Hollywood & Vine - disappointed

[Im_with_Dopey]

I made a reservation for dinner at H&V back in march for last Sat. After reading past reviews (more cons than pros) I was worried about my choice for the next 5 months, but kept it anyway. We were to be at HS Fri. and Sat., turns out I didnt find out if my fears were justifible. While at HS Fri. afternoon we had decided to not do HS Sat. if we could get a reservation somewhere else. Well, we did, Raglan Road which was very good. In fact we thought all our choices were very good, Garden Grill, Tusker House(breakfast), Liberty Tree, Cape Mae, Crystal Palace, Chef Mickey's.

 

[AmberI]

Lets hope BF is better. I really don't eat to much in the morning so if the food suck, well I guess I'll be ok....I wonder what they have, do they have muffins and fruit?

 

[dseth]

I, too, hate Hollywood and Vine! It is the ONLY restaurant at Disney that I refuse to ever go back to.

I second this!

 

[dlpcarden]

Hi Experts!

I just made reservations at Play n Dine...Is this the same restaurant as H&V?

I saw a good breakfast review (I'm scheduled for lunch), and was wondering if I should keep my reservation or not.

I also have lunch ADR's at the Play n Dine for my upcoming trip in 2wks...and now wondering if I should cancel and try for another restaurant???

 

[TLSnell1981]

I also have lunch ADR's at the Play n Dine for my upcoming trip in 2wks...and now wondering if I should cancel and try for another restaurant???

If you don't mind going to "play" and not dining.....by all means go....but trust me....the food IS that bad.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Hopefully when I eat there the food will be better.

 

[ChristusG]

I'm not happy to hear this! We're going to the Play N Dine for our 2 young daughters (4 and 1). DD4 likes JoJo's Circus and I've already told her we will be eating with JoJo. I cannot cancel the ressie now....she will be upset. Now I am not looking forward to the food!

 

[dlpcarden]

If you don't mind going to "play" and not dining.....by all means go....but trust me....the food IS that bad.

Luckily, I told my 4 year old son about this character meal months ago... He will not even realize it if we cancel... (which is probably what we will do)

I guess he can see the characters at the Playhouse Disney Show....

 

[cadeesmom]

I was at H&V in April and was soooo excited to be there as I had heard that it was a great restaurant. NOT! We did fantasmic dinner package, and the seats were off to the side and not worth it at all. I will do another next time when eating at the studios!

 

[Lynn5700]

We ate there before and yuck...it's not that great.

 

[child-at-heart]

Wow, I am so shocked about all these negative reviews. My dh and I did a spur of the moment trip to WDW last week and had no dining res. while in DHS around 6:30 pm we found ourselves near this restaurant and hungry. there were people waiting but they said we could be seated in about 15 minutes. About 20 minutes later they called us. We LOVED it! The food was delicious and the carved to order roast was out of this world. the waiter brought extra soda without being asked. I don't remember how quickly they cleared off the dirty dishes but if it had been a long time I would have noticed. Other tables were not loaded with dirty dishes either. The next night we were in MK and tried to walk up to Crystal Palace around the same time. they said to try back after 7 pm. We came back and they seated us around 7:30 pm. the meat here was also delicious but we found the side dishes not as exciting as Hollywood and vine. Please folks, don't not go to Hollywood and vine because strangers on a board said not to. Maybe they have corrected the problems. we would go again in a heartbeat and would not hesitate to recommend this place to others.

 

[catne]

agree with the PP...don't cancel your reservations just because someone else had a bad waitress or didn't like the food. If you tend to like buffets, you may very well like this one. Personally, we had the Hollywood & Vine Fantasmic package in May, and loved both the restaurant and the Fantasmic seating deal. So your mileage may definitely vary.

We found the hot foods hot, the cold foods cold, everything refilled on a timely basis. Waitress was smiling & friendly, messes were cleaned up as they occurred, the dessert station had a wonderful selection. Everything was tasty & there was a wonderful variety of offerings at every station.

Yes, it was crowded. Yes there were kids there (it's Disneyworld, after all. The family place. So there will be kids all over!) Yes, it's overpriced...but what amusement park doesn't have over priced food. It's normal Disney prices. And better than your average buffet chain restaurant.

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

Before being on the dining plan, actually this was our second TS meal ever, and it really disappointed us in WDW dining overall. Good thing we realized it was just a bad experience and we had eaten at Biergarten beforehand which was VERY enjoyable.

Things would have been completely shot if I wasn't able to eat mac n cheese and we got (what was then called) priority seating with the Fantasmic meal package.

 

[Anonomom]

We just ate at H&V on Tuesday, and it turned out to be our favorite meal of the trip! We had a late breakfast reservation, and got to try both the breakfast and lunch foods. I thoroughly enjoyed the salmon, the seafood pasta and all of the breakfast stuff. And the character interaction was the best we had all week, since the place wasn't crowded.

I wonder if dinner is really that much worse, or if we hit on a particularly good day?

 

[Minniespal]

We've done it a couple of times. Food was okay but the service was shocking. We will certainly be avoiding this one in the future.

 

[Mnemonic]

I am about to do my own review thread, but wanted to chime in my two cents here about H&V. It was a buffet, and we only reserved it for the Fantasmic Seating.

That said, it exceeded my expectations. Our waiter (Bill, from upstate NY) was pretty awesome - no empty plate stayed on our table for long. He worked hard to keep our glasses filled, and tried to FORCE me to take coffee in a go-cup as we left.

The selection of the food was pretty broad - the bean cassoulet was quite good, and the Thai bowtie pasta dish was a fun change of pace from the other Disney food I had been eating. It was fun to have VEGETABLES to choose from!

We ate early in the day (4:30), so this may explain why our food was of better quality.