Dissapointing Disney Dining experiences

[WaltDisneyGirl84]

While I certainly don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, not every Disney experience can be 100% magical. Have any of you had any bad experiences at the Disney restaurants? I'm just curious. I've dined at many of the restaurants on property and sometimes it's a hit and sometimes it's a miss. Just curious about your least favorite dining experiences or which restaurants you believe could step it up a bit.

Just a couple of mine are as follows:

Grand Floridian Cafe
Sci Fi Dine In (sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not)
The Plaza Restaurant
The Boathouse
The Coral Reef

Don't get me wrong, I usually have great experiences, but every now and again the food is lackluster or the menu is very basic/boring. One example here is that I didn't like the food at Coral Reef at all. IMO, The whole restaurant could use a refurb in addition to the menu. Just an opinion. Feel free to share your two cents

 

[yaddakal]

Coral reefX2 experiences . Noting special about the food or the personalities of waitstaff. Food better at home...

Biergarden x 1 So disappointing. I'm in minority here.. but we didn't see much. Food was eh and we were seated with a family who verbally judged us for having a beer with dinner.. just a bad day I guess..

 

[snowybelle]

Recently...

Raglan Road
Be Our Guest (dinner -- loved my lunch there tho!)
Via Napoli (I looove Neapolitan style pizza, but theirs was just ok, and the service was awful)

 

[cluvsdisney]

I feel like that about Captain's Grill. It gets such amazing reviews on the Dis and we mostly stay at the Boardwalk so it's convenient. We went there for dinner and it was one of the worst tasting meals I've had in a restaurant. We tried again for breakfast and it was nothing special just meh but it was coupled with an extraordinary wait. It would take something big for me to be willing to return.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Several years ago we had a rather lengthy wait after reservation time for a Crystal Palace breakfast, the food itself was not good and the character interaction was blah. Cape May 2 trips ago the crab legs were cold and small with very little meat (and crab legs were main reason we went) and everything else on the buffet very much reminded us of any local low quality buffet you'd see in your hometown. Won't go back to either.

 

[Dis703]

We've had a few.

Ohana for breakfast was probably the worst. Not much selection to start with and the food was pretty bad. Dry, overcooked, flavorless.
Via Napoli - We didn't care for the food or service here.
Chef Mickey's- Used to enjoy it but last visit the food wasn't very good.

 

[Meriweather]

We had a few this last 2 weeks while we were there.
Chef's de France....changed their prefix meal and raised the price WAY up..........off our list now
LTT......menu changed....way too limited. I don't want an AYCE (talking lunch here) and now they have that and only 3 other options.
WCC (dinner) very disappointing......we'll go back to lunch
House of Blues ....have been going there for years. Both coasts and LV. Menu change and both of our favorite things are gone. Very disappointing.

 

[WaltDisneyGirl84]

Recently...

Raglan Road
Be Our Guest (dinner -- loved my lunch there tho!)
Via Napoli (I looove Neapolitan style pizza, but theirs was just ok, and the service was awful)

Oh man, that's a shame. I love all of those places. So sorry to hear

 

[WaltDisneyGirl84]

I feel like that about Captain's Grill. It gets such amazing reviews on the Dis and we mostly stay at the Boardwalk so it's convenient. We went there for dinner and it was one of the worst tasting meals I've had in a restaurant. We tried again for breakfast and it was nothing special just meh but it was coupled with an extraordinary wait. It would take something big for me to be willing to return.

That's awful. This is one of the few places I haven't been yet. I may still give it a try, but I'll try not to keep my expectations too high lol

 

[Amelia :)]

We've had a few.

Ohana for breakfast was probably the worst. Not much selection to start with and the food was pretty bad. Dry, overcooked, flavorless.
Via Napoli - We didn't care for the food or service here.
Chef Mickey's- Used to enjoy it but last visit the food wasn't very good.

I agree, we had the most beautiful view at Ohana and the characters were great, but our breakfast food wasn't great, not much selection, and quantity wasn't great either (one tiny sausage each, what's that about?) I know you can ask for more, but that can take a while. (Our dinner here was amazing though).
Our pizza at Via Napoli was good, but I found it so chaotic in there! Service was rubbish too.

 

[prprincess]

Ditto--your sentiments about Coral Reef and Sci-Fi Dine-in being hit or miss. But it does have a great ambiance, so I'm not surprised if I go back. I was also disappointed in BOG for dinner. Gorgeous restaurant, but the food was meh--super salty pomme frites and my steak was super fatty. I also do not like Chef Mickeys anymore, and never liked Tony's. I do try to give places second chances, though...my kids love Crystal Palace and I was surprised that I really enjoyed my meal there in August.

 

[verleniahall]

Garden Grill Dinner last year - had a server who was snippy, i requested a seperate plate than the hubby for my food since I can't have fish and was told to deal with it. Manager didn't seem to care.

BUT the characters were great

 

[WaltDisneyGirl84]

Several years ago we had a rather lengthy wait after reservation time for a Crystal Palace breakfast, the food itself was not good and the character interaction was blah. Cape May 2 trips ago the crab legs were cold and small with very little meat (and crab legs were main reason we went) and everything else on the buffet very much reminded us of any local low quality buffet you'd see in your hometown. Won't go back to either.

