What’s Wrong With Disney World Restaurants...

[Disnutz311]

Help me out with this one. Low quality ice?

Lol. I know it sounds silly but it all starts with ingredients. You want best ingredients for your food, right? Well, there are machines out there that make crystal clear triple filtered ice in a 1 inch by 1 inch square cube. Kold Draft. Imagine getting a drink that does not water down in 6 minutes but in 60. The ice stays hard longer in the glass and does not dilute as fast in a cocktail shaker giving you a perfectly mixed cocktail. Use good products get better drinks.

I’m kind of a ice geek.

 

[Disnutz311]

I am guessing it is about the small ice chips they use rather than decent sized ice cubes like you would get in a higher quality place

Pretty close. Why can’t we expect more?

 

[LowesChevy]

. The bean counters ruined Kona recently with its awful new menu so thats another one we dont go to anymore. We have found that the ones with outside management like Tutto Italia and Marrakesh are much better service and food and portions and are more worthy of a higher price.
Brown Derby is another example, while still being really nice there with good food (one of my favs still), the prices are ridiculous for what you get, and the service seems to have a slow non caring attitude as of late. All of this is just my own opinion of course from being there often and noticing first hand. Regarding service it all depends on who you get, many are super fantastic, others just don't want to be there. That can be anywhere really not just dining, (emporium looking at you, yikes some mean ones work in there).[/QUOTE] @aladdin2007

Bingo--the 3rd party restaurants are run much better in our experience, plus the menus are typically larger. We have crossed Citricos, Narcoossee's, Artist Point and Yachtsman Steakhouse off our list over the years. Just not good enough for the price! These signature restaurants are an excuse to charge more for a perceived value-works in other places, but most of the time the restaurant fails to deliver. Service, food, food temperature you name it. My DF and I had a steak from Yachtmans-K.C. strip, no taste, unseasoned, service was awkward. Citricos menu is boring me lately and Artist Point has nose dived again. These places all had the same problem-serving lukewarm food! Unacceptable for the price and experience you are paying for.

Now California Grill & Brown Derby have been absolutely fabulous the past few trips-Cali since the rennovations since before it had some serious issues.The Boathouse is also a favorite new spot. I have abandoned many of the signature restaurants for newer spots at Disney Springs. Splitsville & Homecomin' are a great value and both have attentive servers and managers. Trattoria Al Forno was outstanding last fall with the big family trip.

Even our last trip we grabbed lunch at Casey's-what a disaster that place is. Hot dogs were barely warm. French fries were okay, but you can't serve warm food. You only serve hot dogs-keep up with production! They really need to have a manager expediting the orders-the employees were just yelling back and forth at each other over the food.

Totally agree about Kona too-turned into a food factory. We stay at the Polynesian for our winter trip, which was two weeks ago and ate at KC 5 times during the trip. DF isn't big on sweets for breakfast so he has eggs or omelets. The ham and cheese omelet was different daily. The amount of ham was a joke to the point of just serve a cheese omelet for Pete's sake. The potatoes, which he doesn't care for in general were cooked sometimes, almost barely cooked other times or bland. I will say DM and I had macadamia nut pancakes and Tonga toast the other days and they were both great. Her toast was greasy one day, which was from the oil not being hot enough from being busy. One day we dined at the Grand Floridian Cafe and it was fantastic and another day we went to IHOP.

For future trips we will be reverting back to regular dining restaurants and visiting Disney Springs more frequently to add variety.

and that's just my opinion

 

[JIMINYCR]

As guest numbers began to increase the quality suffered. When theres a focus on quantity, quality decreases. Disney has been trying to pack the parks, without increasing places to dine, serving too many people at too many tables with a expectation to turn those table over quickly. Add to this a desire to increase profit by lowering the quality of the menu and demanding servers to give the same service they once did to more tables and we all suffer.

