Has 50's Prime Time Cafe "toned down"?

[ssidiouss@mac.c]

Anyone have any advice on how to let the servers know that our party is willing to play along with the theme? Anything to say/do early to let em know?

 

[davewasbaloo]

Anyone have any advice on how to let the servers know that our party is willing to play along with the theme? Anything to say/do early to let em know?

Fraid not, we told the hostess at the door we would wait longer for a server who would play. We purposefully put our elbows on the table (obviously). No point. She only played lip service to the role.

We ate at 50's Prime Time, Boma, Liberty Tree Tavern, Chef Mickey's, O'Hana, Whispering Canyon, Le Celiier, Restaurant Marrakech, Mitsukoshi Teppanyaki, Biergarten, and Nine Dragos.

This is the one I was looking forward to the most, and it was our biggest disappointment.

 

[slappy magoo]

Just like life, what happens before you enter a room could affect everyone in the room. Even a CM who is usually a laugh riot and totally in character could wind up with customers before you so demanding, catankerous and abusive, it puts him or her off the rest of the day. It's always a crap shoot.

IMO, to improve your odds of getting a "Fun" CM, do not specifically ask for a fun CM. Just let the host or hostess know that you've been there before and (true or not) that it's one of your absolute favorite resturants in WDW. You can also set up someone in your party by singling them out to the host or hostess and say "He (or she) has never been here." Kinda like code for "man oh man do I wanna mess with this person's head."

I prefer the subtle route because, like at Wilderness Canyon cafe, some people walk in to the resturant with a series of expectations as to how their server will act, the things he or she will do. Sometimes those expectations are numerous and their standards are high. And while the CMs want to make your meal memorable, there's something about a whole family "posing" with their elbows on the table that probably makes them die a little inside. The exception to this would probably be CMs who want to be actors, possibly trying to get into one of the dinner shows, and trying to be as theatrical as possible. The CMs want you to enjoy yourselves, but at the same time, they have other tables, they're living off of tips, there's plenty of people waiting to get seated, and they have to find that balance between making you happy and getting you out of there as fast as possible.

 

[Orlando Jonez]

We got back from our Christmas trip to WDW. One of our favorite traditions is to eat at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. We've always enjoyed the antics that our cousins or aunts do. However we noticed that this trip they weren't as lively as in previous years. Cousin Richard took care of us this visit. While we enjoyed him, he did have one table get "upset" over him apparently as he was lightly making humor with people from New York. The family across from us was from New York and laughed at it, however a table across in the other room wasn't too pleased. One of the guys got upset, walked to him and whispered something in his ear. (Not to generalize either, but they seriously looked like mafia type people; they did pull out a LARGE stash of money when they paid for their meal). It seems like he and the others around him had to tone down the show to prevent another thing like this from happening. We could definitely tell that he was different after that guest talked to him. We still enjoyed him and our visit.

I wanted to ask you all does this seem like a common occurrence? Not necessarily guests telling the CMs to stop but if the overall show has had to be lightened in order to prevent guests from being offended?

Side note: the pot roast rules! :slurp:

I don't think all of the guests from NY 'get it'.

We had a similar experience- ours good, a family obviously from NY bad- when we were there a coulpe years ago.

Going back some time, we ate there and i hated the meatloaf. (*Veal* meatloaf???)

We tried it again and liked the food much better. However, the waiter told the guests they had to eat all of their veggies and they just loked at him like he was crazy. The waiter also toned it down a bit after they said something to him.

I've come to the very generalized conclusion that if you're form NY and don't have much of a sense of humor that maybe you should skip that restaurant so as not to ruin the other families' time there.