Dear Disney....A new years wish!

[eliza61]

Some people think all chain restaurants are bad. I find them adequate for the crowds they draw and for the prices they charge.
However we go to WDW for the parks and personally, I'd go to New Orleans for food. I LOVE the food in NOLA!

but why can't you do both? I love NOLA, the restaurants there are great. They get almost as many visitors to their restaurants but some how manage to put out jaw dropping meals. The food there is no more expensive than disney, it's a tourist destination also. That's what makes me a bit sad. all these other places have proven that it is possible to feed masses of people great food consistently.

Same with NYC and Las Vegas.

Why is it possible that all these other tourist destinations with millions of visitors every year, just like disney manage to put out top quality food but some how Disney is the only place that can't?

I just don't get it.

You hit the nail on the head. I like chilis. it's quick, decent, inexpensive but what would happen if chilis all of a sudden double the price? Would we still think it's acceptable? Nope.

 

[rie'smom]

When I think WDW food, I think Golden Corral with Golden Corral getting the edge. The exception would be The Coral Reef.
Maybe it's because we live in south Louisiana where we refer to onion, bell pepper, and celery as the "holy trinity".

 

[Pakey]

We are not gamblers but love vacationing in Las Vegas since they decided to ramp up the food there.

Picasso and Robuchon are my favorite 5 stars but I also love Mesa Grill, B&B Ristorante, Red Square, Aureole, Bouchon (the beignets here are worth the flight) and a ton of other casual places.

Also, the shows are very good. And the shopping.

This is our go-to destination for food now. The Disney boat sailed a long time ago.

 

[DeluxePrincess]

I really enjoy eating in Las Vegas. Even the buffets are delicious.

 

[Jennasis]

When I think WDW food, I think Golden Corral with Golden Corral getting the edge. The exception would be The Coral Reef.
Maybe it's because we live in south Louisiana where we refer to onion, bell pepper, and celery as the "holy trinity".

Odd...both Golden Corrals in my area are just the pits. I wouldn't even mention them in the same sentence. Maybe you're lucky and the GC's by you don't suck out loud.

 

[TDC Nala]

First, convince 'em to stay onsite without a car, while you've got an area where it is extremely difficult to get to any restaurant you don't control without one. Then arrange it so they can prepay all or most of their food at restaurants you designate. Voila, captive audience that is usually perfectly okay with food that is just passable. No need to spend on the food or do any sort of really special preparation when the restaurants are full whether you spend or not. At least Victoria & Albert's still exists. For awhile there I was waiting for them to close it and add another princess meal.

There is actually competition in Vegas. If you don't like Monte Carlo's steakhouse, you'll walk over to New York New York. If you don't like Yachtsman, the only alternative is Le Cellier (both Disney operated). Or Shula's - but not if you are on the dining plan.

 

[okeydokey]

Did you ever eat at the ABC Commisary in HS or Electric Umbrella in Epcot? Horrible. I wish they would do away with the dining plan and the free dining promotions.

 

[Jennasis]

Did you ever eat at the ABC Commisary in HS or Electric Umbrella in Epcot? Horrible. I wish they would do away with the dining plan and the free dining promotions.

Is that the one behind The Great Movie Ride (the commissary)? Cause yeah, that burger was inedible.

 

[monkeybug]

Why is it possible that all these other tourist destinations with millions of visitors every year, just like disney manage to put out top quality food but some how Disney is the only place that can't?

I just don't get it.

You hit the nail on the head. I like chilis. it's quick, decent, inexpensive but what would happen if chilis all of a sudden double the price? Would we still think it's acceptable? Nope.

I don't think it's that they can't, it's that they don't. Disney is in business to make money, and if they can offer a lower quality (and I'm guessing less expensive) food and still fill their restaurants than why wouldn't they?
Disney will up their food quality when they need to do so to fill seats in their restaurants.

 

[Planogirl]

but why can't you do both? I love NOLA, the restaurants there are great. They get almost as many visitors to their restaurants but some how manage to put out jaw dropping meals. The food there is no more expensive than disney, it's a tourist destination also. That's what makes me a bit sad. all these other places have proven that it is possible to feed masses of people great food consistently.

Same with NYC and Las Vegas.

Why is it possible that all these other tourist destinations with millions of visitors every year, just like disney manage to put out top quality food but some how Disney is the only place that can't?

I just don't get it.

You hit the nail on the head. I like chilis. it's quick, decent, inexpensive but what would happen if chilis all of a sudden double the price? Would we still think it's acceptable? Nope.

I think that part of it is what TDC Nala said. Competition. There are slews of great restaurants all over those other destinations and they are competing with one another. All that Disney cares about is getting people onsite to eat wherever. Except for a few outside restaurants in Downtown Disney and the Swan and Dolphin, it's all Disney owned so they don't really care where you eat.

Also, themeparks have traditionally not been about food. Disney probably isn't overly concerned about being thought of a great place to eat under their current management.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Did you ever eat at the ABC Commisary in HS or Electric Umbrella in Epcot? Horrible. I wish they would do away with the dining plan and the free dining promotions.

Yes, gross. I was speaking of the tableservice restaurants. I thought Electric Umbrella was edible, but certainly nothing I wanted to pay for. The Commissary was disgusting.

 

[katesorad]

Ummm....fish tacos??? San Diego does those VERY well!!!

Ah, I suppose But I'm a vegetarian! So I do the vegetarian sushi and bean burritos.. but I've never experienced a fish taco!

 

[manning]

We rarely eat on WDW property anymore, even with the CM discount. My favorite sandwich at Beaches and Cream has DOUBLED in price in the past few years. Ridiculous.

That says it all about the quality.The help doesn't even like it.

 

[mrodgers]

My wife and I certainly didn't leave LeCellier raving about the cheddar cheese soup and breadsticks. We were on the dining plan, so didn't have the soup, and the breadsticks were really good, but...... We were raving about the steak! My wife had the Fillet over mushroom rissoto whatever and I had my normal ribeye or NY Strip (can't remember which they had now) as I actually prefer not to have fillet (I go for flavor over just simple tenderness.) They were both outstanding steaks.

50's Prime Time Cafe, the fried chicken was mouthwatering, just like I read here.

All others, was just OK (Hoop Dee Doo, Liberty Tree Tavern, and 1900 Park Faire buffet was probably the worst of the 3 and what I would have called terrible actually.)

Now, all I read on the forum was about how much food you got, especially with the counter service meals for lunch. I'm wondering how my lunch experiences was so terrible and I was left wondering how I had read so many times that 1 meal was "more than enough to feed 2 people." The lunch food was mediocre and not huge portions like I had read so many times. I tried to hit up the most common places in each park that I read about.

Aside from LeCellier, the best meal we ate was when we ordered a Pizza for lunch at the Pop Century food court for 2 counter service meals. The little personal pizzas weren't much to write home about, but ordering a full size pizza for 2 CS meals and feeding the 4 of us, that was some pretty darn good pizza.

 

[GeorgeG]

I have never had any interest in going to Las Vegas since I don't gamble, even a little. However, the OP now has me interested! The quality of dining at WDW used to be one of our main bragging points. While it's still possible to get a good meal, I can no longer make recommendations like I used to. What's good one day may be really bad the next. When we go now we hope for the best and sometimes get lucky.

 

[DisneyScraps]

Horrors? Really? It's been about ten years since I've eaten at Applebees, about five years since Fridays and a couple of years since Ruby Tuesday, but have had decent meals at those places. In fact, I loved RT's chicken stir fry. They may not be gourmet restaurants, but I can't see calling them horrors.

For us they were. We recently moved and there were a few dark nights when we were in transit and had to eat out. Service was terrible but that is more regional than anything. I live in a small southern town and they just don't have great service anywhere. I can't blame that on the chains it's more the culture here. It still didn't help with the dining experience.

The food was awful, it was badly cooked, one meal was stone cold, my daughter kids meal but she is a person too and likes her food hot. My entree was a waste of time it was congealed and not worth eating.

Saying that I am a healthy eater, I cook fresh daily so going to a restaurant where everything is fried or frozen is just not my thing. I want something that is going to taste fresh and I just don't get that at a chain.

Other people like it, this I know from the full parking lots at such places as Golden Coral, Ruby Tuesdays etc.

