Horrible Mother's Day Dinner @ Ohana

[TheRustyScupper]

This was the ONE restaurant I was looking the most forward to. I am so deflated.

1) I keep telling people the eatery has gone downhill.
2) And, this is from people I know that work there.

***********************************************
Our Ratings of Ohana: (1/21/2012)
. . . food price value: C
. . . food quality: D
. . . food quantity per serving: A
. . . food prep speed: B
. . . food selection: B
. . . seating quantity: B
. . . seating comfort: C
. . . eatery atmosphere: C
. . . eatery convenience: B
. . . staff friendliness: B
. . . staff attentiveness: D
. . . character interaction: n/a

NOTE: Used to be highly rated. However, the food
quality has severely deteriorated over the past year.
Additionally, the service is very spotty. For food quality
and service, select another restaurant.

 

[BlovesC]

What I don't understand is, WHY is it so inconsistent from night to night? DH and I had a FANTASTIC meal at 'Ohana just three nights ago, on 5/12/12. Did we just get lucky? I see so many folks saying the place has gone downhill, but both our meals at 'Ohana, one in January 2012 and last weekend's, were easily the best meal of each trip. Are we really that lucky, or are we just easy to please, or is it because we're not comparing it to the fabled 'Ohana of years ago? We've booked another 'Ohana dinner for September. If that too is just as amazing to us, I'll seriously start to wonder.

 

[PelletierBears]

So sorry you had a bad experience. I hate confrontation, but in that case if the server wasn't making it right in terms of replacing hot items that arrived cold and getting you the meats that they skipped you on, I would've spoken to the manager.

I totally agree! There is no excuse for cold food especially meat that is supposedly right off the flame!

We've gone to O'Hana several times now and had just one experience that while I wouldn't call bad, did put me on guard. It can be hit or miss with how they serve the food and that drives me crazy. During our last visit we were given our salad and bread, had no sooner served ourselves when the assistant server started bring all the side dishes. I wouldn't have minded the wings and dumplings but he brought the veggies and noodles too. I asked him to take them away unti we finished our salad and appitizers and he gave me attitude saying that's how it works there. Ok, really..... I've been enough times to know how it works and I also know how long it takes food to get cold sitting out as we eat our salad! I was not going to eat cold noodles and veggies, especially for the cost.

We're bring my mom and neice for their first times in Disney next month and I so hope we have a good experience. O'Hana can be such a wonderful meal and experience. We love the atmosphere at the Poly

 

[Friendly Frog]

Who was flaming the OP? The posts I read almost exclusively said they were sorry the OP had a bad meal, that there has been inconsistency at Ohana (some people had great meals, others had horrible meals), and that they might have wanted to involve a manager or write guest services about their poor experience. I've seen no flames.

No one has flammed her, everyone has been very nice. I was commenting on the op who said at the first " Please don't flame me but..." I just thought it is sad that anyone has to worry about getting flamed when posting an experience. ( It does happen quite a bit.) I guess it just stuck me as a little sad at the moment.

 

[iloveeeyore]

Kimberwee,

I'm so sorry that you had a bad experience at 'Ohana! I hope that the rest of your trip is going wonderfully to make up for it. I hope you are enjoying your time at the Poly.

Thank you for sharing your experience here on the DIS. Please share it with management at Disney as well.

 

[grecorj]

Cold food and poor service are unacceptable no matter what restaurant. Sorry OP was disappointed in this regard. As someone else said, even though I'm not confrontational by nature, I would have said something if this happend to me -- especially considering the price!

Personally, I've been to 'Ohana's breakfast 3 times and loved meal each time. Last time was 2010, maybe it has gone downhill since then -- but I hope not, we're going again next month!

One would think that especially in a place that is cooking a limited menu they could get it right! I mean, how tough is it to pump out Mickey waffles?

 

[grecorj]

I'd also say -- and this really wasn't the case of the OP, who's main problem seemed to be with the service, not the food -- that for people posting that the food at 'Ohana was "inedible" or "worst" in WDW .... let's remember people's food "tastes" can be very different ... my likes are not necessarily your likes ...

