Review: Enchanted Rose Lounge at Grand Floridian Resort

The new Enchanted Rose Lounge at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa at Disney World lives up to its name. It’s enchanting.

The bar and lounge had a soft opening Friday, Oct. 4. The enlarged and newly reimagined area replaces Mizner’s Lounge, which was one of our favorite places to stop for a drink and a bite to eat. When Disney announced that it would replace Mizner’s with a Beauty & the Beast-themed lounge, I was concerned that it would feel out of place, especially since this is is an adult venue.

Mizner’s felt like an old-style jazz lounge, tucked as it was behind the bandstand. But it had a very limited number of seats. The new lounge is much larger, and I’m happy to say the Beauty & the Beast shoutouts are subtle — the French provincial colors evoke the live-action movie, and its central chandelier is a shout-out to Belle’s ball gown.

The Enchanted Rose is divided into four distinct areas:

• The main lounge, which revolves around a golden chandelier inspired by Belle’s flowing ball gown. 
• The library showcases classical baroque designs and French furnishings. You could almost imagine one of the low velvet lounge chairs springing to life and scurrying across the room. There is an enchanted rose on top of the fireplace, and you can find Lumière, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts on the shelves of the bookcases at either end of the room. The designs are based on the live-action movie characters, not the original animated film.
• The garden room takes its inspiration from the enchanted forest surrounding the castle with rich green colors and the Enchanted Forest painted on the walls. The garden room can get steamy when it’s warm outside, since it is just off the patio.
• The outdoor patio was designed to evoke the romance of Beast’s garden terrace and has a lovely view of the Grand Floridian grounds.

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We sat in the library for some drinks and small plates on opening night, and the lounge was already drawing a capacity crowd.

The library is designed with a combination of seating areas with couches and lounge chairs that seat two or more people. It also has two counter-height tables that seat six each. We shared a counter table and found it quite comfortable.

The library has a lot to look at — the items on the bookcases, each of which features a painting from the movie. Don’t forget to look down; the carpet includes the first “hidden” Beast we’ve seen around Disney World.

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The full bar menu includes several pages of specialty cocktails, wine and beer.

We tried the Island Rose (made with Ketel One Grapefruit and Rose, Lime, Orgeat (Almond), Pineapple, Bitters, and Rose Water) and a Salty Dog (Grey Goose Vodka, Grapefruit, and Salt). Both were tasty.

We then had a sampling of some of the small plates. The mini smoked short-rib sliders is a plate of three slides with blue cheese and onion marmalade on split-top buns.

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The truffle fries are topped with a generous pile of shaved black truffles and 18-month aged parmesan. Coupled with the sliders, these two dishes make a nice meal. For “dessert,” we had the artisanal cheese plate, which came without explanation of the cheeses, but they were delicious nonetheless.

We expect the Enchanted Rose to be a big draw, especially for people heading to Citricos for dinner. One possible upside to the crowds? Maybe it will be easier to get a seat over at Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto.