Horrible Goofys Kitchen experience.

[Twinprincesses]

We ate at Goofy's Kitchen yesterday and I have to say it has to be the most horrible experience we have had in a very long time. We got there at our reservation time and waited to be seated for 20 minutes. We then got seated and got our food. The food was all cold, even though I did see the staff just put it out. The only characters we saw were Goofy (at enterance), Belle and the Mad Hatter.

Our waitress stopped coming after about an hour and we just sat there waiting for more characters to come. My DH finally got up to complain that no characters have been by (we saw Pluto, Chip, Dale, and Rafiki walking around but they went out back). Someone came over and started explianing that Pluto has to go back to the dog house and went on and on. We were very polite and I told the guy for $100 I really thought we would see more than 3 characters. They told us they would see what they could do. 20 minutes later nobody ever came back, so we ended up just leaving.

I complained at the front desk and they handed me a comment card and that was it.

I was so frustrated as this came after a very crowded day at the parks the day before and the kids were really looking forward to this breakfast.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

We have experienced this EXACT same thing. Sat for nearly an hour with only one character coming by. We also complained and we did get to see 2 more characters but that was it.

It is very disappointing to spend that kind of money for a buffet and "character experience" only to for them to disappoint on both counts.

We will be there for my dd's birthday next month and she really wants to do Goofy's. I had hoped things had improved, sounds like they haven't.

 

[belle'ssister]

We are taking our grandson to Disneyland next month a wanted to take him to Goofy's. I have been on several different forums and your experience seems to be happening a lot lately.

We've twice before about five and ten years ago and were looking forward to going again. I may be rethinking that and make ressies at Munnie and Friends instead.

 

[Steve's Girl]

Oh no! I was planning to take DD to Goofy's next month.

 

[ktlm]

So sorry you had a bad experience. We were there in June (and the last 2 years before that in June), and had a great experience each time. I think that pretty much any of the character meals at WDW or DL, you can occasionally have some issues with. At WDW, we had a bad experience at 1900 Park Fare and almost never went back. The next year because Cinderella is DD's favorite, we risked it again, and had a great time.

Belle'ssister, we really like Goofy's, but we absolutely love Minnie and Friends. We have had the best interaction there of, and have consistently seen more characters there than, any character meal at WDW or DL.

 

[Mousequake]

We are taking our grandson to Disneyland next month a wanted to take him to Goofy's. I have been on several different forums and your experience seems to be happening a lot lately.

We ate there in April and had a fantastic time-- five or six characters, lots of group dancing activities for the kids, etc.

We went three weeks ago and it was exactly as the OP described. We sat there for 75 minutes and had two characters come by. There were a few more there; they just never came to our section. Absolutely no dancing or anything organized for the kids. When I asked if more characters would be coming by, the character manager said it wouldn't be anytime soon. We just left and felt ripped off.

 

[Steamboat Philly]

My family and I have eaten here a good dozen times or so over the course of time. Most recent was Friday, the 12th. We've only had 1 experience where anything like this happened. Other than that we love the food, and the amount of characters the girls get to meet. This is arguably my favorite table service place.

 

[pixiewings71]

This was our exact experience a few years back, we have not gone back. Our server stopped coming by after about an hour, stopped clearing plates so by the time we were done eating we had a huge stack of plates on our table. 3 characters stopped at our table and yet we saw a lot of them leaving to take a break. It was not worth it at all IMO. We also mentioned what happened at the counter and we were shrugged off as well. Sorry you had the same experience but rest assured it's been happening for years.

 

[belle'ssister]

So sorry you had a bad experience. We were there in June (and the last 2 years before that in June), and had a great experience each time. I think that pretty much any of the character meals at WDW or DL, you can occasionally have some issues with. At WDW, we had a bad experience at 1900 Park Fare and almost never went back. The next year because Cinderella is DD's favorite, we risked it again, and had a great time.

Belle'ssister, we really like Goofy's, but we absolutely love Minnie and Friends. We have had the best interaction there of, and have consistently seen more characters there than, any character meal at WDW or DL.

Thanks for the Minnie and Friends feedback. Pretty sure that's where we will go.

 

[yaya74]

so sorry to hear that your experience at GK was not pleasant. We will be dining there next Friday for dinner. We need to keep our fingers crossed.......

 

[cari12]

We ate at GK last Thursday for dinner. We did not have reservations and when we called in the afternoon they said the earliest ressie available was 7:20pm. That was too late for us so we just showed up at 4:45pm (they open at 5:00pm) and were seated about 5:10pm (after our picture with Goofy). We saw all the characters that were there that day, in fact Minnie came by twice by accident. We were in and out in about an hour which was perfect for our plan to head back to DL for the 7:00pm parade.