 

[CandleontheWater]

Ohana is the most schizophrenic restaurant on all of Disney property. You really have to go into the reservation with the knowledge that it might be a bad night or it might be a good night, and when it is good it is very good, but when it is bad it is awful!

It is a pretty sad state of affairs, but it is what it is.

I encourage you to write to disney and let them know what a terrible experience you had, if everyone does that on every bad night, maybe the bad nights will become fewer and further between.

 

[SweetSpot]

I have learned as I've gotten older to not stand for bad service. If I know a restaurant is mostly recieving great reviews and I am experiencing bad service which is destroying the experience I will say something. If I am determined to stay I would ask to be moved to another servers table otherwise I would leave. I use to be meek and take it but realized we work hard to make the money we spend at an overpriced Disney, that is overpriced due to the exceptional service delivered. If I recieve terrible service it's not fair to pair such a large price or reward a terrible server with a tip.

It's a shame something you looked forward to turned into a bad experience. Worse when you wath others experiencing what you expected and should have received. We had a great experience at O'hana and really all through the world and on DCL but know many others who have had opposite experiences. They should be more consistent.

 

[North of Mouse]

Ohanas is the one place we go to every trip, and we have been there more times than I can remember, different times of the year, different days of the week and I can truthfully say we have NEVER had cold food, had to wait on our food, felt rushed - none of the complaints that I have seen on the boards over the years. I feel for those of you that have not had good experiences, but we absolutely love that place. We even ask for our beef to be med. rare and always get it just right. Our problem is usually the other way round, our "cousin" thinks we don't eat enough, and tries to keep offering food

 

[kimberwee]

I will preface this with saying that I have had a horrible experience at O'hana's, so I am not blinded to their ups and downs. Our bad experience was definitely with a server and no help from the manager. The food is usually par for the course, sometimes better than others.

The only issue that I have with your review is that I don't understand how tables around you completed their meal faster than you. The style of service means that if they are bringing skewers to their tables, they would have been right there to serve you (yes, I would get their attention and ask for it). At O'hana's we are usually turning them away more than actually accepting it. Maybe I misunderstood and they weren't in the same area as you and your side was being neglected, but either way, I would have spoken up and asked for a manager. There is no reason to not get served food and if you don't speak up it is hard for them to address the issues.

Our horrible experience the manager was no help, but we continued to follow up and received numerous apologies after the fact for it. But we also had hte manager and servers name and the problems were not all "subjective" (server issues), but also tangible (messed up checks, late seating, etc).

It took me a little bit to want to go back, but I like the atmosphere and there is definitely enough food that I like there!

I agree, and I suppose that I should have mentioned that we did speak up, several times actually. And, just like some of the others have mentioned, I definitely think that the server has a lot to do with it. The tables around us getting their food in a timely manner were being served by a different person.

 

[kimberwee]

So sorry about your experience!! I have to say that we were the same way, excited about trying it out for the first time. Our meal was the same way, slow service, cold dried out meat. I did love the desert though!! We won't be going back any time soon. We will be eating at Kona this year!!

Kona was actually our FAVORITE meal of the trip!

 

[Fundytrail]

Sorry to hear of your bad experience, we were there in April and had great food and outstanding service.

Too many older and larger cooperation’s are of the old school that if you have a good experience you tell 3 people if you have a bad experience you tell 14 people and with those numbers and the volume of business they have there was no impact to their business. But today with the social media things have changed and in some cases in a big way.

Take for example a local musician Dave Carroll had an issue with United Airlines over the damage they did to his $3,500 Taylor guitar, Dave posted a song about his experience on YouTube and it went viral, within four (4) days United stock fell $180 MILLION dollars.

You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars

 

[dakcp2001]

OP we were there the exact same time and night as you! Our reservation was 820! Our experience was different but also not great. We were seated and given bread immediatley and the server came over to ask us what we wanted to drink. We asked for a minute to review the drink menu and off he went.Then the salad, dumplings and wings, noodles and broccoli, and tray of sauces were all put on the table one after another by different guys. We still had no drinks. The server came back with water. We ordered drinks. I also asked if he could slow it down, since we needed time for each course. While still trying to serve ourself salad the meat skewer people came by. We again asked if we could have some time to try all the stuff that had been brought to the table and they said yes, but then people kept coming by with the meat. We decided we would take our time and try to enjoy the meal, but we were so rushed. They kept trying to take stuff away that we had not tried yet. It was hard to enjoy the food, which was actually delicious and well cooked. And the problem was there were a million different guys coming and going from our table, so no matter who you told to slow down, they obviously did not tell the others.

