Ohana problem last night

[Dr.Girlfriend]

We went to Ohanas last night for our 5 year anniversary. Took our son with us (daughter is at her dad's) so it was just the 3 of us. We were seated *very* quickly, which was fantastic, at about 8:20.

Unfortunately, things sort of went downhill from there. While the food was outstanding, we were ignored quite a bit. I'm not sure if anyone else has gone through this before, but I started getting more and more annoyed as other tables around us received refills/seconds and we received...nothing more! We received the sides and then one round of meat. Four tables around us were sat well after we were seated, and they had all finished their meals and left way before we even got to dessert.

Now, before you think "man is this lady a pig or something??" and I'm complaining that we didn't get 8 skewers of meat, I only wanted the steak last night and ended up with only 4 pieces total. My husband did get quite a few shrimp but they only brought by 2 pieces of chicken and pork for him.

When the Christmas fireworks started, it was a dead standstill for any food coming out of the kitchen area (I don't personally remember this being the norm as there have been times in the past that we've gone and people were bringing out more sides, meat, shrimp, etc. during that time).

We did try to get the CM's attention several times while they were coming through our area with the skewers but we were always bypassed. I eventually asked a random passing CM to speak to a manager. I felt really bad about it because we LOVE Ohanas and we had been looking forward to this meal for three months.

The manager was really polite and felt badly that we were ignored, but I think that she did notice that other tables were being attended to and we weren't. She did seem interested when I said that we were full paying guests and not on the dining plan. It ended up that she gave us a 40% discount on our meal which was very nice...but I actually left hungry. And I'm not a piggie by any means, but when you leave Ohanas hungry....you know something's up.

We also left the restaurant at 10:30. We were there for over 2 full hours and you can imagine how that can get with a cranky toddler who wants to run run run and not sit and wait for food. I do think it's normal for a 2 hour experience, but the last time we were there I think we were in and out in a little over an hour.

Just wanted to share our experience. I think our main CM was upset with us that we complained, but we still left a normal tip for her. I honestly never, ever complain in the Disney restaurants but since this was a special occasion, it was a $70+ meal and we were ignored for about 80% of it...well, I felt I had to say something. Even my husband was surprised that I complained because I just don't do it. But he felt after just sitting and sitting and sitting there that it was the right decision.

Anyone else have an issue like this before there?

 

[GovieMom]

I feel your pain. The last time we ate at 'Ohana the same thing happened to us. After our server brought our side dishes and some meats, we rarely saw him again. I remember being upset because my daughter was thirsty, and we had to wait ... and wait ... before I was able to find and flag him down to come back to our table. We never were offered any seconds of our food; it was hard enough to get a beverage refill.

 

[happymommy]

Yes, but at Chefs de France! We were there over 2 hours, and then ended up not even getting dinner! It was horrible. A table next to us was finished with their dinner (and they had been seated after us!) and we hadn't even been served yet. When it did come out, my "rare" steak smelled like airplane food and was rock hard dry and cooked well done. A manager came over to us and was very curt - said we didn't have to pay (DUH? It was inedible). Then he actually said we were "free to leave anytime". It was so strange!

I guess these things can happen, and thankfully our experience there was only one of two bad restaurant experiences we've had at WDW (other one was Flying Fish - two hours to get a cold fish entree that was also overcooked, but cold?).

 

[TDC Nala]

If you kept asking for steak and they never brought it, so you left hungry, and even the manager didn't offer to get you any steak, I think they should have comped your entire meal.

 

[koolaidmoms]

Thank you for taking the time to complain to the manager. So many have unacceptable service or food and never complain to a manager they just walk out saying they will never go back again. If the restaurant managers don't know something is wrong they can't fix it.

In the same vain I try to make sure when someone is doing an outstanding job that I also tell the manager. I figure it all evens out in the end.

 

[mom2my3kids]

We had a bad experience with the service last year.. Food was excellent but the server was not very good..My husband was so mad he left early, but as a party of six we still had to tip the 18%...I am a server so I am not very picky at all and give the benefit to the server. But not this time he was cocky, we just paid and left..Horrible for Ohana because I don't know if I can get my hubby to go back..It was a guy server, can't remember his name but I am sure my hubby would..

 

[Gary M]

A couple of years ago we had terrible service or almost no service. I asked for the manager and was told they weren't available. I haven't been back since. I wrote an e-mail and got a generic answer back.

 

[minnieluvzmickey]

We were there just last week. Our server was Kilani or Kimani...can't remember exactly. He was so nice when he first seated us but when we asked for extras of the wings and pot stickers he acted annoyed. He never brought them and so we asked again later and he went to the kitchen and brought some out but acted like he was mad about it. We also had to ask for extras on the meat. We too were there for more than 2 hours and were trying to get out of there to go to MVMCP so while he was clearing off the table I politely asked if we could get our dessert..........he snapped at me and said that's why we're clearing the table mom so we can have dessert. I then asked if my 9 year old could have just plain vanilla ice cream and he again acted annoyed and said "I always bring kids vanilla ice cream".

The food was good but I was saddened because this is our favorite restaurant at disney............I'm going again in January so I hope it will be better.

 

[bunkkinsmom]

This might seem weird, but if you don't get the outcome you are looking for from the manager at the time, speak to the concierge at your hotel.

