Hello! Longtime reader, first time poster! After reading so many dining reports on here, I wanted to do something similar. So, on my recent trip to Disney World, I decided to review our restaurants...not for the food (which we all know is terrific) but for the service! I had a really hard time finding any reviews of service online so thought I'd contribute! The full reviews are on my blog (I can't post links but the blog is "A Statistician Bakes" at blogspot.com) but I'll post slightly abbreviated versions here (for the pictures though, you should really look at the blog).
The restaurants we dined at are:
Be Our Guest
Yachtsman Steakhouse
Monsieur Paul
Artist Point
California Grill
Also, I'd love to start a discussion...what restaurant did you get the best service at?
The cast of characters include my mom, my sister, and my fiance, Zak. We were also on the Deluxe Dining Plan so you know, a whole lot of food.
Let the reviews commence!
Our first stop was Be Our Guest which is the new restaurant in the Magic Kingdom at Beasts castle. The last time we dined here, we had the best service of our entire trip. So our expectations were pretty high. My sister and I checked in at the castle exactly on time for our 7:20 reservation. My mom and Zak, however, had underestimated how long it takes to get from the hotel to the restaurant so alas, we were THOSE people who got buzzed but didnt have our whole party. So we waited behind the iron gate of the castle, punished for our sin of checking in without our entire party. On the bright side, we met a fascinating member of the custodial staff who entertained us with discussing Doctor Who and his encounter with John Barrowman (BARROWMAN!). Once the late people arrived, we were escorted into the restaurant. The hostess nicely explained the different rooms in the castle and we were seated in the West Wing. Our waiter greeted us and took our drink orders. We ordered a bottle of wine for the table (Conundrum, a crisp, fruity white) and while we were all pulling out our IDs, he kept trying to push us to order appetizers. I mean, really? We had barely even read the menu yet! We shooed him away until after our drink orders arrived. We placed our orders and as he walked away, we realized that he never actually explained the dining plan to us. This wasnt a big deal to us because we knew what was included but we also know that theyre supposed to explain the inclusions of the plan to us whether we want them to or not. Strike 1. The next major test is the pouring of the wine. Our waiter gave us nice, healthy pour with no drips. Also, I got to taste the wine which is so rare! Probably because I always look like the youngest there. However, the wine pouring failed during the appetizers. Understandably, its hard to split a bottle of wine among four people but what you dont do is top off three peoples glasses until the bottle is empty and give nothing to the fourth person. We are not a fan of that. So, alas, my mom only got one glass of wine during this meal. She also got the short end of the stick because the appetizer plates were cleared while she was still eating. This may be my biggest pet peeve. Everyone should be done eating so no one feels rushed. The same thing happened to Zak during our entrée. The waiter then tried to show us the dessert cart while our entrees were still on the table. Talk about being rushed! We actually did not let him describe the desserts until after we were done with our entrees. The moment our plates were cleared though, he was back to give us our desserts. He didnt even offer dessert drink options (since we hadnt yet used our non-alcoholic beverage) and we had to ask for the types of tea and coffee that were available. There was also some confusion when the check came because only then did he mention the dining plan which he kept referring to as coupons instead of credits. Overall, the meal was pretty rushed. We anticipated this a bit because it is a restaurant inside a park and Im sure most people want to get moving quickly. However, a good waiter would have recognized that we were in no rush after one of our multiple attempts to get him to slow the pace. A couple of side notes: the waiter was quite soft-spoken for a loud restaurant and the room we were in routinely had loud thunder which scared the bejeezus out of my sister every time. Overall, not a great service experience but it was what Id call ok. Not offensive, not outstanding, just a mid-level start to our vacation.
Thanks for reading, and if anyone is interested, I'll post the rest! Otherwise, I'll just let the thread die a quiet death and drift gently into the night.
The restaurants we dined at are:
Be Our Guest
Yachtsman Steakhouse
Monsieur Paul
Artist Point
California Grill
Also, I'd love to start a discussion...what restaurant did you get the best service at?
The cast of characters include my mom, my sister, and my fiance, Zak. We were also on the Deluxe Dining Plan so you know, a whole lot of food.
Let the reviews commence!
Our first stop was Be Our Guest which is the new restaurant in the Magic Kingdom at Beasts castle. The last time we dined here, we had the best service of our entire trip. So our expectations were pretty high. My sister and I checked in at the castle exactly on time for our 7:20 reservation. My mom and Zak, however, had underestimated how long it takes to get from the hotel to the restaurant so alas, we were THOSE people who got buzzed but didnt have our whole party. So we waited behind the iron gate of the castle, punished for our sin of checking in without our entire party. On the bright side, we met a fascinating member of the custodial staff who entertained us with discussing Doctor Who and his encounter with John Barrowman (BARROWMAN!). Once the late people arrived, we were escorted into the restaurant. The hostess nicely explained the different rooms in the castle and we were seated in the West Wing. Our waiter greeted us and took our drink orders. We ordered a bottle of wine for the table (Conundrum, a crisp, fruity white) and while we were all pulling out our IDs, he kept trying to push us to order appetizers. I mean, really? We had barely even read the menu yet! We shooed him away until after our drink orders arrived. We placed our orders and as he walked away, we realized that he never actually explained the dining plan to us. This wasnt a big deal to us because we knew what was included but we also know that theyre supposed to explain the inclusions of the plan to us whether we want them to or not. Strike 1. The next major test is the pouring of the wine. Our waiter gave us nice, healthy pour with no drips. Also, I got to taste the wine which is so rare! Probably because I always look like the youngest there. However, the wine pouring failed during the appetizers. Understandably, its hard to split a bottle of wine among four people but what you dont do is top off three peoples glasses until the bottle is empty and give nothing to the fourth person. We are not a fan of that. So, alas, my mom only got one glass of wine during this meal. She also got the short end of the stick because the appetizer plates were cleared while she was still eating. This may be my biggest pet peeve. Everyone should be done eating so no one feels rushed. The same thing happened to Zak during our entrée. The waiter then tried to show us the dessert cart while our entrees were still on the table. Talk about being rushed! We actually did not let him describe the desserts until after we were done with our entrees. The moment our plates were cleared though, he was back to give us our desserts. He didnt even offer dessert drink options (since we hadnt yet used our non-alcoholic beverage) and we had to ask for the types of tea and coffee that were available. There was also some confusion when the check came because only then did he mention the dining plan which he kept referring to as coupons instead of credits. Overall, the meal was pretty rushed. We anticipated this a bit because it is a restaurant inside a park and Im sure most people want to get moving quickly. However, a good waiter would have recognized that we were in no rush after one of our multiple attempts to get him to slow the pace. A couple of side notes: the waiter was quite soft-spoken for a loud restaurant and the room we were in routinely had loud thunder which scared the bejeezus out of my sister every time. Overall, not a great service experience but it was what Id call ok. Not offensive, not outstanding, just a mid-level start to our vacation.
Thanks for reading, and if anyone is interested, I'll post the rest! Otherwise, I'll just let the thread die a quiet death and drift gently into the night.
