Crystal Palace was horrible

[rance]

By far worst meal I have ever had at disney!

Night before did park fare 1900 for dinner. A+ fabulous dinner. great food, great setting great characters awesome night.

Lilo and stitch breakfast...again awesome. not rushed, good fresh food, very enjoyable.

Crystal Palace for dinner...seriously 1 out of 10. Had 6:20 reservation or ADR, got seated at 7:10. The carpets and decor looked very worn and wall to wall people.
Waitresses took 10 minutes to get to us to get drinks. Characters were very quick and rushed. Food was horrible. Raw meat, the potatoes had mixed with the salmom beside it and the dessert table was one big mess.

kids wanted out after such a long wait. I took two chocoalate chip cookies from buffet that kids did not have time to eat was told could not leave with the cookies. Asked for a cup of tea and was told the burner was broken so couldnt get hot water.

waited another 10 minutes for bill.

This place felt like a ride rather then dining experience.

Not up to disney standard. Why if ADR are behind 55 minutes do they take walk ins ahead??

great trip and good meals, but not hear.

 

[rjand4more]

Sorry you had a bad experience! We have always enjoyed our meals there. We also do not have good experiences in some of the most popular places(Chef Mickey, Boma)

 

[carly chloe]

Wow! You must of had a bad night. We always eat there and it is always good.

 

[ericamcl]

So sorry you had such a bad experience - DH and I love Crystal Palace - in fact, we have breakfast there every trip on our first "full" Disney day

 

[tigeramy75]

So sorry to hear that you had a bad experience! CP is our traditional lunch on our first park day, and we have always loved it. We have never done dinner there, though, so I can't speak to that. Glad you enjoyed your other meals...we love the Lilo and Stitch breakfast too!!!

 

[mommyrosa2]

We ate dinner here during our most recent trip 2 wks ago...thought we'd try it one more time since our last visit for breakfast was back in 2005 (and wasn't good). As much as I hate to admit it, this dinner was just NOT good. We too ended up waiting 30 min past our ADR's, got seated, watched walk-ins get seated just as quickly & the dinner just went downhill from there. They kept running out of food in certain stations & they were not replenishing quick enough...saw a lot of folks getting annoyed. The kids station was a complete mess (Mac & chz was in the chic nuggets tray, etc). We felt a lot of the food was barely edible and the dessert station was not good either. We didn't go in with high expectations based on our last experience, in fact the only reason we went at all was b/c my youngest DD chose this place for the character interaction & in our family, everyone gets a choice. Character interaction was definitely rushed & just ok...thought cape may breakfast character interaction was MUCH better. We won't be returning to CP anytime soon. And I agree breakfast w/ LILO & stitch was awesome...food was fresh, tasty & the character interaction was great!

 

[pumba]

we go there once or twice a year...and enjoy the restaurant and the food...Sorry that you had a bad experience.

as far as taking the cookies....after you ate your dinner, I see no reason for not allowing you to leave with them....weird..My grandson left with an apple last year...and they didnt say anything ...

Hope that you give this restaurant another try because the place is usually clean and food has been pretty good ...

They refurbished CP not that long ago...I cant remember if it was last year or this past year...but recently..

thanks for your review ....it is always good to have everyones likes and dislikes posted..

 

[mickeynut1]

We had dinner at CP in 2004 and it was horrible. I thought maybe we just hit a bad night, but what you report in your post is alot like the experience we had. I remember DH cutting into his salmon and it was raw .....and the rest of the food was just luke warm and not very tasty. Glad you had other great meals elsewhere .

 

[Patience]

Sorry your dinner was bad. We ate there for breakfast the first week of October and enjoyed our food and the characters. Our server, however, was a different story. We had great servers the whole week and CP was our last table service meal and the server was very inattentive. Overall, though, I would go there for breakfast again.

BTW, like you, we enjoyed our dinner at 1900 Park Fare very much.

 

[bowbat]

We also had a mediocre experience there last year. There was a huge crush of people outside waiting for tables, walk-ups were being turned away. We were seated probably 30 minutes past our ADR. Inside the restaurant, though, half of the tables were empty & piled with dirty dishes...and most of them remained that way throughout our meal. The food was every bad stereotype of buffet food -- overcooked, bland, tired. Our server was pleasant but mostly missing. The one bright spot was the characters -- they were awesome & spent a lot of time with the kids & really hammed it up.

IDK, I have friends who just adore it there, so I figured maybe we hit an off night where they were understaffed or something. I'm certainly in no rush to go back, though, that's for sure.

 

[coltsfanatic]

Wow! This was our family's favorite meal and restaurant of our last trip!

 

[pumba]

this is the main reason not to base your reservations on anyones experience or food.....cause we all had different ones at one time or another....

 

[ChelleMouse]

I totally agree. CP is awful. We will never eat there again, ever. It's got to be one of the worst meals at Disney that we've ever had.

 

[MickeyNicki]

I agree with you but then again we think all dinner buffets except for Cape May are disgusting

 

[wdwnut61]

So sorry about your dining experience with CP. We have never eaten dinner there but always have lunch on our MK days. Our last visit was July 2010 and both the restaurant and buffet were clean, the food was delicious and our server was great.

Our next trip is in 12 days and we have CP booked for an early breakfast before MK opens. We are really looking forward to trying breakfast since lunch was so good.

I know every restaurant can have an off night hopefully you can give CP a try again

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

We had dinner at CP once and then switched to breakfast. Dinner wasn't impressive.

We've had good luck with the breakfasts though.

I really think in terms of TS meals you are so much better off going right when the place opens so they're not behind and characters/ waitresses etc are less rushed. Somewhere like CP that's open all day is more challenging if you're aiming for dinner.

 

[Infamousmare]

You know, we just thought we had a random bad experience there last year. Sounds like we were not alone...

Went to CP for an early dinner last September (we had also been to CM's, CRT, 1900 PF, etc. and loved each of them). We waited over 30 mins after our ADR to be seated (and the hostess was extremely impatient), the place was terribly crowded, extremely loud, kids were running everywhere and the buffet was a mess (to put it lightly). Of course, I have anaphylactic allergies and was terrified to eat b/c someone had spilled shrimp from the salad bar into several adjoining food trays. Ugh. The characters were fun, but that was about it.

We don't mind chaotic character meals, but this was over the top. We have no desire to ever eat there again.

 

[Infamousmare]

You know, after I posted that bit, I realized that most of our character meals were breakfasts - CP was the only dinner character meal we had. I wonder if the breakfasts are a bit better?

 

[catne]

we've eaten at CP several times over the past couple of years and really enjoyed it every time...BUT, it's all been either first-breakfast reservation time in the AM, or early lunch, not too long after breakfast transitioned into lunch (11:30) so all the food & food stations are hot & fresh...and tables are not full so characters have plenty of time to interact with people.

We have walked past there at "prime" meal times and been amazed at the huge crowds of people waiting. Think that's probably the difference between good experience/bad experience...getting there before they get busy.

 

[emmabemmainc]

I've had dinner there twice and breakfast there 4 times and breakfast is so much better! We never have had the waiting issues or the worn out decor problems, but just food wise, breakfast is a lot better. We went in April for dinner and I didn't notice the old and dirty decor at all. If they just refurbished it, I doubt that was the case. No offense, of course.