Breakfast at the Maya Grill in Disney World's Coronado Springs Resort

The Maya Grill is located in Orlando, Florida in Walt Disney World's Coronado Springs Resort. While this resort has numerous places available for counter-service meals, the Maya Grill is the only sit-down restaurant, and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.

On our recent vacation to Disney's Coronado Springs, we decided to eat breakfast one morning at the Maya Grill. We actually had intentions of eating at the Pepper Market, which is the food court at Coronado Springs, but it was full of guests that were attending conferences at the adjoining convention center. We were hoping for more of a quiet atmosphere, and we were happy to see that there was no wait to enter Maya Grill, and decided to give it a whirl. In hindsight, I wish we would have recognized there was a reason for having no line.

Breakfast at the Maya Grill is a buffet, and is served between 7:00 am and 11:00 am. We arrived at 9:00 am, and we were surprised to find that once seated, we were only 1 of about 5 families in the entire restaurant! The Maya Grill is a beautiful place to eat; the Spanish theme is carried out very nicely here; there are muted terra cottas colors contrasting with beautiful greenery, and there are gorgeous Spanish tiled floors. The tables are nicely spaced, and although the restaurant was actually fairly big, it somehow maintained a cozy atmosphere. The eating areas are actually split up into 3 themes as we were told by a castmember; water, fire and sun. Each section was decorated just a little differently, and yet the contrast was not stark enough to make it gaudy. Photos of the Maya Grill can be found at Buzz2001's Unofficial Coronado Springs Resort Website.

The menu can be found here for reference at Deb Will's AllEars.net; it was a rather commonplace assortment of normal breakfast buffet items. I suppose we just expected that since this was Walt Disney World property, that breakfast would somehow be made into something extra special, but that was not the case. Worse yet, most of the food looked like it had been sitting there for quite a while; the eggs were dried out, the hot cereals had a hard crust over them from sitting for so long, and the bacon looked like it was barely cooked. A few of the spaces were even empty; I guess the staff thought since there weren't that many guests eating, they shouldn't bother to fill the buffet. It was very disappointing.

I must say that the fresh fruit selection was well-stocked, and tasted very good- so good, in fact, that my son and I ate primarily from that section only! While the fruit was good, I don't know that it was worth the price of the buffet just to eat some orange and pineapple slices. The adult buffet price is $16.95 for adults, and $9.95 for kids 3-9; (kids under 3 eat free.) My family was on the Disney Dining Plan for this trip, so we did not have any out of pocket expense, but left feeling that we could have better used one of our meals elsewhere. We certainly did let our experience leave us with any ill-feelings of Coronado Springs Resort or of Walt Disney World itself; in fact, we headed to the Magic Kingdom right after eating breakfast, and soon forgot about the experience altogether. While I could possibly be persuaded into trying the Maya Grill for a lunch or dinner, I wouldn't be too excited to venture into their breakfast buffet again anytime soon.