Horrible Mother's Day Dinner @ Ohana

[kimberwee]

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.

 

[tallen429]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time. You are right though, all the restaurants are very "hit or miss".
That said, I happen to think O'Hana is one of the worst, most over-hyped places on all of WDW property. Twice I've eaten there and both times included a ridiculous wait for a table past our ADR time, God awful service, and dried out cold food that tasted like it had been made the day before...

So at least we're one of the families that won't be taking up someone else's tresured table!

 

[Wee Annie]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time. You are right though, all the restaurants are very "hit or miss".
That said, I happen to think O'Hana is one of the worst, most over-hyped places on all of WDW property. Twice I've eaten there and both times included a ridiculous wait for a table past our ADR time, God awful service, and dried out cold food that tasted like it had been made the day before...

So at least we're one of the families that won't be taking up someone else's tresured table!

I will never go back for all those reasons. I know others love it, but not us. I just look at it as one less place I have to stress over getting an ADR for

 

[BlovesC]

Yikes! We ate there one night before you...Saturday, 5/12, and we LOVED it. We had a late reservation, too, at 9:15, and still everything we were served was hot and absolutely delicious. I'm really sorry to hear you had such different luck...I don't know how restaurants go from having great nights to terrible nights the very next, but that sure sounds like what happened!

 

[ForAandA]

This is what drives me crazy. The inconsistancy! Two dis'ers literally two days apart. One meal on a Saturday night being wonderful, and the next on Sunday being horrible .

Being the resident Disney Geek here at work, my boss always asks for recommendations. We go to Disney annually for conferences, and she likes to take us on a few nice dinners. Last time I recommended BOMA (one of my faves) and it was terrible.

How does Disney expect repeat business with such inconsistancy? I guess they might not care. Their is no shortage of restaurant business.

 

[MrsLS]

That was our experience about 4 years ago, food cold, tough meat, server non existent, etc. We decided to try it again because there are SO many people on here that love it and we wanted a monorail non signature restaurant. So we went, this was about 3 1/2 weeks ago. I'm so glad we decided to go back because everything that was possibly wrong 4 years ago was the opposite this time. So yes I really do think this place is hit or miss.
& I this wasn't a get the ADR 180 days out, although I do make them 180 days out, in fact our Nov trip's 180 days was yesterday and I was up making them, but not at 6am. We actually booked Ohana 3 hours before, yes hours.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time. You are right though, all the restaurants are very "hit or miss".
That said, I happen to think O'Hana is one of the worst, most over-hyped places on all of WDW property. Twice I've eaten there and both times included a ridiculous wait for a table past our ADR time, God awful service, and dried out cold food that tasted like it had been made the day before...

So at least we're one of the families that won't be taking up someone else's tresured table!

Same here. Ate there twice and it was awful! The first time the food was so bad I had to get CS for the DD immediately afterwards. We sat at the table forwever with no food.

Second time my sister and her family wanted to go. Place was packed. Waited forever and we asked for some kid friendly food and the waiter refused until after he brought out the adult food so the kids could "try it and if they didn't like it he would then bring out the chicken fingers" Really made us mad. We KNEW my nephew wouldn't eat anything else. He very firmly refused and we were mad. Plus the food wasn't that great.

Very loud, ugh, never again.

 

[baler31]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time. You are right though, all the restaurants are very "hit or miss".
That said, I happen to think O'Hana is one of the worst, most over-hyped places on all of WDW property. Twice I've eaten there and both times included a ridiculous wait for a table past our ADR time, God awful service, and dried out cold food that tasted like it had been made the day before...

So at least we're one of the families that won't be taking up someone else's tresured table!

I could not agree more.

 

[Julie711]

DH and myself ate here for the first time in Feb when we came for our kid free trip. We were excited to try different places with no kids and have been hearing great reviews about this place. I will say it was not awful, but for myself I wouldnt care if we didnt go back again, DH liked it. We both didnt care for the bread, it needed some type of butter or something, was just to plain. We liked the salad ( wasnt sure if I would with the different dressing, but it was good), I liked the noodles, chicken wings and the dessert was the BEST part. I didnt care for any of the skewer meats, thought they were a little to dry and plain, I know they had the dipping sauces but I didnt care for any of them. Overall I would go back again b/c DH did enjoy it, and just eat the noodles, salad & wings and save room for the dessert

 

[Maggie'sMom]

So sorry to hear about your bad experience. If it were me, I would have asked to speak to the manager. And I wouldn't have even waited until the end of the meal. It shouldn't take 20 minutes to get the salad.

