Comments on Pizza Planet

[thelittlemermaid83]

Sorry to hear you had such a awful time here.

 

[Booknut]

Sorry you had such a horrible time, i'd be so disappointed if that happened to my baby girl on her birthday. I've been told the birthday tea party is at the Lucky Nugget Saloon so I hope they don't change that.

 

[sara969]

I was thinking of booking this so Hannah could get to meet Buzz, but im not too sure now

Im confused.... so the character Tea used to be in Plaza gardens now it has moved too Pizza Planet, but if you want to have a Birthday Tea, then its not at Pizza Planet, it will be at Lucky Nugget???

 

[gemmybear83]

I was thinking of booking this so Hannah could get to meet Buzz, but im not too sure now

Im confused.... so the character Tea used to be in Plaza gardens now it has moved too Pizza Planet, but if you want to have a Birthday Tea, then its not at Pizza Planet, it will be at Lucky Nugget???

I'm confused too - if so I might lie and say its my birthday so we can go for the birthday tea at the lucky nugget!

 

[tripodjw]

I was thinking of booking this so Hannah could get to meet Buzz, but im not too sure now

Im confused.... so the character Tea used to be in Plaza gardens now it has moved too Pizza Planet, but if you want to have a Birthday Tea, then its not at Pizza Planet, it will be at Lucky Nugget???

That seems to be the case, i seem to have been unlucky in that mine was booked for around the time of the change and there was poor communication getting the info to me.

I've learnt that anything like this in future where there has been a change of time/venue i will double check in city hall early on the day of my booking.

It may be that they haven't got into the hang of things at PP yet and within a week or two it will be sorted out, but as it was last week i would not recommend the PizzaPlanet tea party to anyone.

 

[Cyrano]

Just moving these from the review thread. Remember that posters are entitled to record positive and negative experiences for the purposes of the review.
Further comments on the review will be deleted

 

[Melodyuk]

Sorry to hear you had such a awful time here.

confused.com

Who had an awful time and what did they say? LOL!!!! Have I missed something lol..

 

[ghockley1981]

All these comments are referring to the below :

Hi all

I got back from DLRP yesterday, i'll be doing a proper TR once i have my pics sorted and uploaded to flickr (i have 1500 to get through).

Anyway, on Friday (3 Oct) we went to the Tea Party.

We had booked it as a birthday tea party at Plaza Gardens. Originally the change to PizzaPlanet was not due to be til Nov and this was changed to 1 Oct.

If you can't be bothered to read the below my summary is that it was poor (poor organisation, poor interaction and not great food).

Comments in full...

I got a telephone call from Disney the morning we left telling me that the venue and time had changed (now 5 pm). So far so good.

We arrived at PP at 5pm and were made to wait outside until they were ready inside. On arrival most people had prepaid vouchers which they just handed in and could sit down. As we were paying for the birthday tea (or so i thought) we were shuffled off and left by the tills for 5 mins before we could pay.

Then they wouldn't take a discount from either the Shareholders card or AP (remember the discount is for table and buffet service and the tea party id a buffet). I made a fuss saying that we had booked for Plaza Gardens who always take the discount, but they were adamant they couldn't give any discount because Pizza Planet is a counter service restuarant (even though he food we were getting was buffet).

Then i also found that they no longer do the birthday tea - so no birthday cake, no little present, and no singing. That got me really annoyed. I'd booked 2 months out for the birthday tea for a birthday which happened to be our last full day in the park.

Because i booked this i didn't bother getting a cake elsewhere. I was most annoyed about the fact that i was not told when they phoned to tell me of the venue/time change that there was no birthday tea anymore. If they had i would have cancelled and gone to a proper character meal for lunch instead with a cake. (As it turns out there was a message on my answer machine when i got home asking me to call Disney about the birthday tea party booking - but that was left 1 day before the actual tea party).

So finally, we got sat down. PP was freezing cold, it is currently closed for all meals except the tea party and they obviously hadn't put the heating on, even the CM's were walking around in coats, scarves and gloves.

The food - pretty poor imho. There was not very much food available, by the time we'd paid - virtually everything had gone, and they were very slow at bringing more out. The food that was there was tatsy enough but i thought the choice was poor and not up to par of the desserts/cakes you get in Plaza Gardens. There were some choc chip cookies, cherry tartlets, cold waffles with chocolate spread sandwiched between them, mini muffins, marshmallows and chocolate mousse. There were cans of pop and hot drinks available. No savoury food at all.