The chicken, beef, and shrimp were all perfectly cooked. Pork was dry and old. All the other stuff was good, but we ate it cold because they had dumped it all on the table right when we sat. The bread was old hard and inedible. They did keep pestering us to ask if we wanted more, but we literally were not able to take more than a bite or two without interuption. We felt SO rushed!It was obvious they were trying to turn over the tables. Even though we tried to slow down and eat at a normal pace, it was just not happening and we felt rushed. I do not know if we are just slow or what but it seemed like it was very rushed.

The dessert was fabulous.

All of the servers were very polite, they just really made us feel rushed no matter how hard we tried to slow it was a futile effort. Overall, it was just a meh experience. It was not worth the cost. The food was good and it could have been a great experience, but the service definately was way too rushed and it ruined it for us.

 

[jwfla422]

Well, after reading the reviews, I was so excited about this dinner that I was almost giddy walking through the door. Wasn't long-lasting though after the meal began. I can't believe we wasted table credits on last night's meal! The reservation was for 8:30'ish and we were seated within a reasonable window. We walked up, got our bread and were promptly seated. Our waitress was friendly and took care of our drinks. It all went down hill from there.

We had 3 tables sat after we were that were onto dessert before we got our first serving of meat! It took us 20 minutes to get salad. Everything was cold that should have been hot. We didn't even eat the chicken because we were afraid it would make us sick. I asked for more noodles to tide us over (the first batch was cold but we ate it anyway) and it never came. We never saw a skewer of pork and this is after informing our waitresses a couple of times. So, all of this and more...we asked for the check. No bread pudding for us.

And, before I get flamed, I know that restaurants are hit or miss. I know that it was Mothers Day...but...there were empty tables all around us when we got to our table and I found it ridiculous that tables around us, arriving after we did, got fed all courses before we were able to get to our 2nd!

This was the ONE restaurant I was looking the most forward to. I am so deflated.

Just wanted to share that not EVERYTHING that you hear about these places we all woke up at the crack of dawn to book 180 days ago, are 100% all the time. Heck, this wasn't even at 25% for us last night.

wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com -email them what you posted above, not right, no excuse, Mother's Day or anyday. Totally UNACCEPTABLE. ..although I do agree this restaurant has gone downhill which is a sad thing, but dining plan or not-doesn't matter. You pay one way or the other and there's no excuse as to why you didn't get a decent meal. You need to forward this to guest communications. They need to know.

 

[budafam]

We were there on 5/6 and I must agree with you on the fact that it took FOREVER to get our food. Each time we were to get another dish, it seemed to be a good 20 minute wait. or longer... our dessert took almost 30 minutes from when we PAID our bill. Everyone around us was seated after us and they were gone well before we were finished. It was only 2 of us so I'm not sure why it took so long. I did really love the food though and plan to return... hopefully we'll get better service.

 

[JerseyJanice]

There are two days of the year that I refuse to eat out. Mother's Day is one, and the other is Valentine's Day. It's too hectic to try and get good food and service on either date. Restaurants in my neck of the woods that are normally excellent can miss the mark on these days.

OP, I wouldn't blame you for holding it against Ohana, but I don't think you can fairly judge any restaurant on a day like Mother's Day.

 

[TwistGrl101]

Our first visit to 'Ohana in 2009 was fabulous.
We went back in 2011, and definitely noticed a decline. The food wasn't as good, and the kids' entertainment portion was horrible the second time.
With that being said, we are returning this August. Our first experience was so amazing, that we are hoping we were just there for an off night last year.
I'll be so upset if 'Ohana proves to be a disappointment again, especially since we are on DDxp, and could be eating at Citricos instead...