Ghirardelli Price Warning

[justhat]

We always eat dessert at Ghirardelli's in Downtown Disney at least once per trip to WDW. On our second visit to Ghirardelli's on our trip last week, I was saving a table for my party and reading the menu while I waited. Since I always get the Foghorn Sundae I don't usually look at the menu, but since I don't eat whipped cream and order it without that I was checking to see if it would be cheaper to build my own sundae without the whipped cream. As it turns out, it's cheaper to build the entire Foghorn Sundae, including the whipped cream, than it is to actually order a Foghorn Sundae. Building your own sundae with everything in a Foghorn Sundae works out to be 55 cents cheaper than just asking for a Foghorn Sundae. Though the 55 cents seems trivial (actually 80 cents in my case since I don't order the whipped cream), when I thought about how many times I have ordered this sundae I realized I have given Ghirardelli about an extra $15 just on my own orders, just for the simplicity of ordering my sundae with 2 words instead of listing each ingredient I want spearately. Additionally, if you have a family of 4, this would be more than $2 wasted. So we asked for a manager and explained this to him to see why there was this price discrepancy. He didn't seem to care at all about it and in fact pointed out several other similar items on the menu that have different prices, including the Hot Fudge Sundae, which costs a full $1 more than building your own hot fudge sundae!! We asked him why this was the case and he basically avoided the question and told us he thought it was ridiculous too, but that San Francisco headquarters sets the prices, not their store so there's nothing he can do. Some other people overheard us and asked him about it as well and once again he just shrugged it off and left. So if you plan to eat dessert at Ghirardelli's, be sure to order your sundaes separately instead of their pre-made selections and you'll save some money for that extra souvenir.

 

[travelbug]

This is a great tip! I LOVE Ghirardelli's, especially the sundaes. Thanks for sharing the lowdown!

 

[twinmomto3boys]

This is interesting... thanks for sharing the information.

 

[bunnyfoo]

I never bothered looking too closely at the prices before ... Thanks for bringing that up, I would have never noticed

 

[justhat]

Yep, neither did we. But since the line was so long to order and I was just sitting at the table by myself to reserve it, waiting for the rest of my family to order their ice cream, I had some time on my hands. It was especially annoying that their manager knows about this but thinks it's perfectly okay.

 

[Terry S]

The first time I went there, I asked for a Sundae without whip cream and cherries, which is the way I have to normally order it at most resturants. The girl behind the counter hit the Sundae button, but after I told her without the Whip Cream and Cherry, she deleted that order and rang it in as 2 scoops of ice cream with fudge topping, she told me it was cheaper this way. I thought that was really nice of her. Like I said, most places just charge me for the sundae and then do it minus the other stuff.

 

[justhat]

I wish they had done this for me since it would save me 80 cents, but i was't that lucky.

 

[Alice Sr.]

A similar thing happened at LeCellier. The lobter/steak combo was $2 more and the steak was 2oz. smaller than if you ordered the steak by itself and added a tail.