WORST DISNEY DINING EXPERIENCE

[limpy]

I would have to say the worst food I've had was Akershus breakfast. There aren't many options for picky eaters.

This was my favorite meal of our entire trip! It just goes to show you...

 

[katepass72]

Dining in general seems to be a major issue at Disney. While we haven't had any horrible experiences, there is definitely a trend with table service of being solidly mediocre. I'm convinced the dining plan is partially to blame - I wish they would just get rid of it all together, along with the giant ADR windows.

 

[Donna3271]

Um. That's not rude. You should have taken your box and let your friend eat it somewhere else. You can't get another plate for a meal that is per person, for a friend that "only wants a milkshake". Not getting what you want does not = rude.

I TOTALLY agree with you. The waitress may have had a bad approach, but people would be doing this all the time. Get the food boxed, and eat it later. If her guest was interested in eating, then she did not want just a milkshake, and should have ordered.

 

[MikeTaylor]

Worst Food: Tortuga Tavern
The portions are small, the meat is dry, and lettuce is stale. It seems like they keep their worst employees here, tucked away in Adventureland. The rowdy youngsters fit in with the pirate theme... a few places may have an off day on the food, but at least the experience is good-not the case with TT. The few times we've dined here, both experience and food are consistently bad.

 

[katepass72]

Dining in general seems to be a major issue at Disney. While we haven't had any horrible experiences, there is definitely a trend with table service of being solidly mediocre. I'm convinced the dining plan is partially to blame - I wish they would just get rid of it all together, along with the giant ADR windows.

I should probably also state that I do, however, still enjoy free dining when offered and also comply with the ADR windows. So I guess you could say it's a love/hate . Worst table service experience, food-wise, was by FAR Chef Mickey's. Terrible food, but of course the kids loved the characters. That space could really use an overhaul.

 

[cmwilson523]

Generally we have been lucky and in all of our trips not had many bad dining experiences.

One that stands out for me is Cali Grill, when we had a waiter who was over the top. He must have told us to "just relax!" at least 20 times in the first 15 minutes - but would never stay around long enough to take our drink orders. By the time he finally stopped long enough to take an order, when I ordered a glass of wine, he answers me with "huh... do you know what that is? Because you women usually just order Chardonnay." My husband almost had to keep me from coming out of my chair. First, don't treat me like I am an idiot. I can read a wine list. Second, don't pull this "you women always order___" malarkey with me. All women (or all men) don't order anything. I nearly left the restaurant, and probably would have had my husband not begged me to stay with the huge group that was there for dinner. He may have actually gone and told the guy that he needed to back off or talked to a manager because it did get marginally better. The waiter was, however, an over-caffeinated social klutz, I have to say.

I know I will get booed for it, but I never need to go back to BOG after eating lunch there. There was nothing incredibly awful about the food or the service, but nothing stood out about the food necessarily. It was better than most counter-service, but not enough to outweigh the ear-splitting noise levels in the place. I could not wait to get out of there. It is beautifully decorated, but I cannot for the life of me imagine a fine dining experience in the place having been in there over lunch hours. Friends who had dinner there say they will never go back for the same reason. (I suppose that is good for those who desperately want reservations to have other guests who aren't fighting for them!) Having to yell to be heard by my husband and child was awful, and I ended up with a headache from the noise of everyone else yelling, the clanking of dishes, screeching of chairs. It made me sad that such a lovely place was so unenjoyable for a meal.

 

[disneysteve]

I know I will get booed for it, but I never need to go back to BOG after eating lunch there.

I feel the same. We had dinner there last trip. It was good. The food was good. The server was good. And the place is beautiful. But it's a one-time experience in my mind. I can't think of any reason to go back there.

 

[L&Lfan]

Um. That's not rude. You should have taken your box and let your friend eat it somewhere else. You can't get another plate for a meal that is per person, for a friend that "only wants a milkshake". Not getting what you want does not = rude.

You nailed it! I couldn't understand what was rude about that either! Sounds to me like a clear breaking of the rules at Whispering Canyon Café.

 

[My2Pixies]

I wouldn't call it a bad dining experience, but we thought Hollywood & Vine was ridiculously overpriced for a buffet. That said, we enjoyed the food and our service was fine. Overall on our last trip I will say drink refills were our only complaint. Very slow and we had to ask a couple times.

