8/26-9/4 Our Take on FREE dining!! Spoodes/WPC reviews added

[kcrew]

During 10 days of free dining my family of 6 ate at the following TS:
Le Cellier, HDDR, Garden Grill(lunch), CP(lunch), Alfredos, WPC, MM, 50s PT, San Angel, Boma, Spoodles and an OOP dinner "snack" at PH.

I would be happy to elaborate on my experiences if anyone is interested, and here are a couple of my observations:

1. I did not feel that DDP or free dining affected the service anywhere--service ranged from okay to excellent--and I am critical.
2. We arrived early, late(very), as well as on time for our ADRs and never had a significant wait time.
3. We witnessed many parties being taken as walk ins at various venues. We personally walked into PH(immediate seating Sat night at 6p) and WPC(minimal wait on Labor Day). Also if you want HDDR keep trying--people cancel prior to their 48 hour window and we were able to get a 5p 2 days in advance.
4. If you have a problem with your food ask that it be redone or ask to order something else. We needed to do this several nights and the CM never blinked an eyelash.
5. Ask specifically about specialty drinks that may be included. We had to pry it out of the CMs at a couple of places(MM and San Angel).
6. Take a chance on somewhere you are unsure of. We got a last minute ADR for a late lunch at Garden Grill just to use up some credits. Although I had never had any interest in this place, surprisingly it was one of the highlights of our trip
7. Okay, flame suit on--the children's menus are so, so, so repetitive and limited.
8. Other than 50s PT where our entrees were thrown down while we ate our appys--and we ordered the entrees when the appys were brought--, we never felt rushed at all. We definitely never felt the CM was trying to get us out the door.
9. Flame suit still on. DDP definitely ruled our vacation. I am sure some people are able to perfectly plan everything 6 months out and execute it without a hitch, but we were very stressed by being committed to a certain place at a certain time.
10. Okay, I never thought I would say this. It REALLY is TOO MUCH FOOD!!

 

[mom2my3kids]

Thanks for the reviews..

 

[sandybobandy]

great great reviews!

 

[disneyfav4ever]

I'd love to hear about WPC. I assume you ate there after the menu change, and I haven't read any reviews since then.

 

[SauceBoss]

Would love to hear about your experience at Spoodles and Boma

 

[Schucraig]

Thanks for the reviews!

 

[disneyfan55]

Thank you for the great review! How was San Angel? I have never eaten there and did make a reservation for dinner. We will be there in just about 2 weeks!! This will be the first time to Disney with such planning. We usually go for a week to 10 days and eat lunch 2-3 times in a sit down restaurant (making the reservation only a day before or even the day of). Not this time. We made all the reservations for dinner (free dining) back in June when we made the WDW reservations and had a lot of trouble getting any times or places we wanted. It ended up taking hours to make all the reservations. Oh well nothing I can do about that. It's just such a planning thing now. We always visited Disney with a go with the flow attitude. Thanks again and any thoughts on San Angel will be appreciated!!

 

[kcrew]

Would love to hear about your experience at Spoodles and Boma

We had eaten at Spoodles last year and we liked it enough to return. The appys are really the highlight as far as I am concerned--so many great choices! I had the Calamari and really enjoyed it We also had the 4 cheese flatbread and the mussels. The mussels were served in this awsome broth that was so tasty we were all dipping our bread in it! And the bread! Yum -it was a rosemary foccacia w/ a pesto olive oil dip--an appy in itself!
Our server really surprised us when we asked about the menu, describing the Cornish Hen as "disgusting"!?! My son was going to order it up to that point but we figured we had better skip it!
For an entree I got the Shrimp Linguini, and it wasn't really what I expected--first of all it was fetticini! I guess from the description I thought it would be light, but it was actually very rich and heavy with a thick cream sauce w/ pieces of lemon peel, but yet it had no lemon flavor! The shrimp were large and plentiful. It was not bad, just odd. We also had the Rigitoni(good, but typical), and the Kabobs(overcooked) and the Snapper(good). We all enjoyed the bread and appys so much that we weren't that hungry for the entrees and so everyone was content. DS7 had the Mickey Mac and Cheese which was a good portion, but he said it wasn't as good as the kind he had for lunch at Seasons! For dessert we were offered the platter for 2 if 2 wanted to share--last year we were told we simply couldn't order it. After much examination of the dessert table we decided against it though, because everyone really thought it was sized for 1. I had the creme brulee and the huge raspberries that came with it were to die for! All of the desserts are beautifully done. So we had a positive experience and our server was great. We also really enjoyed the boardwalk atmosphere as well since we were not staying in that area. The street entertainment afterward was a lot of fun and we also rented one of the surrey bikes. That was a blast!!!! And $20 for 30 minutes I thought was really reasonable

 

[kcrew]

I'd love to hear about WPC. I assume you ate there after the menu change, and I haven't read any reviews since then.

Well I don't know if you have ever been there but it is definitely loud and chaotic. Our service was probably least attentive here, and we were stuffed into a back corner so we couldn't really get anyone's attention. We had tag team service and our entrees were actually brought out by the chef and kitchen staff! Still I wouldn't say the service was bad--would have just liked my glass not to be empty.
The crab cakes were not on the appy menu and we had the BBQ quesadilla, cheese dip(allears says spinich, but I swear it is artichoke now), calamari and the chips w/bleu cheese. DS enjoyed the quesadilla, calamari was good, and DH simply said the chips were "different" so not sure what that means! The dip was tasty as well as the flatbread toast, but it was sooo rich and heavy, and it was hard to locate any artichoke--super cheesy. We were served some really nice foccacia bread w/ just plain oil though.
For an entree I had the pumkin ravioli and it was the most creative, unusual thing I had the entire trip--very different and enjoyable. I ordered it w/ the chicken add on. This was just a few chunks of plain, dry chicken breast--I did not eat it and was not hungry enough to send it back. If paying OOP I would have asked for it to be removed from the bill. Also order were the Wofredo Fetuccini and the Bolgnese Fetucinni--both were described as nothing special. DS10 had the bbq chicken flatbread without tomatoes--he didn't say too much about it. DS7 had the tic tac toe pizza and declared that it was "just regular pizza and not as good as home". The showstopper though was DS9 and the WHOLE CHICKEN!! Okay, we went to Medivial Times and were served "whole chicken" and it was barely a cornish hen size, but this was a family roaster! I can not believe I have never read about this!! I mean, a family of 4 could eat off this thing!! We all had a good laugh over it, It was cooked very nicely. The next time someone posts a "Where can we share?' thread I will have an answer!
I was crushed when the server told me they were out of Creme Brulee, so I just played with the cheesecake. DH did not want desset so the server allowed him to have an coffee instead. The Key Lime Pie was a hit. At the end of the meal the bill came out with no prices on it, and since we were trying to keep track a little we asked the server for the total. She said they never get a total for DDP but she actually went and wrote down all of the prices on a piece of paper for us. We didn't ask her to, and we thought it was very nice. Overall, I would still give the place another try I guess, but the ambience really wasn't very pleasnt to me, more so than any issue with the food or service.

 

[Minniespal]

Excellent, thanx for posting.