Just back - Disappointed with the food this trip

alicenwonder99

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 9, 2004
Messages
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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. Oh, and I want to add that I'm not a picky person when it comes to eating. With 3 kids, I'm just happy if I don't have to cook it.

TS meals:

Sci-Fi Diner for dinner: this was one of the biggest disappointments. We ate there before and I had a burger for lunch and it was outstanding. This time, I didn't want anything too heavy so I just ordered a grilled chicken salad. Well, the chicken was burnt. I couldn't even eat half of it. I'm not someone who returns food, so I just ate the parts that weren't burnt and the salad.

HoopDeDoo Review: this dinner show was probably the highlight of our trip. The kids and I had a blast here. But the food was just ok. It was edible, but nothing too spectacular. The chicken was good, the ribs weren't too bad (but not too good, either). The salad was good (I realized by the end of my trip that the salad was the only thing I could count on to be good...lol). If you go to this show for the food, you'll be disappointed...but the entertainment was great and that's why we went there anyway. Oh, the dessert, strawberry shortcake, was pretty good, so at least there was one thing that I really liked.

Marrakeesh (Morrocco): this was another disappointment. Since this was a birthday trip for my dd7, I let her decide where she wanted to eat her birthday dinner and this is the place she chose. The tables were soooo close together here you could practically eat off of your neighbor's plate. And the food was just ok. I had the salmon and it tasted and looked alot like the salmon they served at POP. It was edible, but nothing great. 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. And this was strange: when I told the server we were celebrating my dd's bday, he came out at dessert time with her dessert with a candle. There were about 5 other servers who came along and they sang Happy Bday to her. DD loved it. But when there were other's celebrating their bday, the servers made such a huge production out of it. They came out in procession with a drum and made a much bigger deal out of it with their singing and gestures. OK, you had to be there because it was such a drastic difference. I wasn't expecting too much to begin with and I'm not really complaining, but it was such a big difference that it was noticeable. But she did get the special recognition so that was great for her. :)

Crystal Palace breakfast with characters: this was a beautiful restaurant. It was nice seeing the characters without having to stand in lines, but they rushed the characters thought. And when Tigger came through, we couldn't even get him to stay for a 3rd picture. We don't do autographs, so we just took pictures. My dd7 got a camera for her bday so she wanted to take a separate pic of the characters, but Tigger just wouldn't stay. And the food wasn't that great. The bacon was pretty good, but that was about it. It was just an okay breakfast, nothing too great.

Counter Service meals:

POP: This was awful food. We ate there 3 times (because of the convenience). The first night I ate the salmon...it was edible, but not that great. It was served on something that resembled a rice dish but it was nasty. The second time was breakfast. This food was just terrible...I can't believe they actually serve this food and then charge people for it. The 3rd time was at dinner and I got a hamburger. It reminded me of college food...I ate it, but it wasn't that great. The kids ate pizzas and they said they liked them.

Tusker House: I've eaten here before, the salmon, and it was outstanding. I didn't want anything too heavy this time, so I ordered the chicken salad (I should have been forwarned with the awful chicken salad from Sci-Fi). This time it wasn't burnt...because there was hardly any chicken in it! Seriously, I found at the bottom of my salad a 3 inch long piece of chicken, then one more dime-sized bite. So, it was really just a salad with a small slice of chicken in it. I wished I had ordered something different. I wanted something not too heavy, but I ended up with something not enough.

Seasons (at the Land Pavillion at Epcot): I got the asian stir fry. With the meal plan, I could choose 2 entrees and 2 sides. I got Mongolian beef and Sweet n' Sour chicken for the entrees and broccoli and white rice for the sides. The broccoli was ok...it was just steamed so you can't go wrong. The rice was ok...though it would have been nice if they offered fried rice or even brown rice. The mongolian beef and sweet and sour chicken had hardly any meat in it. It was edible, but it reminded me of Panda Express...not the greatest.

So, I know I didn't choose the best places to eat, but I should have at least got a great meal at least once on this trip.

Mary
 
DH and I love the food at Marakeesh and Crystal Palace! Sorry you didn't have the same experiance we did!
 
I love Marrakeesh but I would have never ordered salmon there!!! Seems that would be like ordering pizza in a chinese restaurant.
 
We love Sci Fi, but after one disappointing visit for dinner, we only go for lunch now. We've never been disappointed with the food at lunch there. :)
 

Sorry you had a disappointing time! I'm not thrilled with any of the restaurants besides Crystal Palace (better for lunch/dinner) and Sunshine Seasons - you might have just gotten the wrong thing at Sunshine Seasons. Those "chinese" meals are fairly new and I'm not happy that they replaced the noodle bowls with those.
 
Thanks for the report. It was very helpful. :)
You know, long ago in the 80s, it seemed Disney food was notoriously awful and everyone agreed on that. I believe things improved in the late 1990s, but in my last two trips (WDW and DCL), the food was pretty bad all around. I wonder if things are headed back to the way they were in the 80s. I hope not.

Kaycee said:
We love Sci Fi, but after one disappointing visit for dinner, we only go for lunch now. We've never been disappointed with the food at lunch there. :)

We made the mistake of having lunch at Sci-Fi a few years ago. After 4 different and bad tasting lunch entrees, we vowed that, along with Beaches N Cream with their nasty burgers, we will only do dessert at Sci-fi from now on.

