Are we the only ones not at all impressed with the food at WDW?

[Laura]

I'm not terribly impressed by WDW's food at table service restaurants. We thought Boma was great, Biergarten was good but nothing out of this world, and while I loved my risotto at Raglan Road, it's now off the menu. DH wasn't wowed by his meal. But I don't go to WDW for the food. If I wanted a gastronomic vacation, I'd go to NYC or San Francisco or whatever. WDW is not catering to both locals and tourists, they're trying to appeal to the masses of people who come from all over the country/world to see Mickey. I'm sure eating offsite you'll find better "regular" restaurants, and the fine dining would be "finer".

Counter service on our last trip was generally better than I was expecting. Lots of choices for me as a vegetarian, some more healthy items--generally, better variety than they've had in the past when it was all burgers and dogs. Expensive? Yes, but WDW has really good fast food for a theme park.

 

[pta-mom]

Do tell!

We are going for 8 days in January and are renting a car so many of our meals will be off-site. However, the 4 places we are looking at are WCC, CM, Ohana and a lunch at sci-fi (for the atmosphere). We have 4 and 7 yr old boys.

If there's a specific dish at WCC or CM that you can let us know about, that would be great. I thought CM was buffet and WCC was a choice? We were planning on buffet at WCC but if there's a special dish we don't know about...

WCC has a family platter that they serve that is very popular on the DIS & yes, CM has a buffet. Both places are known as well for their entertainment value (WCC's CM's antics) & CM has character dining. I've never eaten at WCC but I have at CM....the food is certainly edible but by no means' fine dining. Your 4 & 7 year olds will however, love it.

 

[gina2000]

For the most part, dining in the resort restaurants has been better than any of the theme park restaurants and that includes EPCOT. I do think, however, that prices have gotten out of control verses the food quality. It's one thing to get an Applebees type meal at an Applebee's type price.....it's another to be paying 40-50% higher. And I know people always say it's because it's a theme park and captive audience but the reality is that people don't go to WDW for one day. They go for several days and the restaurants are busy so why not give patrons some value? The DDP had been the answer but with declining quality, smaller portion sizes and rising costs, it no longer is. We've gone back to offsite dining and we're happier.

 

[Andy B]

Firstly it seems the OP had mainly chosen dining experience restaurants rather than quality of food restaurants, therefore you have the surroundings atmosphere and characters as well as the food.

Secondly the Mushroom fillet at Le Cellier was the best entree I had when we were there in August as the whole dish was good not just a piece of meat.

 

[Miz Diz]

I enjoy the TS at the resorts, more so than the parks. We love Le Cellier at Epcot. We ate at Brown Derby once and was not impressed - although Food Network featured them on a show as a MUST!

California Grill is our favorite.

 

[Mickiethepooh]

I have never thought highly of any Disney food. Even if culinary schools from all over send people there to train. the only truely positively memorable meals I have had there have been at Boatwrights, both breakfast and dinner and Alfredo's which is now gone. and I have eaten at most of the places over the many years I have gone there.

 

[ntsammy5]

... I definitely think you have a point. I've got to think about this one. I think a lot of it has to do with the ambiance and the fact that everyone is on vacation at WDW.

 

[asmit4]

Depends on where you are coming from & your family budget in a lot of instances.

I have a girlfriend that lives in the "middle of nowhere" and by that I mean, it's over an HOUR to get to the nearest grocery store! She grew up in Chicago but now lives in farm country.

To her, driving to any # of restaurants just isnt possible. For us, we can get ANY kind of food we want within 10 minutes drive- mexican, all sorts of fast food, chinese, thai, BBQ, steakhouses etc.

Also, many people don't go out to eat much at home. If you are on a strict budget, going out to eat is a luxury. My husband and I don't have kids yet, so we tend to do takeout once a week and go out to eat at a sit down place once a week. For us, going out and getting a burger and fries or getting ribs is not a "big thing".

On the flip side, we went out to eat with some friends about 3 months ago for dinner, they have 2 kids under the age of 8 at home. While eating, they said they had not eaten at a restaurant (even with the kids) in 4 months....lots of families, for various reasons, just don't eat out much.

It's all about perspective I think.

