DVC Dining: Breakfast vs. Dinner at Cape May Cafe

With the BoardWalk being my home resort, Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club is always a short walk away, and it normally isn’t difficult to get a reservation.  It’s also nice to use the 10% DVC discount there.  Prior to the pandemic, my husband and I used to enjoy both breakfast and dinner at Cape May Cafe, but now that they are back as buffets instead of all-you-care-to-eat skillets, which meal is more worthwhile?  Let’s take a look.  

Breakfast

Breakfast at Cape May Cafe features “Minnie’s Beach Bash” with Minnie, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy.  As a starter, you’ll be served salted caramel “Beach Buns” with vanilla cream.  These buns were sweet and reminded me of Parker rolls topped with cinnamon crumbs and caramel.  While they were decent and quite sweet, I didn’t ask for seconds and focused on the buffet instead.  At the buffet, you’ll find the usual Disney breakfast fare, including Mickey waffles, eggs, sausage, bacon, poached eggs and seasonal hash, breakfast potatoes, biscuits and gravy, and pancakes. There is also a steak and egg scramble, a tofu and vegetable scrabble, and flour tortillas and salsa, so you could make your own breakfast burrito.  In addition, you’ll find a create-your-own-omelet station, crepe station, carving station with ham, oatmeal, grits, fruit, yogurt, and pastries. 

I appreciated the amount of variety, especially compared to the skillets that were initially offered when Cape May reopened.  While not on the same level of quality as breakfast at Topolino’s Terrace, there were plenty of solid options.  I especially liked the Mickey (and Minnie!) waffles, the steak and egg scramble, and the tofu and vegetable scramble.  The waffles were nice and fresh, which isn’t always the case with a buffet.  At $45 per adult and $29 per child before the DVC discount, breakfast is priced similarly to other Disney World character breakfasts.  We were so full after our late breakfast that all we needed was a snack before dinner.

Dinner

As you probably know, the star of the dinner buffet used to be the crab legs, but they’re no longer a part of the buffet.  Instead, you can order them for an additional $29 per pound.  The buffet still has other seafood options like steamed mussels, steamed clams, peel-n-eat shrimp, almond-crusted salmon, seafood and chicken paella, fried pollock, fried shrimp, and clam strips. There are also lots of options for those who are not fans of seafood.  For example, there’s beef strip loin, roasted lemon pepper chicken, pasta, tofu, mixed vegetables, salad, and side dishes like mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, corn on the cob, and rolls. 

Of course, there are plenty of desserts.  Here, you’ll have a selection of mini desserts like cupcakes, cookies, gluten-free chocolate layer cake, strawberry layer cake, Boston cream tarts, lemon curd, and those chocolate Mickey domes.  There was also a new warm bread pudding with creme anglaise.  

We opted to stick to the buffet and did not order the crab legs.  Instead, I filled up on the other seafood items like the almond crusted salmon, peel-n-eat shrimp, clam strips, and fried pollock.  Salmon at buffets can be unremarkable, but this one had good flavor and wasn’t dried out at all.  Other guests must have felt the same way since the platter was often close to empty as you can see from my photo.  What was unremarkable were the desserts, but that’s basically how I have always thought of dessert at Cape May.  Dinner at Cape May was $46 per adult and $27 per child before the DVC discount.  

Overall Thoughts

All in all, neither breakfast nor dinner is mind blowing.  However, when you consider other restaurants in the same price tier, breakfast may be the better offering.  For $45 per adult, you get way more variety at Cape May than at comparable character breakfasts at restaurants like ‘Ohana or Chef Mickey’s that offer refillable skillets, and the quality of the food is about equal.  Also, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy in their beach wear are pretty adorable. I would easily pick Cape May for breakfast over its peers.

At $46 per adult, dinner at Cape May is more comparable to Liberty Tree Tavern, which is in a similar price range at $39 per adult, or even Biergarten at $49 per adult.  To me, Cape May has more competition at dinner time and wouldn’t always be the clear winner in terms of quality or variety among this group. The crab legs were really the star before, and now that they are an additional upcharge, I have to admit that the buffet just isn’t the same value. While nothing was necessarily bad at dinner, nothing was a real standout, must-have item either. In that comparative lens, I would lean towards breakfast over dinner at Cape May.

If you’ve been to Cape May Cafe for both meals since they returned as buffets, did you prefer breakfast or dinner?