We had a princess breakfast at Akershus 2 years ago and we paid cash, but they charged us DDP credit as well. We were with MIL and FIL at OKW and they would go to the concierge every night and pay what they had rung up on their card (we shared KTTW cards because we were in a GV). That night we wandered in with them and saw that we had been charged DDP credits. I mentioned it to "Andy" (LOVE HIM BY THE WAY!) and he immediately added the credits back without me even really having to ask him to. No questions. Amazing. From this I can only gather that if it is that easy for them to restore credits, they may be sympathetic to a "less than magical" experience.

It's worth a shot!

 

[mrsltg]

We had a very similar experience at 'ohana on our last trip (9/08). We won't be back. That experience was the end of the line after several poor to bad experiences there. Oh well. It used to be one of our favorites.

 

[Peter Pirate 2]

Did you flag down the servers? When we're ready we flag down any server who walks by ... Doesn't matter if we're their table or not, we always get what we want. It's a noisy, confusing place. Don't get walked on.

 

[TDC Nala]

I've deleted two posts for tipping discussion. Please remember that discussion of tipping, including circumstances regarding whether or not one should or should not tip and how much, needs to be on the tipping info sticky thread and not on the boards.

 

[Carol17]

We had the exact same problem at Coral Reef. The food took a loooong time to come out, and when it finally did arrive, it was our entree, not the starters. We mentioned it to the CM and got the second beer for free. Didn't see her the rest of the night, and watched as several tables around us came and went. Who knows, maybe she was new. It was busy. We didn't complain or anything. We were just amazed and the number of people who came in after us had left before us, and it was just two of us.

 

[Dr.Girlfriend]

We had the exact same problem at Coral Reef. The food took a loooong time to come out, and when it finally did arrive, it was our entree, not the starters. We mentioned it to the CM and got the second beer for free. Didn't see her the rest of the night, and watched as several tables around us came and went. Who knows, maybe she was new. It was busy. We didn't complain or anything. We were just amazed and the number of people who came in after us had left before us, and it was just two of us.

Well in our case, the manager looked around and saw who our server was and said that she was surprised that we were having problems since she's so great.

TD, I actually mentioned that to my husband later on...had the manager offered to go and get us food, I would have been happy. I wasn't even looking for a discount, I was just genuinely annoyed that we had been passed over time and time again, and it wasn't like we were in the corner...we were right up against the "parade walk" and out in the open. It was very easy to see that we sat there with empty plates and glasses for ages.

 

[FunFamily]

We ate at Ohana a few days ago. We too found the service spotty by even non-Disney standards.

 

[mom2taylorandemily]

On our trip last August, we had very poor service at Kona. Now I'm not saying that this is an issue with restaurants at the Poly, but it does make you say Hmmm... We were seated for our ADR promptly, but our server was taking care of maybe 3 other tables, and 1 of them had a rather large party with a family that consisted of a Mom & Dad, 2 sets of Grandparents and about 4 kids that appeared to range from 2-10 yrs. of age. Anyway, she was so busy with the special requests for their meal, their refills, their questions, their this and that, that the other 3 tables she had suffered. 1 of the other tables in question had a sleeping baby and toddler who was getting extremely figedity so the dad took him and the baby out, while the mom waited for their bill, we knew the server was being monopolized by the 1 family so we decided to see how long it took her to get this young family checked out; from the time she asked for the check until she left was 20 minutes.

We had issues with our meal, I ordered the Ribeye cooked to Med. Rare and my DD order the Terriyaki Strip cooked Med. Well, so my ribeye was like shoe leather and her strip was rare leaning to raw. We tried to send it back, but she was just so out of her element we just swapped meals, although hers was even too rare for me. Then we waited an extremely long time to check out as well, and don't you know that the large family was still there talking to the Chef about their completed meal as we left. It definitely left a bad taste in our mouth, we asked to speak to the Mgr. and we were told that he was currently in the kitchen at Ohana and would we mind waiting. We got so fed up waiting, we just finally left. Our tip was not the usual 20% that we usually leave, we were very upset, if the server was in over her head or if this family was going to be so consuming, at some point they should have assigned our table to someone else. We at one point asked another server to refill our drinks because she just never asked us if we were ok. We won't return to Kona again for a while, and its a shame because 2 years ago we had the best meal of our trip there, and this was just the most miserable meal. So, having bad servers can happen, even in Disney!

 

[catne]

we ate at 'Ohana for the first and last time a couple of weeks ago...while our service was "good" as in the foods were brought promptly and 2nds were offered we found virtually all of the "hot" foods were either cold or barely warm. Yuck! When we asked about the temps of the foods, we were given a song & dance about how it's a family-style meal served in courses not all at once so of course temps will vary, blah blah blah. Not our idea of good food experience at all.

Kona on the other hand, we have had great meals & great service there...including this year.

 

[midori sweet]

That is terrible. 40% off wasn't enough to be comped, IMO, since you left hungry. That dinner is priced so that you are able to eat all that you wish to.

We actually had great service at Ohana for dinner in September, and I really enjoyed it.

 

[Don Disney]

We had dinner there on 11/19-the food was pretty good;the service-practically non-existant.Dude did NOT know what he was doing-worst service of our 10 TS meals! So bad,We cancelled our 2nd ressie for 6 days later;and we LOVE Ohana!!!!

 

[Micca]

The instances of guests who got great service and high quality food at Ohana
are few and far between.