So that is us, I am not saying that anyone that loves those restaurants is wrong, each person has what they like and don't like.

Lisa

 

[skater]

WalMart/Target shopper here. While I agree that the quality of food may have gone downhill, I love free dining. Maybe its just my low brow ways . It makes disney affordable to my family of 5. Its family friendly for the most part. I couldn't afford to feed my 13 year old alone at disney prices . This may prove some points I don't like, but I appreciate that we can go to disney and eat at a variety of restaurants. My kids will literally try anything and some of that can be attributed to "free" dining and the ability to try some weird foods. My DS even ate the blood sausage (not sure if that's what its called, but its something gross like that) at Raglan Road and loved it. If we were paying OOP, I never would have let him order that meat platter because its expensive and I would have been doubtful that he would like it.

Having said all that, I still think the food quality is pretty darn good at some of the restaurants all of the time and at many of the others some of the time. I think Boma has retained good quality. I'm guessing some of the signature restaurants are still good. There's a few places that make us wish we could have better, but there are plenty we still enjoy.

 

[teskak]

We were there for 10 days in December. Our only previous visit was 4 days in 2004 when we just did counter service.

For this trip, the best meals were:
Sanaa
Sweet Tomatos

Brekky at Boma was good, but very similar to many other 5 star hotels that just add some ethnic touches, ie in Malaysia there are malay foods on offer while at Boma there were African / South African.

Mama Melrose - no different to any generic Italian and worse than some (cannot understand the glowing reviews on another disney site)
Hoop de Doo - ick
Tusker - ok

Akershus - amazing how they turned scandanavian food to American bland, salmon came from a can in a burger & venison sausage became a hot dog.

I did all of the organising & DH's only comment was that free dining was fine as he would be pretty put out if we were shelling out real $$

the rest was forgettable

 

[Tiger926]

First, convince 'em to stay onsite without a car, while you've got an area where it is extremely difficult to get to any restaurant you don't control without one. Then arrange it so they can prepay all or most of their food at restaurants you designate. Voila, captive audience that is usually perfectly okay with food that is just passable. No need to spend on the food or do any sort of really special preparation when the restaurants are full whether you spend or not. At least Victoria & Albert's still exists. For awhile there I was waiting for them to close it and add another princess meal.

There is actually competition in Vegas. If you don't like Monte Carlo's steakhouse, you'll walk over to New York New York. If you don't like Yachtsman, the only alternative is Le Cellier (both Disney operated). Or Shula's - but not if you are on the dining plan.

This is exactly what I was going to say - great post!

There is fierece competition in Las Vegas between restaurants - especially between celebrity chefs. Most restaurants in Vegas cater to all clientele, even the celebrity restaurants, so their prices aren't so bad. Plus, they are competing with the casinos. People need to eat, but die-hard gamblers won't step away from the tables, nor the slots (we can't believe it when we see people in the same seats for an entire day at a time!), so the food better be good, or they ain't leavin'!

It's just another market in Vegas, and I really don't think you can compare it to Disney, as that is a different set-up altogether. Disney caters to families, and Vegas caters to adults. Could Disney be Vegas? Sure, and they'll charge $90.00 for a steak instead of $40.00 as that is Disney's business model. There isn't any competition for Disney, as most guests don't leave property, so no need to improve food, nor offer cheaper prices, like in Vegas.

It wouldn't make any sense for Disney to improve their food to gourmet levels, like in Vegas. People's number 1 reason for going to Disney is the parks, and not food, and I really don't think, if they changed to a Vegas food model, that it would draw that many more people in, on a consistent basis over the entire year. They have the Food and Wine Festival in October, and not many celebrity chefs are clamoring to take part in that, and they have Tables in Wonderland special events throughout the year, with visiting chefs, but these all take place at the current Disney restaurants. That's about as much as I think Disney is going to do to mirror Vegas. They are doing well with the current system, so no need to change it.

Tiger

 

[Owlpost23]

Culinary talent will go where the great chefs are-and the better paychecks.Nobody is going to get an admiring glance from someone looking to hire them because they have Akershus or LeCellier on their resume.V and A yes,but the others,not really.