 

[Markstudy]

I look at the bussiness model behind Disney Food

Its Disney's goal is to provide High Quality Theme Park Food. If you keep in mind... that for Theme Parks, they are the tops in their catagory....but they can't compete with restarants that only serve food because Disney has to deal with huge crowds, average taste, make the food so that as-many people as-possable can eat the dishes. A good resturant can cater so much more to exact taste and be so much more focused. Disney has to keep it safe to apeal to 100,000,000 from all over the world (spice it down)

A $60 meal in my hometown is probably a $90 meal at Disney because you are paying for the location....the benefit of being so close to the rides and attractions, and the time savings. Disney adds about 30% to the bill for this benefit.

So I don't compaire a $90 meal at Disney to a $90 meal at home

 

[ADP]

A couple things to keep in mind:

This is theme park food. For theme park food Disney cuisine is very good.
As previously mentioned, food at the resorts is typically better.
Whenever food is cooked for the masses, it will not be great. As many people that dine at Disney World food has to be prepared for the masses.

 

[helenabear]

I think it depends on what your expectations are with the food. We go there expecting something along the lines of Applebee's or TGIFridays in quality. Not bad, but nothing earth shattering. We have our favorites and we have ones we don't like just like all restaurants. Truthfully we never spend a lot of time at TS for that reason. We do far better and eat healthier in general if we stick to CS (not to mention saving money).

 

[Rocktire]

The last few TS meals I've had have been good...not great, but good...I think where Disney has done very well is with the CS food....much better then I remembered...the sandwiches at WL's Roaring Forks were all outstanding, imo...and I found the food at Columbia Harbor House in MK very good as well...those are the two places I got most of my food from on our last trip and I really enjoyed them.

 

[mickeymousemom]

As has been said on many threads, you will find many different opinions on anything and everything about WDW.
As far as the food goes, We are somewhere in the middle. We really have no complaints. I do believe there are many things that are over hyped, such as Dole Whips, turkey legs, and the breadsticks at Le Cellier.
I think many people go to Disney and WANT there to be awesome food, so they MAKE it awesome. Others expect perfection because its Disney and do nothing but complain because things were only mediocre.
I am amazed that people go gaga over the Dole Whips. I can get them at my local fairs and can get pineapple sherbet in the grocery store. The turkey legs are ham on a stick, IMO. The breadsticks at LeCellier are nothing special and the pretzel ones are horrid. If you are mad because they took away your pineapple and caramel at Ohana and replaced it with that decadent bread pudding, then run out and buy a fresh pineapple and some caramel sauce and have at it. This is what we do and it's the same thing, I assure you.
As for the restaurants, we have liked everywhere we've eaten, some more than others. The only one we won't return to in the near future is San Angel Inn. The food was so so and the service was terrible. I've never had BAD food at Disney. Ever(well...that pretzel bread.... ). We aren't picky, we don't expect perfection, we just go and enjoy. Some of the places we love, others hate. Because of the DP, we've been able to eat at places we normally wouldn't which makes it nice.
We like it all, but at the same time, we haven't been GREATLY impressed by anything. Other than Boma, most things we can get at home. We aren't expecting grand and glorious meals, just good food with a nice atmosphere while on vacation. I think this is what we've gotten pretty much every trip.
We go with the flow and alot of the time walk away from a meal talking about things we really enjoyed with maybe a negative or two thrown in.
I think some people expect alot and that's fine for them. We expect decent food and that's what we get almost every time.

 

[Christine]

No offense, but I think some of your restaurant choice were "obvious" failures. I wouldn't set foot in some of them. You've got to find your dining niche at Disney. There are legions of people who thing buffet food makes for a gourmet meal--they LOVE the food at Chef Mickey's which, IMO, is barely edible. With the exception of Le Cellier, I think most of those restaurants are about the entertainment factor, food quanity, and lastly quality.

 

[jfinke]

Our last trip to the California Grill in Jan will probably be our last for a while. Which is unfortunate, because that is where we held our wedding dinner. However, service seems to have dropped, food quality seems to have dropped, and they still do not enforce the dress code.

I was particularly disappointed in the sushi. But, it may be that my sushi tastes has become more sophisticated. Kimono's has far superior sushi.

We also discovered Jiko. Nice, quiet, relaxing atmosphere with just enough variety from your typical fare to make it unique without scaring away too many people. We are definately going back.

We have yet to try V&A, Citricos, Nacoosies (sp?). This trip, we are going to try to hit new places.