 

[dowchick]

I would also agree that in general we have had no bad meals service. We also try to eat at off times during our day and it makes things a little less chaotic.

I think the buffet foods are mostly just ok but have never had a bad service or character experience. We last went to Chef Mickey's in October 2013 and our server was exceptional. One of our girls decided to try shrimp and we had no idea how to eat them. We asked our server and she took the time to give us a lesson. Also while I was in the restroom my husband told them we were there over my birthday and while that day wasn't my birthday it was our first day at the parks and that I love Mickey Mouse. So as we were nearing the end of our dinner our server showed up with a decorated cupcake on a decorated plate and Mickey Mouse, who gave me hugs and photos! It was a great surprise! We also had wonderful wait staff and character interactions at Crystal Palace, CRT, Akershus, and several others.

We eat at Rose and Crown every time we go and have never had anything but excellent food and service. It is "our" place.

We did have one issue at the podium for San Angel Inn in May 2014. We were celebrating our daughter's sweet 16th and she requested to eat at San Angel. I even ordered a cake with Anna and Elsa to be brought out during the meal. When we checked in for our ADR we requested a table by the water, fully realizing it would add to our wait time, and being completely fine with it. I made the request and the gal at the podium gave a deep sigh and said he would have to wait an hour. I looked at my daughter, who was standing next to me, and asked if she was good with the wait time and she said yes. I told the gal we were willing to wait. She practically threw the little pager device at me and said fine. We decided to just enjoy ourselves as we waited and looked at all of the carts of stuff to buy. We were paged to our table about 15 minutes later. However, our wait staff was wonderful! Friendly and attentive. When they brought out the cake there were about 6 cast members who came out with it and sang a birthday song in Spanish and wished her a happy birthday and ooed and ahhed over the cake, which was very good.

Our worse dinning experience was at Tusker House. The food and wait staff and characters were awesome. However another guest tried to take our ADR. It was the weirdest thing ever. After our photo with Donald Duck we were then told to wait until our name was called for our table, that it would be at least 20 minutes. We sat down at a table outside. (it was my husband, myself, our teen daughter and her teen BFF.) We could see and hear the gal calling the names but there were several families between us and her. She actually called our name much quicker than we expected (to our delight) so I yelled we are over here as I worked on getting to her. I don't think she heard me. As we got up to her I saw her take another family and say to the gal who seats guests that this was the "our last name" family and where to seat them. I told her we were that family, she looked confused, looked back at them, realized they were a party of 6 not 4 and called them and the girl doing the seating back. She repeatedly asked them their name and they kept not quite saying our last name correctly. She looked up something and said you are a party of 6 and this is for a party of 4, then he told her his last name, which sounded nothing like ours. She kind of reprimanded him and told him he had to wait with his party until they were called. She apologized to me over and over. I told her it was ok it was just a mistake. She said, no he knew exactly what he was doing. I could tell she was really upset. As we passed the two men from the party of 6 stood in the walkway with their arms folded and tried to block our path. She told them to move to the side and they just glared at us as we passed. It was really weird. The rest of the meal was great. I especially enjoyed the mojitos.

 

[dismomtfj]

I would have to say the worst food I've had was Akershus breakfast. There aren't many options for picky eaters.

So was the food bad or did you not check out the menu first? Just because someone is picky does not constitute "bad food."

 

[disneysteve]

So was the food bad or did you not check out the menu first? Just because someone is picky does not constitute "bad food."

That's an important distinction to make. There's a big difference between "the food was bad" and "they didn't have anything that I liked". There are definitely Disney restaurants that we would never go to because of what they serve but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the place. I was looking at the new breakfast menu at BOG. There was only one item on the menu that I would eat. There was nothing on the menu that my daughter would eat. If we were to go there, she would need to order from the kids menu, which she hates doing because she's 19 and it usually isn't enough food to satisfy her.

 

[Scrapdolly]

Our worst was the steakhouse at the Yacht and beach ... My husband took a group of 20 clients there and the service was amazing.
We don't often dine in the nice restaurants and he was so impressed that when we visited he took me there.
We dressed smartly .. Casual but nice. They treated us like nobodies and made it clear we were not really meant to be there. The sneering attitude of the server made me want to cry. We didn't even have dessert as I was made to feel so uncomfortable.