 

[MikeyK72]

Lol. I know it sounds silly but it all starts with ingredients. You want best ingredients for your food, right? Well, there are machines out there that make crystal clear triple filtered ice in a 1 inch by 1 inch square cube. Kold Draft. Imagine getting a drink that does not water down in 6 minutes but in 60. The ice stays hard longer in the glass and does not dilute as fast in a cocktail shaker giving you a perfectly mixed cocktail. Use good products get better drinks.

I’m kind of a ice geek.

I'm sort of an ice geek myself and I couldn't agree more. Some places do it right and serve the crystal clear spheres (Hangar Bar) and cubes (Enzo's Hideaway). I make the spheres at home using a mold from Wintersmiths.com and swear by them.

 

[Disnutz311]

Very good points here. Maybe it seems like Disney needs an operation regrouping with training and quality being at the top of the list.

 

[Disnutz311]

I have a love/hate relationship with the DDP and the ADR system. I feel the DDP gives management a free pass to keep raising the prices and lowering the quality of the food over the last 15 years. I know they needed the DDP to bring people back into the parks at one point, but with record attendance it's no longer needed. Unfortunately, the outcry would be a public relations nightmare if they tried to stop it. The ADRs unfortunately are a necessity. For us, we cant plan a trip 6 months in advance based on personal situations let alone decide where we want to eat on any particular evening 180 days in advance. However, its seems the only way to handle a hundred thousand people a day across the parks.

Depending on the restaurant, the service while generally acceptable can be extremely slow and sometimes unprofessional. I's not in the restaurant industry, but to me it appears management is putting fewer waitstaff on the floor than in years past making the service slower and less attentive.

You mentioned the PR nightmare behind getting rid of DDP but what if they made the better restaurants (Signature Ones) worth more credits? Or just made the DDP counter and quick service only? Or develop a new category of restaurants that don’t take DDP?

Would any of that work over time?

 

[aladdin2007]

. The bean counters ruined Kona recently with its awful new menu so thats another one we dont go to anymore. We have found that the ones with outside management like Tutto Italia and Marrakesh are much better service and food and portions and are more worthy of a higher price.
Brown Derby is another example, while still being really nice there with good food (one of my favs still), the prices are ridiculous for what you get, and the service seems to have a slow non caring attitude as of late. All of this is just my own opinion of course from being there often and noticing first hand. Regarding service it all depends on who you get, many are super fantastic, others just don't want to be there. That can be anywhere really not just dining, (emporium looking at you, yikes some mean ones work in there).

@aladdin2007

Bingo--the 3rd party restaurants are run much better in our experience, plus the menus are typically larger. We have crossed Citricos, Narcoossee's, Artist Point and Yachtsman Steakhouse off our list over the years. Just not good enough for the price! These signature restaurants are an excuse to charge more for a perceived value-works in other places, but most of the time the restaurant fails to deliver. Service, food, food temperature you name it. My DF and I had a steak from Yachtmans-K.C. strip, no taste, unseasoned, service was awkward. Citricos menu is boring me lately and Artist Point has nose dived again. These places all had the same problem-serving lukewarm food! Unacceptable for the price and experience you are paying for.

Now California Grill & Brown Derby have been absolutely fabulous the past few trips-Cali since the rennovations since before it had some serious issues.The Boathouse is also a favorite new spot. I have abandoned many of the signature restaurants for newer spots at Disney Springs. Splitsville & Homecomin' are a great value and both have attentive servers and managers. Trattoria Al Forno was outstanding last fall with the big family trip.

Even our last trip we grabbed lunch at Casey's-what a disaster that place is. Hot dogs were barely warm. French fries were okay, but you can't serve warm food. You only serve hot dogs-keep up with production! They really need to have a manager expediting the orders-the employees were just yelling back and forth at each other over the food.

