Hollywood & Vine

[THESCHULTZFIVE]

We are considering doing the fantasmic dinner package with Hollywood & Vine. I would like to know how it is. Our first time at Disney w/ the kids, we got to do the 50's primetime cafe w/ the dinner package and haven't had dinner anywhere else since. It will be DH bday and he likes buffett so I thought this would be the best one. My grandmother will be with us and I don't wanna wait in a long line for fantasmic so our only option is the package. So how is it?

 

[dzneelvr]

We did H&V for the first time last trip to mixed reviews. DH and I liked it; DS-17 and DD-15 didn't.
I think it has a fantastic assortment of food items, some very imaginative, and a couple of the desserts were great. Get on allearsnet.com to get the specific buffet offerings, as I'm sure they change from season to season. My advice is to try it once so you know if it becomes a family favorite or not. With food, I don't think others can give a definitive yay or nay since our tastes can be very different. If you get the chance, try Mama Melrose in MGM sometime. It's grown into one of our favorites for either lunch or dinner, along with Sci Fi for lunch.

 

[NCombs]

We did it with Fantasmic last year and really enjoyed it. There was plenty of food to choose from. We will do it again for our next Fantasmic reservation.

We are a family of 5-kids were 11, 8 and 4 at the time.

 

[bornwiththeears]

We did H & V a few days ago. I posted a review earlier this week. I was a little concerned when I booked the ressie because I had read mixed reviews. All four of us DH, DD and DS loved the restaurant. We have two picky eaters in our family and they found more than enough to enjoy. DH loved the homemade breads, corn pudding and Yankee pot roast. DD (even though she is 22) loved the mac and cheese and meatballs put out especially for the kids. The shrimp, mussels and seafood pasta were great as were the desserts. We will definitely eat there again.

 

[disneyworldgirl]

Are adults allowed to get the kids' items at the buffet? My 33-yo DB loves Mac & Cheese, and it's a pet peeve of his that many places only offer it as part of the kids' selection. Will the CM's say anything about adults getting kids' items or do they just let it go? I've often wondered how the buffet restaurants like H&V can really control who gets what.

 

[bornwiththeears]

Our waitress was the one who suggested that DD might like to try the mac and cheese and meatballs. It really is all one big buffet....you don't feel like you are eating in the children's section. DD went back for more meatballs. I thought all of the food was really good.....loved those desserts.

 

[Stiff]

disney mac and cheese is simply AWESOME

 

[Disneyrsh]

Just did the H&V Fantasmic dinner earlier this week (tuesday night) and I was pretty happy with the whole thing overall. Far and away the best part was getting in and OUT much, much faster than without the special ticket. The seating for the show is great, also.

I don't know if I'd want to do a birthday dinner there, though, it is kind of utilitarian, doesn't have a lot of the 'disney magic' going on. I'd pick one that has waiters that are more into the whole serving thing for a better birthday experience-the waiters at H&V are mostly about replacing drinks and clearing plates, not a lot of interaction. It's more about the eating than the experience there, so you may not get the 'everyone sings happy birthday' thing because everyone's intent on loading up and then heading off to Fantasmic.

You can get kid's stuff for the grownups-we got the plain steamed broccoli for us, and I saw a lot of people somewhat sheepishly bending extra low to scoop out the mac and cheese (the kid's buffet's in the middle where the two buffet lines meet).

The food's not amazing, but it's not horrible, either. I'd say decent. There's a pretty good variety. I was pretty full when we left. I think the desserts are kinda mediocre, though. Crystal Palace's desserts whoop butt on H&V's. Tiny sort of tart thingies, a little stale tasting.

We had a 6 pm ressie and we got to watch the Stars and Cars parade just before we went in and saw Darth Vader walking behind Luke and Leia on a landspeeder. Too cool!

 

[Goofy's Muse]

Are adults allowed to get the kids' items at the buffet? My 33-yo DB loves Mac & Cheese, and it's a pet peeve of his that many places only offer it as part of the kids' selection. Will the CM's say anything about adults getting kids' items or do they just let it go? I've often wondered how the buffet restaurants like H&V can really control who gets what.