Characters - Woody and Jessie started it out. They did a reasonable job of working the room and going to all tables. There was lots of kids rushing up to them though making it difficult to walk around as people were queueing to have pics taken. After Woody and Jessie went away, Buzz came out. This was horrendous. There was a big gap between woody/jessie going in and buzz coming out. So most people had finished eating. As soon as Buzz appeared he was mobbed. Buzz spent about 10-15 mins in one place with people queuing to get pics with him.

The CM minder kept asking Buzz to walk around but he just gave in and posed with the people in the queue. Personally i think the minder should have been shooing the audience back to the tables so Buzz could visit tables.

I refuse to do things the wrong way as imho it encourages bad behaviour of others (and the whole point of character meals is that the characters come to you) so we waited at our table, as did a group of disabled kids in wheelchairs. Buzz never even came near our table and i'm not sure he went to see the disabled kids either. When his time was up he just stopped where he was and went back to the "exit" under the playpark. He played with some kids on the park and went in.

I hate to criticise anything Disney but i was very disappointed with the whole tea party experience. I certainly won't be doing it again while it is Pizza Planet. I had to keep apologising to my DH as i was so disapointed that he hadn't got his birthday tea (not that he'd been expecting it and he keeps saying it is the thought that counts). I would hate to have gone with a little kid who was expecting to have a cake, pressie and characters sing to them.

The only thing you gain is seeing Buzz, as you can see Jessie and Woody down in Frontierland.

For about the same price you can upgrade your hotel breakfast to breakfast in Cafe Mickey and there was much better character interaction and food there.

I'm still deciding, but i will probably write and complain about the whole thing. it was very un-disney like and the only bad experience i've had at Disney (except my dad losing my camera in WDW when i was kid but that's not Disney's fault).

It's a real shame it didn't work out for you. Hopefully they'll get it sorted out sharpish for others before it gains a reputation

 

[Melodyuk]

Thanks

Sorry you had such a bad experience, hopefully it didnt ruin your trip

 

[tripodjw]

Thanks all for kind comments.

It didn't ruin trip at all, a 60 minute blip in an otherwise wonderful trip. Just annoyed me more on the basis i had gone to a lot of effort to try and organise a nice surprise that turned out to be less than the Disney standard i've come to expect and love.

I reckon we'll just have to go back again and try the birthday tea in the lucky nugget - even if it won't actually be DH's birthday.

 

[Rachie B]

when i first read i thought it was a child who's birthday you were celebrating!

hope your husband wasnt too disappointed !

we loved the tea party @ plaza gardens

and was going to try it @ pizza planet in dec,hope it is better organised then!

 

[DLPdaft]

I would definitely complain - the organisation and information you received before you went appears to have been incorrect, and your experience with the characters, and with the staff, at PP is very un-Disney.

In my experience, if you point these things out in a letter or email, keeping it factual and objective, and ask for a response, issues like these do get looked into.

 

[Jonjo]

Dones anyone know why have they moved the Tea Parties from Plaza Gardens to Pizza Planet? I had a feeling they would not work very well in their new location..

 

[tripodjw]

Dones anyone know why have they moved the Tea Parties from Plaza Gardens to Pizza Planet? I had a feeling they would not work very well in their new location..

I'm guessing a combination of capacity and improving profit.

Plaza Gardens is fairly small but a relatively higher cost meal. So the tea party was taking up pretty much half the restaurant for a lower cost meal than the proper buffet, plus between tea parties there was no income at all in that half. Plus PG is pretty popular for the normal buffet, i'd say it is probably the most popular non-counter service restaurant in the park. Hence they're maximising the number of normal buffet diners in PG.

Pizza Planet is bigger so they can increase the number of people attending the tea party and as it is counter service each table probably takes in less per seat than the tea party does per seat. (typically up to 12 Euro per person instead of 15 for tea party). Finally, Pizza Planet is currently closed for counter service, so they ar ein fact maximising profit for using the restaurant for only 60-90 minutes with minimal staff needed (and as i mentioned not even bothering to turn the heating on).

I have no problem with Disney maximising profit from their facilities just wished they were implementing it better.