Obviously the clincher was the 19 other guests he was paying for on the previous visit .. Made a real difference to the service

 

[awoogala]

I have a tie.
1. We did BOG right after it opened, for dinner. Two kids ordered steaks. Ordered Medium rare, and medium. They both came out charred black. rock hard, impossible to cut or eat. Then two of the adults dinners were awful. We had to send things back (and usually, I do not send food back, but I could not even cut the darn steak).The other kids had ordered the pasta, and wouldn't eat it.. I tried it and understood.. tasted like ketchup, or a sweet tomato juice was on it, as opposed to a marinara. Atmosphere was great, and I've heard it's improved. But it was a bit of a nightmare. I chalked it up to a new restaurant/new cooks.The people we were with did get a manager and politely complain/explain, and things were, eventually fixed.. but the kids were starving.

2. Mexico. Our food was cold, servers were rude, the kids food was so small (like a 2 inch bean burrito) that I actually laughed when they brought it. My husbands vegetarian meal tasted awful.. like they opened a can of beans and poured it into a burrito, no seasonings. To top off the meal, he got freezer burnt rice dream, with actual shards of ice crystals on top. Then, we waited 15 minutes to pay.. couldn't find our server at all. We didn't even bother complaining that time.
We used to go in January and February, so these were both during "quiet" times.. No huge crowds, the restaurants were not overbooked. Just bad days, hopefully.

 

[Timshar2]

Nine Dragons in Epcot, The food was very slow to come out and the bathrooms were closed. My wife and daughter had to walk from China to Norway (funny huh?) to go to the ladies room and when she got back most of the food had come out and was already cold. The service was ok but apparently the bathrooms close a lot so not cool.

 

[Annchristine65]

That's an important distinction to make. There's a big difference between "the food was bad" and "they didn't have anything that I liked". There are definitely Disney restaurants that we would never go to because of what they serve but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the place. I was looking at the new breakfast menu at BOG. There was only one item on the menu that I would eat. There was nothing on the menu that my daughter would eat. If we were to go there, she would need to order from the kids menu, which she hates doing because she's 19 and it usually isn't enough food to satisfy her.

I agree, I think The San Angel Inn is beautiful and would love to eat there but I checked out the menu and nothing appealed to be, so what would be the point?

 

[Shooby doo]

Well I would nominate 2! Flying Fish 1 hour 50 mins past our ADR & actually took me handing back the pager & telling them to "stick it" to get seated, surprisingly everything was uphill from there- good food & excellent service.
Ohana- now I know people rave about this place but our experience - cold, rubbery food

SD

 

[L&Lfan]

I agree, I think The San Angel Inn is beautiful and would love to eat there but I checked out the menu and nothing appealed to be, so what would be the point?

That's the right attitude. I hate when picky eaters insist a restaurant has "bad food" when what they really mean is that the menu doesn't appeal to their limited palate.

 

[Rental01]

Our worst is easy - SciFi Dine-In. In 2013 we got food poisoning there. Out of the 4 of us who ate together that night, only my wife, daughter, and I split one milk shake and we all got sick. This was the only thing we all shared all day. My son was fine. We were stuck in the room for one whole day, then we felt too sick to leave for the next day and a half and barely wanted to eat anything outside the BRAT diet for a week afterward. We brought up our concerns to WDW who then buried us in paperwork. We didn't go to a doctor as we were visiting from out of town and had food poisoning before so we knew how to handle it. The paperwork asked for exact intake amounts of liquids and solids for the 3 days prior to the incident, during, and after, as well as a log of our temperatures during that time. Disney mailed the forms to us a few days after we got back with getting back to work it was too much to handle so we, much like their lawyers hoped, I gather, just dropped the whole thing. It was enough to really piss us off but we're big Disney fans so we knew we weren't going to put it off our radar. What I will say is that we will never, ever, eat there again.

 

[Dizduke]

Jiko takes my top worst food (for the cost) but the service was not too bad. Had a thick piece of pork chop that they could not figure out how to cook. Center came out raw 3x. Then forced me to choose something else....and pay extra for it.
Tusker House is not worth it in any aspect. Early ADR, line up at gate, then go through park and line up at check in, then line up for pictures, then wait to get called....seriously? Its the same character meal as you will find anywhere else on property.
Kona has been hit or miss for us. Sometimes its the food sometimes its the service thats bad.
CRT is not worth the cost at all.
BOG is for the experience and alcohol not the food. Trust me.