 

[CapnJacksGirl]

Add us to the never-again category for 'Ohana dinner. Never ever again.

We waited a ridiculous amount of time to be seated, only to be served the worst food we've ever had on WDW property.....and that includes DHS CS!!!! Literally, the only edible things we were given during that meal was the bread and the dessert. We complained to the server, who basically said "sorry, but it is what it is." Um, what??? I asked to speak to a manager, but after waiting 10 minutes, we just left. I'd wasted far too much time on that place that night already. We ended up going back to BC and getting flatbread pizzas from the Marketplace on the way back to the room, which were very tasty!

All that being said, we really enjoy breakfast at 'Ohana, if we get an early morning ADR. That place is so ridiculous about staying even close to seating people in a timely fashion that if we can't go by 8:30 am, we won't waste our time again. (And before someone reminds me, yes, I understand that an ADR is not an actual reservation and we won't be seated exactly on time every time. 'Ohana, however, is the only restaurant on property where we ever have a problem.)

 

[Paradise18]

So sad to hear about your experience. We have been looking forward to going on our upcoming trip, but that is not typical of the service we have received in the past. And to hear others posting similar experiences is disheartening.

 

[Gorechick]

After this review I'm thinking of skipping O'Hana and doning Kona for dinner instead. It'll save me some $$$ too since we're paying OOP.

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

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.

 

[stampit76]

What a shame. We never miss Ohana every trip... I have a gluten allergy which severely limits me everywhere I go and was more than pleased. ONE time out of about 20 we had a bad experience and a swarm of fruit flies decided to join us with our salad. We informed our waiter and they quickly moved us to a new table with new food and drinks. Sad to hear people are having bad experiences but it makes more room for me

 

[kathie859]

I no longer tolerate lousy service ANYWHERE! We are traveling right now and wanted to grab a small bite last night for a light dinner in the hotel bar. There was NO ONE THERE. Another party was seated after us and the server who had thrown us a menu as we sat down took their order first. We walked out. I'm generally one of those non-confrontational people. But you can vote with your dollars...or, in this case, euros.

Re: Ohana.....we tried it twice--first time I gave them the benefit of doubt--but the second time was lousy, too. And, OMG---that GAWD awful singer

 

[tallen429]

So sad to hear about your experience. We have been looking forward to going on our upcoming trip, but that is not typical of the service we have received in the past. And to hear others posting similar experiences is disheartening.

After this review I'm thinking of skipping O'Hana and doning Kona for dinner instead. It'll save me some $$$ too since we're paying OOP.

Keep in mind that because some of us don't like it doesn't mean you won't. You can easily find lots and lots of positive reviews of O'Hana as well. I'm still an advocate of trying someplace and forming my own opinions but if someone asks me about my opinion I'll give it, and in this case it was bad.

 

[TisBit]

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.

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!

 

[Sparkly]

We had the same hit or miss experience with Crystal Palace- was excited to have breakfast there because of it getting very favourable reviews- it was terrible! We ate there on Valentine's Day morning at 8:40am.

Service was slow, it took 1 1/2 hours to see all of the characters because the place was packed with little kids, the aircon made the food stone cold by the time we got back to our table (and we were right around the corner from the buffet) and it felt very dirty and noisy. Says something if the breakfast we had at Ponderosa two days before for a 1/5th of the price was better then Crystal Palace. /off-topic rant.

I quite want to try O'hana, guess not for dinner.

 

[traviesojmt]

I think that this thread is the prime example of "one person's treasure is another person's trash". We have eaten at 'Ohana several times and we have had wonderful service and food each time. On our last visit, I told our server that our DD7 would prefer a child's meal. He told her that he would take care of her. Goodness gracious, we laughed at the way he took care of her. He brought her a large (way too large, btw) skillet filled with chicken fingers, mac and cheese and french fries. We have been fortunate to always have good service there.

On the other hand, we have been very unfortunate at other restaurants that others rave about. I couldn't drag my DH back to Rose and Crown and we did not enjoy eating at Boma. I think it is important to read every review (good or bad) with a grain of salt and remember to keep your expectations in check.

Sorry, OP, that you had a bad experience.