I think a lot of the problems are expectations. One you may have many resturants near your home. Two, even in the world showcase, they are still americanized versions of food. I can't swing a hammer without hitting 5 restaraunts that are owned by hispanics. And I have a chinese restaurant a couple of blocks away which is constantly filled with chinese people and the menu on the wall in is mandarin. We even had an authentic german restaurant for a while (now gone ). So, most of the restaurants in the world showcase don't do much for us.

I agree with a couple of the previous posters. Try more resort based TS and the DTD TS.

 

[Laura]

Depends on where you are coming from & your family budget in a lot of instances.

I have a girlfriend that lives in the "middle of nowhere" and by that I mean, it's over an HOUR to get to the nearest grocery store! She grew up in Chicago but now lives in farm country.

To her, driving to any # of restaurants just isnt possible. For us, we can get ANY kind of food we want within 10 minutes drive- mexican, all sorts of fast food, chinese, thai, BBQ, steakhouses etc.

Also, many people don't go out to eat much at home. If you are on a strict budget, going out to eat is a luxury. My husband and I don't have kids yet, so we tend to do takeout once a week and go out to eat at a sit down place once a week. For us, going out and getting a burger and fries or getting ribs is not a "big thing".

On the flip side, we went out to eat with some friends about 3 months ago for dinner, they have 2 kids under the age of 8 at home. While eating, they said they had not eaten at a restaurant (even with the kids) in 4 months....lots of families, for various reasons, just don't eat out much.

It's all about perspective I think.

That's a good point. I used to live in a very small town with only 3 real restaurants. Pizza, burgers and fried chicken baskets were my choices. I thought WDW food was great when I was a kid. Now, I live in a city with great restaurants that feature most of the cuisines you can find in WDW (except Scandinavian, which is why I made a point of going to Akershus--until the princess invasion--sniff). So it's probably not so appealing to me now for that reason.

 

[branv]

It's funny - I consider myself a person that likes all types of food, from junk food to cuisine. I have great appreciation for some of the finest foods but the next day I'd crawl through the desert for some nachos or baked Cheetos What I find inexcusable is anything BLAND. And I think this is what WDW suffers from. Even in the most talked up restaurants or the priciest ones at WDW (and DCL btw), an entree will have a beautiful description but simply not execute on its promise. I remember on my and DH's first trip as a couple to WDW we ate at Brown Derby. I'd read wonderful things about the food and the infamous grapefruit cake. The steak was chewy - sure you have to chew steak, but you shouldn't have to GNAW at it, and certainly not at that price. The grapefruit cake was bland as could be - no not delicate or simply subtle, just bland. On our last trip we ate at Boma. I honestly feel Boma is WDW's best execution - one of the few restaurants still true to its theme and not overly watered down to suit the masses. Is it truly an authentic representation or astounding in quality? Well of course not. It's still a buffet after all. But for what it is, I was impressed and enjoyed trying something different than you'll find around the parks/resorts. Le Cellier surprised me - as with the rest, I expected it to be, well good for park fare. We eat some pretty high quality steaks around here (you know the type, where even the fat tastes like butter?), but the Mushroom Filet was darned impressive. I recognize it may not always be so, of course

I recognize that everyone is going to have a different experience. Even if we didn't take into consideration that everyone has different comfort zones, different expectations, likes, dislikes, the difference can just depend on who was cooking that night, the quality of the food shipment, or how busy they were. I imagine most dishes when created in a test kitchen are great, but suffer in translation to the reality of a busy park kitchen. I truly expect that if we took DH's dad to WDW and on DCL he would find the food GREAT. He also thought the dining room food on RCCL was haute cuisine, yet he turned up his nose at the highly lauded coffee-rubbed venison entree at a bistro we took him to for his birthday ("too much seasoning and not cooked enough" ). The man is a Luby's fanatic. It makes him happy. I think he's missing out. But we both like what we like, and WDW is in a position of trying to please each of us at the opposite end of that spectrum. I honestly think that in the process of trying to please everyone, they sometimes end up messing it up entirely, taking what was once a good restaurant down into a mediocre to bad one (remember how widely loved O'hana used to be?)

