Grand Floridian Cafe

[Terk-1]

How is dinner here? How "mini" are the desserts? How is the food? What about the service?

 

[ILVPOOH]

Dinner is great. We had the the Onion Soup and Crab Cakes. Both very good. For dinner we had the Meatloaf with the wine sauce, Shrimp Pasta and the Chicken Breast. Dinner was fabulous. The pasta was loaded with shrimp and the chicken was so juicy and tasty. The mini desserts are small, but they give you 2 of them. The Chocolate Fondue was so good. It's really rich chocolate with different fruit for dipping. It's a really pretty place, and the service is great.

 

[Enna]

Hands down the WORST dinner experience of our 9 day trip in August. We went with another family of 4 (so 8 of us total at two tables) and all 8 of us refuse to go back.

Service was painfully slow, food was very mediocre to flat-out BAD.

The mini desserts are truly mini--maybe 2 bites. They're about the same size as you'd see on platters at the buffets, and I believe the dessert serving includes 2 of the mini desserts.


We all found the staff there to be condescending and borderline rude. It was the most un-magical part of our entire trip.

EIGHT thumbs down from our group.

 

[bolgers love wdw]

Sorry about your bad experience. You must have had an off night or something
My DH and I were also there in August and had the BEST dining experience of our trip and I considered it to be one of the top dining experiences of all my TS at WDW. (10 trips in the past 3 years and at least one or two TS per trip)
We found the service amazing and the food wonderful. The chicken breast entree I had was probably one of the best chicken meals I have ever had in a restaurant and my Dh loved his steak and shrimp. We found the mini desserts great too...we had the dessert platter and it was the perfect size for me and my DH. We got to sample a little bit of everything and not feel too guilty..
Our ADr was at 5:15 and we were one of three tables in the restaurant, so I don't know if that made any difference, but I found that our server was very attentive and very friendly and made our dining experience that much better. We can't wait to go back in May.

 

[Wafflestoo]

Our waitress was painfully slow and not attentive. The appetizers were great. We had the spinach dip with flat breads. The meals were Ok. My husband said that his steak and shrimp were not very tasty. And... we were only offered 1 mini dessert for our dessert. I thought that they were small! The food wasn't bad, but the service was amazingly slow and inattentive. It wasn't even busy that night.

Meg

 

[MUFFYCAT]

WE ate there last month and enjoyed it. But the service was a little slow.
t made me enjoy the meal more and not rush through our meals.

The crab cakes and halibut were very good. So were the desserts.

 

[Enna]

Just wanted to clarify some of our issues:

Out of 4 childrens' meals, 3 had errors. Two of those errors were not corrected 90 minutes later, leaving those two children with essentially no meals. The 9 year old in our group finally ended up in tears because she was so hungry and felt so pathetic having to eat off of other people's plates.

DH's steak was largely inedible due to the quality (or lack of quality) of the meat. I had the pasta dish that has been given rave reviews here, but it was no better than Red Lobster quality. Both of the other adults said their meals were sub-par, but I don't recall the details as I was busy tending to my 4 year old who never got the peanut butter sandwich she ordered, and my son who was given the wrong item entirely.

We had an early (5:00 or 5:15) ADR. The restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived, and filled in around us. It surely was not a matter of lack of staff, just inattentive, careless staff, ranging from the server to the management. Our requests to have errors rectified were treated dismissively, as if we were the problem for asking for what we actually ordered.

There was one LOUD waiter who seemed to be doing a nice job of keeping his tables entertained with some sort of Disney trivia challenge. I'm sure it would have been fun to be in his section, but the added noise on top of an already poor dining experience was not enjoyable for us.

In hindsight, I wish I'd have known that Gasparilla Grill & Games was just around the corner. I would have walked over to pick up a few counter service meals for the kids so they at least would have had SOMETHING to eat.

 

[lillygator]

wow - we've never been but have a lunch scheduled while DD is going to the Wonderland Tea Party......hopefully it will be ok!

 

[heatherlynn444]

I love GF cafe, sorry your experience was bad. although, I must say, breakfast and lunch are better there IMO. on our last trip we ate there 3 times!

 

[Dana49]

We've always had a good breakfast and lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe. I must admit, we've never had dinner there. I'm sorry to hear about your bad meal. You only have so many meals while you're at Walt Disney World and it's never fun when a meal doesn't meet your expectations.

