Anyone else have a bad meal at the Coral Reef

[alizesmom]

I like Red Lobster so maybe I'll be fine.

 

[wdwnut61]

I have eaten at Coral Reef 4 times in the past year. Honestly, all meals were wonderful including the service. In fact, my husband rated his meal (steak) the best of all the restaurants we dined at in February. I am planning our next trip and Coral Reef was the top of his list. One thing to note is I always make our ADR here at 11:30 a.m. when they open for lunch. Maybe that has something to do with our good experiences?

That's our plan as well

 

[WantToGoNow]

We have eaten here the last 4 trips and the food has always been really good but to be honest no one in our family has ever ordered seafood here - usually steaks or chicken and ds always has pizza. But the last 3 trips, the service has been really sloooow.

My dd's (27 and 7) ate here on their trip last December and she said it took forever to get their food - apparently my dd7 was standing in the aisle asking various servers where her food was - and she's quite well behaved in restaurants - it just took forever. Then my nut allergic older dd ordered almond gelato of all things and asked for no almonds on top - it came out with almonds so she couldn't eat it (the gelato itself only has almond flavoring which would have been fine). She said the server was quite rude each time she came to the table (which wasn't many) and reminded her of the "recommended tip". I'm guessing she was worried that she wouldn't get much of a tip with one unhappy adult and one child - she was right.

When we started planning our ADR's for this trip, Coral Reef made the cut for the atmosphere alone.

 

[CaptainAlex]

It reads at eatting at CR is a mixed bag at best. We have ADR's for lunch there in a few weeks. I hope the live fish swimming around will keep my kids entertained in the event of slow service.

 

[JessiLynn015]

I've complained about food three times in my life. Once, I found a hair in a wrap at Applebees & had to sent it back. The second & third was at Coral Reef in April '10 & August '10. I love seafood so I usually always order fish. In April, I ordered the Mahi Mahi and OMG it was overwhelmingly SALTY. I had DH try a bite and he too thought it was gross. I felt guilty, but had to send it back. In August, I ordered the pork thinking I would stay away from the fish. Once again, way too salty! The waitress was awesome and let me order something else. I took her up on the offer and ordered the salmon. Ugh. I felt too guilty to send it back. My mom, sister, & brother all agreed that it was too salty though.

 

[patsal]

I like Red Lobster so maybe I'll be fine.

If only our food was that good!

 

[3floridarays]

We've had dinner at Coral Reef twice this year and both meals were extremely good - both the food and service. DH and I both had grouper with risotto that was excellent - and we live at the beach and eat fresh seafood all the time, so we know our grouper. DS loved his steak and ate the whole thing. The chef came to our table no less than 3 times on our last trip to discuss DS's food allergies - 1st to discuss the menu with us and then to tell us about his main course and again when his fantastic specially-made dessert came out.

We have another ADR there for October. Hopefully we will have repeats of our previous visits.

 

[bdcp]

We ate there in 08 for dinner for the first time. It was one of our top two meals on that trip. I had the catfish which is no longer on the menu. We're going again this next trip, also for dinner. I'll probably have to have chicken. I'm allergic to shrimp so I avoid all shellfish/crustaceans since I don't know what I'll react to.

 

[bcrook]

First time we had great service but the food was just ok but since the service was great we tried it again. Well the food was way better not quite great but the service was bad-bad. So I think I am done with CR for a few trips.

And I am ready to be flamed but kids were running all over, squeezing between tables to get to tank. Chairs were being knocked over & such. We were on the second tier great views of the tank. Felt very sorry for those sitting by the tank. That was for the 2nd trip.

Kae

I had almost the same experience. In case of flaming, there is safety in numbers!

 

[Jktrush]

We have eaten there three times in the last few years, most recently in Jan. My kids love it cause my husband has scuba dived in the tank and our kids watched him while they eat their dinner. To me it is probably my least favorite place. I am not sure if I have a particular reason just the food was ok and haven't had good service the last few times we were there.

 

[bdcp]

Our only real complaint when we ate there in 08 was the child that was screaming the entire time. Our waitress told us that the child had been screaming for at least 1/2 hour and the parents just sat there and ate instead of removing the child from the restaurant. It was pretty ridiculous and the waitress was not happy but it was the manager's job to say something and they just let it go. We thought the food was good and the atmosphere (other than the child) was nice. We sat right next to the tank.

 

[DisneyLoverUSA]

We had a horrible experience there in 08 and have never been back. My daughter ordered the kids mahi mahi and told me her broccoli tasted funny. I tasted it, and it was bad - it tasted rancid. My little girl wouldn't even eat her fish after that. We hadn't seen the server in a while, so when she walked by I flagged her down and told her about it. All she said was "ok" - she never offered to get her another side item, take it off the bill, or anything. She then offered us dessert, and turned to DD and said "I don't know if you get dessert since you didn't eat any of your dinner." DD had tears in her eyes, and I said yes, she can have some ice cream. At this point I was pretty angry and just wanted to leave. She plopped the desserts down, handed me the bill and walked off. She had written in big letters "GRATUITY NOT INCLUDED" on the top of the check. I asked another server for a manager, but no one ever came by. Another 15 minutes went by when she came back to pick up the check. She said "did you want me to charge gratuity to your room?" I promptly responded that no, I would just leave cash. I was so offended and so angry at that point that I left - I left a tip but it was not the standard 15-20% I would usually leave. Needless to say, we have never been back.

In a situation like that I very well might have left nothing. I very rarely ever leave less than 20-25% but for someone to treat me like that and to speak to my child that way, kidding or not, I would have left ONE QUARTER. That sends more of a message then leaving nothing.

 

[Nimbusteach]

My friend and I were there 2 years ago and the experience was not a good one. The service was non existent and the food was extremely salty! My friend's was bad enough that she only had one bite.

 

[DRDISNEYMD]

Was it just my family or has anyone else had a bad meal at the Coral Reef?

the management was great there and they made it right but all 3 adult meals had issues. It was the only dissapointing meal out of 18 on our last WDW visit.

The food was just okay. We were seated in a booth directly in front of the tank. I saw the turtle and he was very active.

Now the food, I had blackened catfish, it was edible not horrible. DH had some kind of pork chop again edible, nothing to stand up and shout about.

The biggest disappointment for me was the Key Lime Pie, it was so frozen and sour. We wont be back anytime soon, however we were very grateful for our table and view.

 

[byeo]

I've ate at Coral Reef three times, first two times were good, no problems with service or food. The only little niggle was the fact that young kids and some adults love to push past people sitting at their tables at the front to get right upto the tank. Thankfully we have never been seated that far down and that wont happen, as i wont go back again.

Third time, the food was average, i had the Mahi Mahi and my OH had the NY Strip. The steak was quite fatty and the fish tasted quite dry, our server was fine until it came to payment when "paying" with our KTTW card using the DDP. The server asked in advance (before we orderd) if we were using DDP aswell as explaining what is and is not included. After this, he still went out of his was to explain that tips were not included and then wrote it on the bill too. I understand how tipping works when using the DDP, i dont need him to tell me three times. It seems like all he wanted was the tip.

I wont eat here now due to that server and due to the fact that it's really nosiy.

 

[mantismad]

We have eated at Coral Reef on two ocassions and the food has always been very nice, having said that it was extremely noisy inside and so for that reason it is not somewhere I would choose to return.

 

[krb2g]

We're not all crazy about the quality of the food, but it remains the one thing my little brother asks for every trip, so we go. It was also the place we could get CP processional reservations for the date and time we wanted this trip...