Just back - Disappointed with the food this trip

[alicenwonder99]

Thanks for the replies.

We had a fun trip. The food was really not too much of an issue, but I guess I was kinda looking forward to not having to cook and eating something very tasty. I think the only thing that got me about the quality of the food was that it is so expensive. I was just telling my MIL yesterday that for about $6 you can buy a OUTSTANDING sandwich at Potbelly's (I'm not sure if this is a national chain, or just in Chicago). Or even Panera's (again, not sure if this is just a Chicago chain). So, then why can't you get an OUTSTANDING meal for $15 at WDW? Except for the burnt chicken at Sci-Fi and the totally unedible food at Pop, the food I ate was just ok...like a Dennys or Cracker Barrel. You know how Dennys and Cracker Barrel are: not that great, but edible (and it's better than having to cook it yourself).

Oh, and Marakeesh was completely filled. There wasn't an empty seat in the whole place when we first got there (6:30pm). It started thining out a tiny bit when we left around 7:30pm. But there were still people waiting to be seated in the lobby when we walked out. The tables were just so close to each other. We were seated up against the wall. There was just enough room between our table and the table next to us for the waiter to walk through. But the table next to us had their neighbor's table just about 3 inches next to them.

Mary

 

[goofy4tink]

Yikes...I've never known Marrakesh to be so crowded. Either the secret is out or people couldn't get in elsewhere. That's too bad. Again..sorry you had such bad experiences.

 

[bicker]

I know I didn't make ADR's for the best restaurants in WDW, but I thought I could at least get a great meal anyway.

Thanks for you report. I've been having trouble convincing a couple of friends what they'll have to settle for if they don't make ADRs well in advance, and this report should go far to help them avoid being disappointed.

Marrakeesh (Morrocco): ... I had the salmon

One of the tough parts of putting together menus for World Showcase restaurants is that they have to have all the "requisite" choices for every dietary preference, even if the choice isn't commensurate with the specific cuisine. Salmon is not the highlight of Moroccan cooking. Typically, fish is cooked and served whole, which makes a big difference in terms of taste.

In the last couple of years I've gotten more instances of bland or outright unpleasant dishes than I'd ever gotten before at Disney.

Moroccan food is all about the spices, for me, and unfortunately, so many Americans are so adverse to the pungent flavors of some exotic cuisines, that these restaurants have had to tone down the authenticity to have a hope of preventing widespread dissastisfaction. I'm not sure how effective it would be, but I would hope that I could tell the server that I'd like the seasoning to be authentic, not Americanized, and get a better result. Has anyone had much success with that approach?

We were also dissappointed in the entertainment. Maybe I was just expecting something more, but the belly dancer only came out for about 10 minutes (or maybe even less) and we were there for a little over an hour.

My experience has been closer to 20 minutes every 85 minutes (not sure where I got that, but I pulled it out of one of my old trip reports). I believe the Oom-Pah entertainment at Biergarten works the same way.

But when there were other's celebrating their bday, the servers made such a huge production out of it. ... but it was such a big difference that it was noticeable.

That might be the impact of baksheesh.

Marakeesh was completely filled.

That makes me think there was a big party there, and what you saw was definitely the effect of someone paying a lot extra (or pulling strings) to get an extra special experience for themselves.

[CP] but they rushed the characters thought.

It does always seem to us like the special time, when the characters are with our little ones, passes by really quickly. And then we sit back and watch the characters interacting with all the other families, and it seems like they're spending so much time with everyone else!

Tusker House: I've eaten here before, the salmon, and it was outstanding.

This is our favorite, and looking forward to another wonderful meal there.

HDDR.....I have to say that the food is the last reason we have for going here.

That's a great point. I think it needs to be clear that, with character meals and dinner shows, the entertainment isn't a free bonus, but rather a substantial amount of the cost of the meal is actually going towards providing the guest with this show, which is not available to the general public.

My only suggestion would be that it seems the type of food you prefer, is better prepared at the deluxe Resort restaurants and not at the park restaurants.

I just went over this yesterday with a co-worker, heading to WDW in late-January. I basically told her just that, that when you have a meal inside the park, you're paying a very substantial premium for the convenience. If you want a better value for your money, pay the same amount for a meal at a resort, and you'll have far better food.

She asked about where you can get both, the convenience and the high quality. Then I showed her the prices at Chefs de France, and she asked me to tell her more about the resort hotel restaurants!

 

[crisi]

Thanks for the replies.

We had a fun trip. The food was really not too much of an issue, but I guess I was kinda looking forward to not having to cook and eating something very tasty. I think the only thing that got me about the quality of the food was that it is so expensive. I was just telling my MIL yesterday that for about $6 you can buy a OUTSTANDING sandwich at Potbelly's (I'm not sure if this is a national chain, or just in Chicago). Or even Panera's (again, not sure if this is just a Chicago chain).

We have both Potbelly and Panara here, and I think Panera is just gross! Overpriced and gross. Potbelly is OK, but I much prefer Quizno's, and even that is far from outstanding (Wolfgang Puck Express here does some outstanding sandwiches). So part of this is a matter of taste (though burnt chicken is burnt chicken - however, I purposely char the chicken for my summer chicken sandwich on occation, so sometimes burnt chicken isn't just burnt chicken).

 

[vfb2girls]

When my husband and myself took a trip to Disney in 2004 after being absent from the parks for over 10 years we were really looking forward to the great food. Well let me say that even though we had the best trip ever the food was not the best thing about the trip. We had a meal at Sci-Fi and although the place was really cool inside the food was just plain awful I ended up sending back my first meal to be replaced by a salad and even that was terrible so this is one place we won't go back to, if we had kids with us it would be a different story but we did it once and once was enough. I think the biggest dissapointment for me was eating at the castle, the place is awesome inside but for the price of the food it just wasn't anything to write home about. In fact of all the places we ate on that trip the best meal we had was off site. But now we are going back in 2006 on the dining plan and since we know what to expect from our previous dining experiece we won't be dissapointed, we already know what to expect.