Dinners, reservations and staff attitude?

[jima53]

I'm a fairly new person to the Dis forums and planning my first visit to WDW halloween week. I have noticed something that is really alarming to me. Has WDW always had a problem of dinner reservations combined with staff attitude and quality of food since they institued this free dining this past summer. Or is the problem less than what it seems like on the forums. I've read these forums and other travel forums for other types of vacations and it seems that there is a pretty constant complaint about rude staff and tight reservations to get for dinner. I know that a persons personal taste can affect what might be thought of as rude but the capacity of the eating establishments stays the same basically. I'm just wondering if WDW goofed by offering the free disney eating to encourage people to next time by the disney plan in their travel package, and if it has backfired on them this year?

Jim

 

[bicker]

Or is the problem less than what it seems like on the forums.

This is often the case, with many things discussed anywhere online. The Internet seems to magnify the negative. There are folks who have reported noting no significant difference in service during the time when free dining was offered last year (2005). The free dining period this year (2006) has just started, so it is difficult to get a firm handle on whether anything significant has changed, but my suspicion is that it has not.

 

[AKLRULZ]

Take what you read with a grain of salt and enjoy your trip!

 

[tabrizia]

Honestly we were there for 10 days at the start of free dining, we had one rude waiter, and he was rude before he knew we were on the dining plan, so it was just him. Out of the restaraunts we ate at he was the only one, the rest of the waiters were amazing, wonderful and we left an extra tip for everyone but him and two other waiters. So one bad waiter out of 10 is fairly good odds as I see it.

We also didn't have a problem with changing our reservations while we were at the world, note we didn't try for anything that day we also were reserving 2 or 3 nights out, but we changed a couple of reservations with no problems at all and got the times we wanted for the new reservations.

As for the food, there were only three restaraunts whose food we weren't impressed with, and honestly I wasn't expecting impressive food at one of them, one of them just wasn't our style the food was good just not what we expected, the last one the food was subpar, but then again there were restaraunts where the food was amazing and totally unexpected as too how good it was.

Overall, remember everything on these boards is based on opinion and bad opinions tend to get posted more because people who enjoyed things don't tend to praise as much as those who have problems tend to post and let everyone know about it.

 

[Tina1]

I've decided not to worry about the food, I'll be a disney. And the food all free Tina

 

[frndofpooh]

In all of my trips to WDW, I don't think I've ever had a waiter who I would consider rude. A few have been less outgoing than others, but none were rude.

We've also had very few problems getting ADR's, although we do plan early.

As a previous poster said, take it with a grain of salt. People have high expectations when it comes to their WDW vacation, and complaining on the internet is easy. Don't let it get you down.

 

[DVC Grammy]

Over time, most people occasionally encounter rude waitstaff at whichever restaurants they dine, but other than maybe speaking to the restaurant's manager, that's as far as it usually goes. Here, on these forums, there's always an oppotunity to vent about the same type of situation happening occasionally at WDW. Most folks won't bother to start a "we had the greatest waiter" thread, so the negatives are left to stand out, and IMO, come across as much magnified.
It will happen, but I have never found so many consistantly pleasant service staff in any other situations other than WDW!