 

[mydisneymoney]

We went to both Goofys and Minnie's at our last visit. I liked the food at Goofy's better (more variety) but Minnie's had way more characters. We only had 3 at Goofy's (Aladdin, Mulan and Goofy). My DS7 doesn't like breakfast so Goofy's was much better for him for food but the charaters (or lack of) was very disappointing. Luckily we had got free character dining through Costco so we didn't pay like many people do.

 

[interstate70s]

It is terrible when a character meal doesn't go well. It's such an event for the kids, and is so dissapointing when it doesn't go as planned. We went to Surf's Up on our last trip, which has glowing reviews, and it was not good when we were there. Stitch (my children's favorite) was not there, the character's that were (only 3 total) were not interactive and some of the food was really gross. It was so bad, I booked Goofy's on the morning we checked out as a surprise to make up for it. Now, the last time we were at Goofy's it was mediocre (character wise), but I figured it would at least have a few more characters than Surf's Up. Well, I am so glad we did go to Goofy's, it was so much better than the last time we were there, and it toally made up for our rotten experience earlier in the week. I think that reviews can only help so much, that they can give you a general idea of a place, but individually experiences can really depend on circumstances that just can't be predicted. I hope the rest of your trip went better!

 

[madigraham]

When we went last march for dd birthday it was great! Only thing like u mentioned, some of the characters never came around. We saw Snow White, chip, dale, mini, and Cinderella and another character never came to our table.
Mini would come back all the time though. It was kinda funny

 

[lucky1]

Was disappointed in the number of characters we saw in a couple of Sunday breakfast. I think the space is so big. We saw maybe 5 characters. Saw about 5 others wandering around. None of the kid interaction that I have seen in the past with the dancing or banging of the pots.


Now we generally like Micky's surfs up for character interaction. The space is much smaller and characters seem to make to every table. The food I heard just is not as good as when it was Lilo and Stitches meal.

 

[TheZue]

We went there last month and had the same problem. There for over an hour, one character. Not to mention they had my son's birthday cake and didn't say a thing which led to the two day hunt for his cake. We won't be going back.

 

[Escape2Disney]

We had a very similar experience in '08. After 45 minutes, we had seen NO characters other than the picture at the front of the restaurant. The characters would go to other tables, but somehow skipped ours. When I asked the server, she rolled her eyes and siad "we only guarantee one or two characters every 90 minutes. Just be patient". We stayed the entire 90 minutes and only had one character come by. I talked to the manager on the way out and was told that I must be mistaken. I was VERY frustrated, and we haven't been back since.

I'm happy to hear some people have great experiences there, but we haven't since '06.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

We have gone to Goofy's Kitchen almost every trip and been very happy. We went last Thursday for DD's birthday and it was horrible. They brought her cupcake out 10 minutes into our dinner (yes, I know it's free, so little to complain about, but it would have been nice to have gotten her a little dinner first). We did ok with the characters - saw Minnie (who was great), Alice, Pluto, Chip & Goofy (at the entrance). The food was ok, but the service was worse. There was a guy who complained to management and either wanted his meal comped or a gift card, so we weren't the only ones disappointed. Also, there was no dance party which they have done in the past.

We had an even worse experience at Minnie's the next day though, which I'll cover later in my mini-trip report.

 

[stlm]

We were there last week at GK for dinner. We saw Goofy, Pluto, Mad Hatter, Cinderella, Belle, Rafiki and Minnie, all in about an hour. Food was good but character interaction was great. We also did Surfs Up at PPH and thought was great also, there we saw Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Pluto and Stich!

 

[ladeeesquire]

You really just never know about these things. We've done every character meal possible at both WDW and DL (except storytellers) most of them multiple times. We normally have a good/great experience but sometimes not. We've done GK 3-4 times in the last 2 yrs and its always been fine, not great, but fine. We've had wonderful experiences at Surf's Up both with food and with characters without exception which is why I always recommend that one.

Minnie and Friends I usually say is for the character experience because I've actually gotten ill from eating there twice. But then, we went in July with a friend for her little boy's birthday and had a HORRIBLE issue arise with the characters. We were there for almost 2 hrs and saw about 3. I had to literally grab minnie by the hand to get her to pose for a pic with my friend's son because her "interaction" that morning consisted of walking up to us and waving then walking away. Oddly the food, which I complain about on all these threads, was ok that time so you really just never know.

I agree that for the money they charge they really should be more consistent and if a cm told me to only expect 1-2 characters in 90 mins I'd be looking for a manager and/or handler asap because that's ridiculous.