 

[Enna]

wow - we've never been but have a lunch scheduled while DD is going to the Wonderland Tea Party......hopefully it will be ok!

I did walk by the Cafe while my kids were in the Wonderland Tea. They didn't look too busy at that time of day, and I wondered if maybe the Cafe was more of a breakfast & lunch spot.

Still, I would suggest telling your waitress that you only have about 45 minutes for lunch before you need to pick up your child. You don't want to miss the parent pick-up part of the tea party because you are still at lunch.

 

[Magic2000]

We've always had a great lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe!!! We've only had breakfast twice, but both were really good! (Haven't tried it for dinner though - not even when we stayed there; we had in-room dining and it was pretty good too!)

When my DD went to the Tea Party, we had lunch at the Cafe. When it was time to go pick her up, I just went get her and brought her back to the table. She told us all about the "party". My DD has done the Tea Party at least 5 times now - she has always had a great time!!!

Actually, this is one restaurant my DD loves to eat at - she loves the grapes and cheese appetizer (the cheese is in the shape of Mickey!).

To the poster that had a bad meal - so sorry for your experience. Ours has always been great!

 

[Dis-Wiz]

We ALWAYS make sure to eat at the GF Cafe at least once during each trip. We all love it. We usually have lunch there, and they have the BEST hamburgers. The chocolate ganache fondue is to die for!!!.

We have always received great service there. We even spent some time talking to one of our waiters after finding out she, too, was from MA. It is always nice and quiet (at least every time we go), and it is just so beautiful overlooking the garden. It is fancy, yet casual, and we always find it comfortable.

I can't wait to eat there again.Talking (writing) about it is making me hungry for some of that fondue...



Aslo, sorry for those of you who did not have a good experiance, but I definitely suggest giving it another chance. I am sure you will a better time and learn to love it as much as our family does.

 

[foxfire]

Our last dinner experience there was one of the best of the trip. Food was delicious and our waitress gave exceptional service. Each staff member we had contact with was very warm and friendly. I can't offer a comment on the mini desserts since we had ordered a special anniversary cake from the GF bakery but I've read that others thought they were very good.

 

[kcrew]

Hands down the WORST dinner experience of our 9 day trip in August. We went with another family of 4 (so 8 of us total at two tables) and all 8 of us refuse to go back.

Service was painfully slow, food was very mediocre to flat-out BAD.

The mini desserts are truly mini--maybe 2 bites. They're about the same size as you'd see on platters at the buffets, and I believe the dessert serving includes 2 of the mini desserts.


We all found the staff there to be condescending and borderline rude. It was the most un-magical part of our entire trip.

EIGHT thumbs down from our group.

YES! It was HORRIBLE! We were a party of six last week. The service was outrageous! We left the place with 6 uneaten entrees (tough dry steak, charred tiny shrimp, hard chicken tenders, just pliain yucky pasta--I could go on and on), forget dessert we didn't make it that far! Did I mention the service? Were we on candid camera? Oh yes, the meal was definitely comped!

 

[kcrew]

Hands down the WORST dinner experience of our 9 day trip in August. We went with another family of 4 (so 8 of us total at two tables) and all 8 of us refuse to go back.

Service was painfully slow, food was very mediocre to flat-out BAD.

The mini desserts are truly mini--maybe 2 bites. They're about the same size as you'd see on platters at the buffets, and I believe the dessert serving includes 2 of the mini desserts.


We all found the staff there to be condescending and borderline rude. It was the most un-magical part of our entire trip.

EIGHT thumbs down from our group.

YES! It was HORRIBLE! We were a party of six last week. The service was outrageous! We left the place with 6 uneaten entrees (tough dry steak, charred tiny shrimp, hard chicken tenders, just pliain yucky pasta--I could go on and on), forget dessert we didn't make it that far! Did I mention the service? Were we on candid camera? Oh yes, the meal was definitely comped!

Enna, my 9 year old cried too. He had picked the restaurant and felt so bad!! He felt he was responsible for this fiasco.

BTW, the manager was extremely gracious and apologetic. On a positve note we then used the 6 TS credits for an unplanned last morning breakfast at CP. It was great!

 

[3NTN4WDW]

Maybe we've been lucky the last 3 times we've eaten there but it has always been good service and food. I do agree that the mini desserts are too small and should be called "itty bitty". We didn't order one but saw one from another table which they were complaining about the size.