Totally agree about Kona too-turned into a food factory. We stay at the Polynesian for our winter trip, which was two weeks ago and ate at KC 5 times during the trip. DF isn't big on sweets for breakfast so he has eggs or omelets. The ham and cheese omelet was different daily. The amount of ham was a joke to the point of just serve a cheese omelet for Pete's sake. The potatoes, which he doesn't care for in general were cooked sometimes, almost barely cooked other times or bland. I will say DM and I had macadamia nut pancakes and Tonga toast the other days and they were both great. Her toast was greasy one day, which was from the oil not being hot enough from being busy. One day we dined at the Grand Floridian Cafe and it was fantastic and another day we went to IHOP.

For future trips we will be reverting back to regular dining restaurants and visiting Disney Springs more frequently to add variety.

and that's just my opinion[/QUOTE] loweschevy

IN response to loweschevy above (sorry the reponse quoting feature doesnt seem to be working right) but I certainly agree all the way. And it really wasnt all that long ago we were all raving about the majority of these mentioned locations. Things changed and went down hill pretty fast, maybe within the last 8 years......We still find Whispering Canyon however a the Lodge to be pretty good in all their meal offerings.

I have to give a shout out to the new Enzos Tunnel Bar at disney springs as a suggestion to try (another patina location), blew me away and my new favorite restaurant on Disney property. Pricey yes about on par with Tutto, but well worth every penny we thought anyway. The service was impeccable. Granted this was at lunch so it wasnt even hardly busy but it was so enjoyable. I was concerned about the menu beforehand but I believe they have been tweaking it quite a bit since opening, we had huge portions of everything. I was very impressed, it was how disney restaurants use to operate, but since they are cattle drive rip offs now for the masses those days are over. But this little gem of a location is top notch....

 

[docdebbi]

want to know what's wrong with the restaurants? cheaper quality food. Smaller portions. Lack of need to be good because no matter what they do we will keep coming. Case in point- scallops and shrimp at BoG

2013

2015

 

[aladdin2007]

WOW

 

[MikeyK72]

I guess another thing I'd offer for change, at least regarding the Signatures, is their stance on walk-ups...which is typically, "sorry, we're not taking walk-ups this evening." But the funny thing is you can look inside the restaurant and see a bunch of empty tables (looking at you Yachtsman through pool side windows ). I've found the simple way around this is to use the mobile app to book the next open reservation and then go back and say that you made a reservation and you're early. Chances are you'll be seated right then. Silly but true.

I suppose their reasoning is that they only staff for the reservations that they had for that evening plus perhaps a few more to accommodate same day reservations. I don't know, just guessing. Or it could be perhaps them purposely over inflating the popularity of the restaurant like some have mentioned the parks may over inflate the wait times by not running attractions at full capacity. Who knows? For a company that's world renowned for customer service you'd think politely asking at the podium would be enough instead of having to play the last minute "I have a reservation but I'm early" game.

 

[Hockey89]

I think a lot of it has to to with the crappy American palate. They have tried over the years to get more of a variety and better types of foods but people complain all the time how they just want typical American crap. Look at how many people say that they will not even try someplace like Boma(which is very very good), because they don't want anything "adventurous" in their words. One of our favorite quick service places is Tangierine cafe's shawarma plate. But the place is rarely full. They do struggle with food quality at places but those are mostly the mass produced counter service restaurants, which I can kind of understand. If you want better quality food then stay away from the American style and venture out into some of the other places.

They can't pull it off either.... The food is always up and down.... You can go to the same signature restaurant on one trip and have such a different experience...

DDP has crushed the food quality and cost benefit....

 

[jaklgreen]

They can't pull it off either.... The food is always up and down.... You can go to the same signature restaurant on one trip and have such a different experience...

DDP has crushed the food quality and cost benefit....

Oh yeah, I agree the DDP has really messed up the restaurants. We have been going for over 2 decades and remember that at the counter service restaurants they had a better variety of offerings even for dessert. They used to carry Mickey rice crispy treats at all of them that we could use as a desert. That stopped a couple of years into the dining plan and they started with the mass produced junk they have now. I will say that early in the 90s the food quality hit an all time low. But they started to bring it back up again but now it is hit or miss. I think the shear amount of food they have to put out now plays a part in it too. Anyone trying to feed thousands of people during lunch knows that quality is going to be an issue.