Tink
 
I can honestly say we have never had a bad meal at the sci fi. If they ever change or somthing I wouldnt no what to do. We fist ate there in 94 95 and now it the first ressie we make. :cool1:
 
Mary... Sounds like you need to stay away from chicken and Salmon. Thy don't seem to be working out for you at WDW. :) But seriously. It just seems like you had some bad luck. Next time get the burger and step away from the Salmon.
 
The part about the Crystal Palace shocked me as it was my favorite meal in WDW our last trip. We will definitely be scheduling another ADR for there perhaps even 2 (breakfast and dinner).
 
I swear you can only get burgers at Sci-Fi and have a good meal! I think I posted once that I got the angel hair pasta with shrimp for lunch-BIG mistake! The burgers are good though. :)
We all like the Crystal Palace breakfast. Ate there on Dec 3 and it was very good. We don't do autographs and only snapped one picture of the kids with each character, so I can't comment on how long they stayed.
 
Thanks for sharing your reviews. Sorry to hear that you did not have good experiences. :(
 
I've been wondering the same thing about Disney food getting worse lately. 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. And I have to wonder if the the dining plan is going to make the problem worse. When you are feeding masses of people all the time it starts to make sense to have the food be palatable to as many people as you possibly can. And also as cost effective as possible... The end result food I wish I hadn't paid for. Not a good thing because easy exploration of restaurants has been a big plus in my Disney visits. Offsite or offplan restaurants will probably get more of my dollars.
 
Hi Mary...me again. I did respond to your post over on the resorts board, so I'll add my thoughts here too.
HDDR.....I have to say that the food is the last reason we have for going here. My dh just laughs when my dd talks (incessantly!) about going there in Oct for her 13th b-day...we didn't care for the food there at all when we were there. And we couldn't even eat the strawberry shortcake. But, we love the show, so we eat a ton of bread and salad!!
Crystal Palace....well, this is one of our favorite spots to eat..both breakfast and dinner. We have always gotten good food here. In fact, it's one of the few places my dh wants to eat at every time we go. We have never had an issue with the character interaction before. Especially with Tigger....at one point we had to ignore him to make him stop 'acting up' at our table. Maybe you hit an off Tigger...however, that doesn't excuse him. Everyone should have the same time allotted by the characters.
Marrakesh....ohhh, this is one of our good spots. I can't imagine how you ended up feeling crowded. It is never crowded in there. You must have gotten really unlucky and had a host/hostess seat you too close to the next party. That is a pain. The only issue we have with this spot is that my dd can never find anything she likes to eat here, she can't even get a cheeseburger (or at least couldn't the last time we were there...they said something about cheese not being offered there). The belly dances didn't even come out when we were eating. She must have just ended her 'set' when we were seated, because she came back out as we were leaving. Figures. But, we do like it there.
And Sci-Fi...well, my dd and I ate there based on what a lot of people here said. We both had awful food there. My burger was not even on a par with the burgers I have gotten at the value resort food courts!!! Very dry and completely lacking in taste. Even my dd's hot dog wasn't good. The onion rings were yucky, we were seated in the back seat of a car, with complete strangers in front of us. The lady's hair kept swinging into my food. It wasn't crowded, and there were lots of empty seats, so I still can't figure out why they weren't put in a different car. All I know is that we won't be eating there again.

Looks like you had really bad luck with your meal choices. But, like I said before...everyone's different experiences help others to make informed choices. So, thanks for posting.
 
Mary - I'm sorry you had such disappointing meals! We had TWO great dinners at Marrakesh when we were there in October. Lamb and kabobs. They do just about the best lamb this side of Ireland. Honestly, in 20 years, we've never been disappointed there. Even with the entertainment. (On this last trip, the belly dancer practically draped herself around our good-looking son. He blushed. Our DIL got a picture.)

But as doubletrouble_vb mentioned, I'd never order salmon there.

We haven't eaten at the Crystal Palace in years. The last time was one too many.


DisFlan
 
I think you chose some nice places to eat. Another time with different food choices, it may be an entirely different experience for you.

Some of our favorites made this list: SciFi, Restaurant Marrakesh, Pop Century food court.

The atmosphere at the SciFi is so much fun that I guess I've not paid as much attention to the food. Along with the burgers, we liked the shrimp penne pasta at dinner.

We've had great meals at Restaurant Marrakesh. I agree with others that I probably wouldn't order the salmon there. Their "feasts" are great for sampling a variety of what they have to offer and we always like the combination appetizer for two and the kebabs.

We really liked Pop Century, too - but all of our food choices were different from yours. So it probably depends on what gets ordered there. I liked their selection - something for everyone.

Good luck on your next trip!

Collette
 
That's a shame you were disappointed with the restaurant fare this trip. For my money the best dining at WDW is not at the parks(except WS). That doesn't mean that you can't find something worthwhile in the parks, but the highest quality is at the resorts and at DTD. :earsboy:
 
Thanks for providing your thoughts on these restaurants, and I'm sorry to hear that they did not live up to their reputations! I hope the rest of your trip went well!
 
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 tend to stay away from the more exotic fare at the food courts. In fact I was not even aware that Food courts offered salmon.
 
Sorry that you didn't have a good expierence at the Crystal Palace. My Fiance, his neice and I all had a wonderful time and the food was excellent. The characters took lots of pictures with us.
 





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