It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

And with that, we are headed to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort, which is one of the most magical places at Disney World at any given time during the year. However, it gets EXTRA magical during the holidays. One special holiday experience at the resort is the gingerbread house that is built annually in the hotel lobby. Yep, each year, Disney World chefs and creatives come together to design and assemble a giant gingerbread house that’s made completely of real gingerbread, frosting, and sugar. At the gingerbread house, you’ll be able to purchase a wide assortment of gingerbread treats! Today, we’re headed there to try some of this year’s treats and review them so that you know what’s worth the purchase and what’s not. Let’s go!

So, here’s the thing. The Grand Floridian gingerbread house is a great experience to admire and perhaps have your photo taken with the house. However, the gingerbread treats there are usually just OK. They’re a bit dry. Well, we’ll be honest. They’re take-all-the-moisture-out-of-your-mouth dry. But maybe this year will be different! Also, it’s like, an annual right of passage to purchase something here.

Anyway, let’s check out the menu.

• Freshly baked, homemade items, such as Gingerbread Mickeys and Shingles, Stollen Bread, Brownie Christmas Tree, and Gingersnap Cookies
• House-made Gingerbread Ornaments and Gingerbread Houses
• Assorted Gingerbread Cookie Bags, Marshmallow Pops, and Milk Chocolate Pecan Fudge
• Grand Floridian Combo Box featuring assorted fan favorite treats, including the cookies n’ cream Christmas Tree, exclusive to this box
• Plant-based, no sugar added, and gluten-friendly options

So, what did we try? To start, we got the brand-new Twinings Chai Tea Cupcake Sampler for $16. This comes with four cupcakes with various holiday decorations.

First up we’ve got the adorable little winter gnome cupcake. The gnome figure is hard sugar, but it dissolves in your mouth like a sugar cube. We could taste the chai flavor in the red icing, which sits on top of a regular buttercream. The cupcake itself is a standard vanilla.

The second cupcake in the collection is a gingerbread design. The little figurine melted in the sun, but he was milk chocolate and very tasty. The cake is standard chocolate, and the frosting was more hazelnut-flavored than chai. 

The third cupcake comes topped with a snowflake! It tastes very similar to the gnome cupcake, just with different decorations. The chai came through in the blue part of the frosting, but the cupcake was regular vanilla.

Last in the sampler, we have the poinsettia cupcake. This was our favorite of the four! The cake is chocolate, but once again, the chai flavor is found in the colored frosting on top. The green frosting almost tasted like a combination of chai and matcha to us, which was probably the most interesting of the cupcake flavors. We’d recommend this one!

In addition to the sampler, we also ordered two other snacks, the Gingerbread Buddy and the Gingerbread House Ornament!

The Gingerbread Buddy is $7.75 and basically your classic gingerbread man. He reminded us of the Little Debbie gingerbread cakes that come out for the holiday season, except this cookie is a more true gingerbread flavor.

When we bit into the cookie, it was very soft and pillowy with a little bit of bounce. There isn’t a lot of icing on top, but we didn’t mind because we felt like too much would overpower the cookie. If you’re a fan of plain gingerbread, this one’s for you!

And our final treat was the Gingerbread House Ornament for $14. We were told that this one isn’t exactly made for eating, even though it’s all edible. But of course, we tried it for science!

It’s still soft on the gingerbread parts, but not nearly as soft as the gingerbread buddy. It was surprisingly good for something made to hang on your tree! The icing doesn’t carry a lot of flavor besides sugar.

It wasn’t the best gingerbread cookie we’ve ever had, but it was WAY better than we were expecting since the Cast Member warned us that it wouldn’t be great. All the elements are edible besides the ornament string, so if you’re interested in trying it out…go right ahead!

There’s also an edible ornament at the gingerbread house in the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa for $14! pic.twitter.com/hcYSSEORJP

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) November 8, 2023

Should YOU head to the Grand Floridian to snag your own gingerbread treats? We think that most of the charm of this place comes from the beautifully decorated cottage and just enjoying the hours of work that it took for everything to come together. The treats are fairly good this year, but they probably won’t knock your socks off. However, if you’re a gingerbread fan…you can’t miss out!

And there you have it! We’ll continue to keep you up to speed with all Disney news, reviews, and updates, so make sure to follow along for more so that you never miss a thing.

Looking for more to do at Disney World throughout the holiday season? Click here!

Which of these treats do you MOST want to try? Let us know in the comments!