Vivoli Gelateria Opens at Downtown Disney: Family Owned Business is a Welcome – and Delicious – Respite During Hot Summer

Hi everyone!

It has been a hot, hot summer here in Florida – I’ve lived here for over 30 years, and I don’t remember the heat being quite as intense as we’ve had lately. The storefront of Vivioli Gelato was teasing me for weeks! The gelateria opened just as we were heading out of town for a few days, but it was nice to have it waiting for us when we returned. And it was worth the wait. Located across from The BOATHOUSE (a new favorite restaurant of ours at Walt Disney World), Vivoli is located in what used to be Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney, but will officially be The Landing at Disney Springs. Disney Springs signage is popping up around Downtown Disney, I’m guessing the official name change isn’t far off.

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Vivoli carries a lot of gelato flavors – 24. We tried 4 of them in one cup, but there are so many others that look just as tempting. It will take a while to get through all the flavors I’m interested in!

Vivoli was founded in 1932, and can be found in Florence, Italy, as well as New York and now Disney Springs. It has been well established in Italy for nearly a century.

The shop had been doing brisk business until this moment (right after we finished our gelato).

Not only does Vivoli sell gelato, but small sandwiches (panini), biscotti and other drinks. We also received a 10% AP discount. It was nice to have the passholder discount be immediate from store opening, often it takes a while to get the ball rolling on that. This visit, we tried gelato only. Gelato & sorbet floats join milk shakes on the menu.

Here is a look at the food & beverage menu.

Italian beverages and Coke products line the counter.

Guests can purchase t-shirts, aprons and caps.

Everything in the case looked delicious! We will eventually try the sandwiches.

There are several types of biscotti.

So much to see and we haven’t even made it to the gelato flavors yet.

It took 3 photos to showcase all the gelato. My favorite – and I don’t think it will change – is the Cioccolato (imported italian chocolate). It overwhelmed the flavors of the other three gelato types we tried, but in a good way. I can’t think of any other chocolate ice cream/gelato dessert I’ve had that even comes close to the flavor this has. Maybe Berthillon in France, but this is 20 minutes from our home.

The gelato is made in-house, and we were told that they have been delivering it over to Via Napoli as well.

Other flavors include Banana, Riso, and Caffe’ (Banana, Rice and Coffee)

I did mention there were three photos of flavors! Fragola (Strawberry), Limone (Lemon) and Stracciatella (Chocolate Chip) are a few flavors in this section.

The cups are small, medium and large (piccola, media, grande). We split the largest, which allowed for up to 4 flavors.

Our flavors were added to the cup. The grande is pretty big, it isn’t a size I’d purchase alone.

The flavors we chose were the Chocolate I mentioned above, along with Pistachio, Salted Caramel and Florida Orange. The two I would personally choose again from this assortment are Chocolate and Florida Orange. They were all delicious, but those were my two favorites here. I also would purchase them separately, since I’m not one of those fans of chocolate and orange together. But if you are, this is the way to do it!

A friend of ours picked the Vivoli Banana Split. I didn’t ask his opinion, but he ate every last bit – so I figured I didn’t need to ask. It comes in a waffle bowl. I did ask about the whipped cream, he said it tasted like a standard whipped cream (as opposed to a heavier one).

An employee was creating flavors as we ate our gelato, with ingredients stored nearby.

I believe this was being made into the Salted Caramel flavor.

The only downside is that there is no indoor seating. That would have been very nice, even just a few small tables. With as hot as it was outside, we stood in a corner and enjoyed our gelato. There are a few tables outside.

We highly recommend visiting Vivoli during your visit to Downtown Disney (soon to be Disney Springs).