 

[danyoung56]

Overall I really enjoy the restaurants of WDW. But if there was one thing I'd change, it's the pacing. I've had more than one meal where the appetizer gets to the table before bread, before wine, way too quickly. And then the entre' takes 20 to 30 minutes. A good waiter will give you bread, the appetizer a few minutes later, and then the entre' a few minutes after the appetizer is finished. It seems like sometimes stuff comes out and gets served to speed you along, and the enjoyment of the meal suffers.

 

[Disnutz311]

I guess another thing I'd offer for change, at least regarding the Signatures, is their stance on walk-ups...which is typically, "sorry, we're not taking walk-ups this evening." But the funny thing is you can look inside the restaurant and see a bunch of empty tables (looking at you Yachtsman through pool side windows ). I've found the simple way around this is to use the mobile app to book the next open reservation and then go back and say that you made a reservation and you're early. Chances are you'll be seated right then. Silly but true.

I suppose their reasoning is that they only staff for the reservations that they had for that evening plus perhaps a few more to accommodate same day reservations. I don't know, just guessing. Or it could be perhaps them purposely over inflating the popularity of the restaurant like some have mentioned the parks may over inflate the wait times by not running attractions at full capacity. Who knows? For a company that's world renowned for customer service you'd think politely asking at the podium would be enough instead of having to play the last minute "I have a reservation but I'm early" game.

Walk-ins are always hard to judge. The restaurants don’t want to sit you at a table hoping you’ll be up in an hour and you sit for 3. This is an operational thing. Easy to do by kindly telling people you can sit them but you’ll need the table back at 7pm. They choose not to. Could increase revenue by 10% at a minimum.

 

[Disnutz311]

Overall I really enjoy the restaurants of WDW. But if there was one thing I'd change, it's the pacing. I've had more than one meal where the appetizer gets to the table before bread, before wine, way too quickly. And then the entre' takes 20 to 30 minutes. A good waiter will give you bread, the appetizer a few minutes later, and then the entre' a few minutes after the appetizer is finished. It seems like sometimes stuff comes out and gets served to speed you along, and the enjoyment of the meal suffers.

That’s just bad service. Order everything at once but tell the server your not in a rush and want things coursed out properly. If food arrives too soon, send it back.

 

[Simba's Mom]

My biggest complaint is that you get so much food and pay so much money. I'd like to see them add an option of a smaller size main portion, like what a few places call "senior portion", for those of us with smaller appetites. You may think of child's offerings, but sadly most places with childs' meal offerings just offer things like chicken nuggets, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese. Go to Tangerine Cafe and look for Moroccan food on the child's menu.

 

[danyoung56]

That’s just bad service. Order everything at once but tell the server your not in a rush and want things coursed out properly. If food arrives too soon, send it back.

Believe me, I've been close to doing exactly this. I mean, when a server (not even my waiter) puts an appetizer on the table, and I haven't even got my drink or bread yet, it just starts the whole meal wrong. But getting in a fight with your waiter doesn't usually go well. I just picture sending food back, and getting it back a few minutes later along with a little waiter-spit.

 

[MikeyK72]

Believe me, I've been close to doing exactly this. I mean, when a server (not even my waiter) puts an appetizer on the table, and I haven't even got my drink or bread yet, it just starts the whole meal wrong. But getting in a fight with your waiter doesn't usually go well. I just picture sending food back, and getting it back a few minutes later along with a little waiter-spit.

yeah, a little or a lot of spit depending I guess. I think the easiest way to control the pace is to order one course at a time...just order the appetizer and then wait until you're finished with it before ordering your entree. My opinion here, but I don't think servers find that to be rude so hopefully I'm not risking an extra sauce in my food over it.

 

[danyoung56]

I've told my waiter at the California Grill that I'm in no hurry, and things came out paced nicely. I think some waiters are just in a hurry to turn tables, and don't stop to think about the quality of the guest's meal.