But I do love me some Dole Whip

 

[NJOGRE]

We went last September and then just got back yesterday. We have had a total of 11 table service meals between the 2 trips. We chose the most popular places:

Whispering Canyon Cafe
Mama Melrose
Le Cellier (lunch one trip, dinner the next)
Chef Mickey (breakfast one trip, dinner the next)
Princess breakfast at Epcot
Boma breakfast
O'hana breakfast
Sci-Fi lunch
Tonys Town Square dinner

I cannot say that 1 meal we had was really great. This trip we thought Le Cellier was good, not great. If it was a local restaurant I can't say we'd go back, we have much better local steakhouses near home. Tonys Town Square and Mama Melrose were just downright awful! We did not care for WCC at all, the food was all dry and a bit overdone. O'hana breakfast was ok, nothing special. Chef Mickey breakfast last year was way better than the dinner this year. We all wound up eating more off the kids section and filling up on desserts, just couldn't find anything in the adult area that had any taste. Sci Fi was ok as far as greasy fast food goes. I do realize that we shouldn't expect much out of character meals food-wise, and we go mainly for the kids to have the experience of the characters. But the way people rave about the restaurants and how they can't wait to go for all this great food has me wondering what we're doing wrong.

So I'm wondering, does anyone else think the food just isn't that great? Or are we the only ones? Because of now having 2 experiences with free dining and not being at all impressed we're thinking we may just go in December next trip and enjoy nicer weather than icky food.

Come on you need to step up to the plate and eat at a real resturant in the world, Go to California Grill or Flying Fish or Narcossi (spelling) to get a good meal. The places you went pretty much push out fast food, to the masses. ITs good for what it is, fast food. But if you want to get good food you need to go to the signature places that will cost you $200 a meal to get good food. Get off the free dining and spend some money and you will get good food.

You also got to remember just because people rant about the food doesn't mean its good. Look where these people are from. In some places in the USA, Applebeas & Olive Garden is really good food. I know I am a food snob but being form NJ 20 miles outside of the city, I get really good food and wouldn't place 1 step inside of an Olive Garden.

Again I must say if you want good food get off of the free dining, and spend some good hard cash at the signatures at the resorts, You won't be upset

 

[ElizabethB]

I just returned from a trip with girlfriends. The 1 TS restaurants have declined, IMO. A place like Spoodles used to offer lots of great choices and some unique and rather inventive dishes. No more. We used to love Chefs de France but don't go there anymore. We had an okay lunch at Coral Reef, but the price was outrageous. We ordered the "surf and turf appetizer" which, for something like $11 turned out to be a couple of insipid shrimp and a couple of pieces of meat. Clearly, the appetizer was designed to be a cheap one to give people on the DDP. Unfortunately, we were paying OOP for it. Alfredo's was still pretty good, but of course they're now shuttered.

We don't care for buffets so don't go to those. But, we have certainly seen a decline in quality at the 1TS restaurants, especially those in Epcot. The WDW goal seems to be to make everything kind of an Appleby's food-wise. I guess that's partly a function of that's what a lot of people like, and partly a function of DDP and trying to bring the costs of the DDP in line with the amount being paid for it. Oh yeah, I forgot, as of 2008 DDP will be a profit center given the more than 20% price increase imposed via deletion of the appetizer (no real loss since appetizers have declined so much in quality) and the 18% tip.

What's the answer? We go to 1TS restaurants if there is an experience to be had that we want -- we want to see the fish at Coral Reef, we want to sit in a car at SciFi. Otherwise, we stick to Signature Dining places.

As for counter service, what we had was really not good. We ate at, I think it's called Cosmic Ray's in Tomorrowland. Basically, big portions of inedible food. The ribs were very fatty and, oddly, tasteless to boot. The chocolate cake dessert was . . . well . . . .just gross.

Overall, we came away less than impressed with WDW food, too. And, I don't go for all the excuses -- it's theme park food and whatnot. There used to be some 1TS restaurants, especially in Epcot, that were pretty decent. Not any more.

We were even underwhelmed by the food offerings at GF RPC. Some good, some okay, but there clearly was an effort made to not serve some pricier things like berries at breakfast and shrimp at cocktail hour. And, the price was $700 per night! But, if people will pay it . . . . .

As DH often says, there is nothing so good at WDW that a couple of MBAs with sharp pencils can't ruin it. DH is to the point that only the F&W Festival will lure him there anymore. When that goes the way of other Disney Dining (notice I didn't say if, but when), that'll be it.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Another good resource to consider when planning your ADR's is Kevin's restaurant reviews on the DIS Unplugged Podcast, as well as the roundtable discussions. They could've saved OP from bad decisions on WCC and Chef Mickey's, to name a couple, and pointed to some good choices not on OP's list.