue with not many visitors. Finding a reservation here, last minute or advanced, is no problem.

When we dined here we arrived at Fort Wilderness early to take in the activities around the restaurant. This took less time than expected so we checked in early. We were seated and served very quickly. Given an option for our drinks and told we could help ourselves to the buffet whenever we wished. Zoraida was our server. She was always quick to clear our plates and made sure we had all we needed for drinks and refills.

Trail’s End offers wine and beer but it’s specialty is Moonshine Cocktails. I’m a mojito girl so I ordered a moonshine mojito and Jeff ordered a Strawberry Lightnin’. Jeff found his was sweet with not much alcohol. I enjoyed mine thoroughly and would recommend it.

The buffet offerings for supper are predominantly southern style. With ribs, fried chicken, carved meats and corn bread. They also have your standard pizza and nuggets for picky eaters. They have a great selection of salads. I personally enjoyed the Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese and the Beet Salad with Goat Cheese. I had some of the salmon and wasn’t too impressed but all the meat offerings were delicious.

For dessert you have a large variety, from cobblers to brownies, cookies to pie. I chose to make my own brownie sundae with the serve yourself ice cream machine. Everyone at our table soon wished they had done the same.

All the food they offer here is very similar to what you can can also find at the Whispering Canyon Cafe or at the Diamond Horseshoe. The difference being this is buffet. So you’re not waiting for your server to come to you. If you’re staying at Fort Wilderness then I would definitely take time to enjoy a meal at this restaurant. We were staying at the Wilderness Lodge, which is a short boat ride away, so coming over here wasn’t out of the way. Plus we wanted to take in the Chip n Dale Sing-A-Long later that evening. Eating a meal at Trail’s End made sense for what we wanted to do for that non-park day. If you’re looking to do something different on a non-park day, or you have guests in your party who love horses than taking the extra time to get over to this restaurant may be worth it. It is by no means a must do. I would recommend eating at Whispering Canyon Cafe before eating here.

For a restaurant at a moderate resort it’s not cheap. For three of us to eat here it would have cost $105.00. We were on the Disney Dining Plan so we used 3 table service meal credits. Making it a good spot for dining plan, not as good if you’re paying out of pocket.

This restaurant serves Breakfast until noon throughout the week and brunch on the weekends. You’ll find your standard Mickey waffles, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit and bacon. They also feature southern style breakfast food, such as biscuits and sausage gravy, cheese grits, and a specialty country pork dish.

How to get here:

If you’re staying at Fort Wilderness Lodge, simply make your way up to the Northern end of the resort using any of the three bus lines.

Any other guests I would suggest using boat transportation from the Magic Kingdom, Contemporary Resort or Wilderness Lodge. The boat takes you to the area of Fort Wilderness you want to be. You get off the boat and the main lodge, where Trail’s End is located is straight ahead. If you take a bus to Fort Wilderness you’ll have to grab another bus upon arriving at the resort. One of the three buses that run through the Fort Wilderness Resort.

Hours:

Weekdays

Breakfast 7:30am-12:00pm

Dinner 4:30pm-9:30pm

Weekends

Brunch 7:30am-2:00pm

Dinner 4:30pm-9:30pm

Dining Plan: 1 Table Service Meal Credit

Personal Touch:

Any buffet restaurant has been a win for our family over the last number of years. When your traveling with young ones they may not love the way this particular restaurant does their mac and cheese. Or the pizza sauce is too spicy. With a buffet they can choose something and then change their minds. Plus there’s always lots of fruit and veggies to load onto their plates. Paying for these meals though is costly, I wouldn’t dine here if we weren’t on the dining plan. I would not be worth the sticker price in my opinion.