We did several buffets with our family last year, including H+V. I saw plenty of adults go for the Mac & Cheese at H+V, Boma, Chef Mickey's... you name it! Our kids often chose a few select items off of the adult buffets, too, especially salad, since some kids do not live by chicken fingers alone!

Though DH thought H+V was OK (he's not all that into buffets unless they trend to the more exotic, like Boma), my kids and I thought it was quite good. They had a sliced sirloin the night we were there that was actually excellent!

 

[bornwiththeears]

I still think the food was far above just "decent." The salmon with bearnaise sauce was delicous. Maybe our desserts were just fresher on Sunday night....the tiny key lime pies were excellent, as was the mascarpone cheese cakes. Someone did celebrate a birthday while we were there. The wait staff gathered around and sang.

 

[disneyworldgirl]

Glad to see the Mac & Cheese won't be a problem for my DB-- I'm sure he'll be thrilled to be able to get it! Thanks, everyone!

 

[cdntourguide]

H&V is one of my favourite places to eat while at WDW. This is a great place if you are on the Fantasmic Package. Good selection of items on the buffet. The steak, salmon and porkchops are always excellent. Anyone can partake of the childrens buffet.
ONly place I know of where you can get a bowl full of chocolate candies for dessert: I do not know what brand these are, but they certainly are good.
Note that the DDE discount is not applicable to Fantasmic packages.

 

[nluvwithmickey]

The food is pretty good and the price is excellent for the FDP! We are dooing it again in JUly.

I remember loving the desserts, the variety was awesome. DH even made his own sundae.

 

[Luv4Disney]

We ate at H&V FDP last week. We thought it was great. The mashed potatoes and excellent. DBF really enjoyed the mac and cheese and peel and eat shrimp. They even used our DDE card.

 

[GarrettJD]

We did H & V with the FDP last year, and we enjoyed it enough to return to it on our next trip.

 

[epcotfan]

I think I got food poisoning from this restaurant. The food on the buffet was luke warm. The waiter stood at our table and wouldn't stop talking to us. It was very uncomfortable. He must have chatted for about 10 minutes straight while we were trying to eat our meals. We don't mind chatting but our food got cold by the time he was finished. It was really weird. FYI This is also a very noisy restaurant with all the aluminum tables and chairs. We unfortunately had a bad experience and probably won't go back.
(This place was excellent when it used to be a cafeteria in the early 90s - I was sad when they changed the menu and turned it into a buffet)

 

[THESCHULTZFIVE]

I think I got food poisoning from this restaurant. The food on the buffet was luke warm. The waiter stood at our table and wouldn't stop talking to us. It was very uncomfortable. He must have chatted for about 10 minutes straight while we were trying to eat our meals. We don't mind chatting but our food got cold by the time he was finished. It was really weird. FYI This is also a very noisy restaurant with all the aluminum tables and chairs. We unfortunately had a bad experience and probably won't go back.
(This place was excellent when it used to be a cafeteria in the early 90s - I was sad when they changed the menu and turned it into a buffet)

You know, they did a story on the food at WDW buffets on our local news. Reading your post made me remember that. We've already been sick a WDW once and I don't wanna do that again. Now I don't know what to do. The other 2 restaurant choices don't look very good.

 

[epcotfan]

Chances are you will probably be okay. However, I avoid all buffets now. Here and at Disney. It is too easy to have people with dirty hands touching food utensils or the food itself. Or picking up food and putting it back. I saw a woman on my last trip leave a dirty diaper on a bench at the Contemporary and then she went into Chef Mickey's. Incidents like that really put me off buffets. The less people handling my meal, the better. That is why I stick to full service or counter service restaurants.

 

[Sadie]

Is it as good as Golden Corral?

 

[Disneyrsh]

Argh, yeah, definitely better than the golden corral! My husband dragged me there three days in a row one vacation until I mutinied and said never again! I'd say it's about the level of TGI Friday's, if TGI was a buffett.

I really wanna try the Brown Derby, I've heard some pretty good things about their food, it's just the price that's throwing me off a bit...

I have to agree about the mashed potatoes, I had forgotten about them-they were AWESOME!

Didn't like the shrimp, though, they still had the digestive 'dirt track' in them and tasted like dirt. I'm picky about my shrimp!

The kids really did like making their own sundae but the ice cream I thought was kind of too sweet and bland-they, oddly enough, didn't notice!