I mean, I feel like the character spots have super basic dinner menus because they are catering to mostly kids, so I get that, but so many restaurants have great quality food, I don't feel like these places should have any less quality. I'm sorry to hear about your experiences

The story about the crab legs reminded me of a trip from 2015 at Fulton's. We had the worst waitress ever. In fact, it was so bad that I complained to a manager after the dining experience and they offered us a $50 gift cert to come back and give them another chance. The return trip was much better, but good grief that waitress was the rudest one I've ever encountered. And I used to be a waitress, so I usually have a lot of sympathy, but this lady.... awful.

 

[WaltDisneyGirl84]

We had a few this last 2 weeks while we were there.
Chef's de France....changed their prefix meal and raised the price WAY up..........off our list now
LTT......menu changed....way too limited. I don't want an AYCE (talking lunch here) and now they have that and only 3 other options.
WCC (dinner) very disappointing......we'll go back to lunch
House of Blues ....have been going there for years. Both coasts and LV. Menu change and both of our favorite things are gone. Very disappointing.

I'm blanking on what LTT is, don't mind me... my brain is foggy with all I have to do in the next month and a half.. Stinkin' holidays!

I've never liked the food at the House of Blues since it opened, which is crazy because I LOVE southern food/BBQ/cajun style food, I've just never had anything memorable there.. ever..

 

[WaltDisneyGirl84]

Ditto--your sentiments about Coral Reef and Sci-Fi Dine-in being hit or miss. But it does have a great ambiance, so I'm not surprised if I go back. I was also disappointed in BOG for dinner. Gorgeous restaurant, but the food was meh--super salty pomme frites and my steak was super fatty. I also do not like Chef Mickeys anymore, and never liked Tony's. I do try to give places second chances, though...my kids love Crystal Palace and I was surprised that I really enjoyed my meal there in August.

Agree with you totally! The ambiance at both Sci Fi and Coral Reef is great, so that alone keeps me going back. Tony's is another one I've never been impressed with, nor Mama Melrose.

 

[BuzzyBelle]

The biggest let down of this past trip was Yak & Yeti. I don't think I've ever read a negative thing about it but I wasn't impressed. The food all seemed low quality and like they used the same spice on everything. To top it off the waiter double charged my gift card for the tip and then we also had a $70 charge to our room. We were on the dining plan so no idea where the $70 came from. Luckily we were able to get the room charge removed, but no way to prove gift card charge. I'm rethinking using the gift card for tips next year. On a positive note the cream cheese wontons were delicious!

We go to Sci-fi every trip and the burgers are always good. This trip we ordered desserts for the first time since we were on the dining plan. Huge mistake. They were inedible. Next time were sticking with the milk shakes.

 

[GATORinaZ28]

Coral Reef. While the first time we had dinner there was great (tank side seat too!), the second was less to be desired. The food wasn't up to par and the waiter kept bringing the wrong drink. Our table just felt like it was crammed into the aisle too. Everyone that walked by was literally right on top of us.

I do love the atmosphere, but just cant go back yet.

 

[cluvsdisney]

I'm blanking on what LTT is, don't mind me... my brain is foggy with all I have to do in the next month and a half.. Stinkin' holidays!

I've never liked the food at the House of Blues since it opened, which is crazy because I LOVE southern food/BBQ/cajun style food, I've just never had anything memorable there.. ever..

LTT is Liberty Tree Tavern

 

[loves to dive]

I'm in the minority in that we will never go back to Sanaa again. We were staying at AKV and were waiting for our safari and wandering around the lobby and happened upon the menu on the board. It was myself, my adult son and his wife. The menu looked interesting, they lived in the Chicago area and there were a number of Indian/African type restaurants so they were excited about it, I had heard nothing but good things about it on the boards. We went to concierege right then and they were able to book us for the next night around 7:30. We were seated at just about exactly our ADR time, which was the absolutely only good thing about the experience. We weren't near the windows, which was fine since we had a savannah view room. It took our server at least 15 min. to actually come to our table to take our drink orders. We then waited another 15 min. for those to come and place our dinner orders. It continued like that the entire time, the wait times between when the server appeared were way long, we actually watched one table turn over 3 times while we were there. We even had to wait for our check then wait for her to bring it back for me to sign and then wait again for her to bring the receipt. My food was o.k. the kids both only ate a small portion of theirs, my son had to send a drink back, which is unheard of and we were charged for it. The meal took about 3 hours, we were literally the last table with people when we left. I was using TIW so the tip was included, otherwise I would not have left one at all. I think we would have been o.k. with the horrible service had the food been worth it but it just wasn't. 3 hours and almost $200 later, we left and swore never again. I think that is the only restaurant that we absolutely would never go back to.

 

[NYCANC]

I know I am in the minority with 1900 PF. Was not a good experience.
They were the only restaurant (and we ate at a lot that trip!) that did not have my allergy noted. The waitress made it seem like it was very difficult to get the chef for me. The Chef gave me a very quick tour and was not too helpful with questions.
The waitress did not clear our plates (we had to pile them up), did not get our drinks, did not bring coffee after we ordered it.
We flagged down the other waiter, and he was very helpful.
Food was not good and it smelled in there. Like, throw up!