I cannot recommend the concierge breakfast at the Anabella.
We've stayed at the Anabella about a half dozen times between 2013-14 -- it was our go-to
Disneyland-area hotel for a while.
Never again. The last time we stayed at the Anabella was over the holidays last year. We decided to extend our trip and contacted the reservations line, who sold us on upgrading to a concierge room because the Anabella was offering a special rate on their concierge rooms and my kitchen table math showed we'd be paying about the same price for a standard room but would get the free breakfast each day of our stay. Boy, do we regret it.
The concierge breakfast is served at their onsite restaurant, the Tangerine, and you have the option of a hot breakfast of eggs your way, potatoes, and bacon; or fresh fruits and a pastry; plus juice or coffee. You receive little yellow paper slips when you check in that are dated and redeemable for each day of your stay. Both choices are plated and I'd say better quality than your usual motel breakfast buffet. However, we've had some of the
worst service at the Tangerine to the point where if the meal weren't included, we wouldn't bother. I truly believe that because we only patronize Tangerine when our meal is "free," we get treated like second-class guests.
On the second day of our last stay, we arrived for breakfast, were seated, and then ignored for about 15 minutes. Generally, the hostesses have always been more surly to us than not. We had presented our vouchers at arrival and our hostess pointed that our waiter would be with us shortly to take our order. The restaurant was just a little more than half full, but I saw several other tables waiting impatiently. Not a good sign. Our "waiter" never came by to take our order, even when we tried repeatedly to flag him down and even called a busboy to call his attention. Instead, our waiter kept passing our table and fussing over a large party, refilling their water, clearing their plates, etc., before moving on to tables that had left to grab the checks and his tips. We talked to the hostess, who was no help, and decided to leave and have our breakfast in the park instead. We never returned to the Tangerine again, since this experience was a real damper on our holiday vacation, and we'll never stay at the Anabella again.
We had our vouchers on our table in plain view, which was probably a mistake because we felt like our waiter kept passing us thinking he wouldn't get much of a tip from us. (For the record, we always tip generously even on complimentary meals because we know our server still performed a service.) Otherwise, there wasn't any excuse for our waiter not to take a simple order -- since the concierge breakfast only offers you
two choices, send the order to the kitchen to get our breakfast started, then go back to serving other tables that were almost done.
I can't say that we've ever had a good "complimentary" meal at the Tangerine. The Anabella runs so many specials that include complimentary breakfasts or dining credits through their own site, coupon sites like LivingSocial, Groupon and
Amazon Local, that I'm sure most of their diners must be using a voucher. Consequently, their wait staff must have little motivation to provide good service in the face of possibly low or no tips. That, or they're just poorly trained and managed.
Honestly, you're paying too much money to the Anabella to be treated like sh*t. Nothing is worth that, not even a free meal.
On the other hand, we've had nothing but good experiences at BWPPI -- one of our new go-to hotels (the other is the Candy Cane Inn). Both include a complimentary breakfast without the sh*tty attitude.
