Late ADRs and dining experience quality

[Masonmj84]

I've been reading a lot of reviews on Disney restaurants and it seems that, with the general exception of the signatures, a disproportionate number of the relatively bad reviews correlate to a late seating (especially at controversial restaurants like Coral Reef and especially during busier times of times of the year).

I remember reading somewhere that someone did a study of Disney restaurant reviews that indicated that this was actually not the case (i.e., there was no correlation between seating time and dining experience). But the online reviews I've been reading generally suggest otherwise.

What's been your overall experience?

 

[OhThePain]

We often take late seatings (it's just me and my girlfriend and we figure that families might be in more of a need of the prime ADR times than we are). We have never had an issue with food quality or service at any late ADR's compaired to eating at the same restaurant earlier. If anything we have found the dining experience much more enjoyable the later in the seating we have eaten (whether it be breakfast or dinner). The restaurants are quieter, the wait staff is more relaxed and the food isn't any different at 9:30 or 10 then it is at 5:30 or 6.

CR is just an awful restaurant to use as a "for instance" in this case. It used to be a nice, relaxing, quiet fantastic restaurant. Now it can be as loud and chaotic as a character meal (especially if you are unfortunate enough to sit next to the tank), the wait staff has gotten slower and somewhat rude from our experiences and the menu and food quality is uninspired and lacking. It's not a bad experience for late ADR's, it's a bad experience period.

 

[angierae]

I've been reading a lot of reviews on Disney restaurants and it seems that, with the general exception of the signatures, a disproportionate number of the relatively bad reviews correlate to a late seating (especially at controversial restaurants like Coral Reef and especially during busier times of times of the year).

I remember reading somewhere that someone did a study of Disney restaurant reviews that indicated that this was actually not the case (i.e., there was no correlation between seating time and dining experience). But the online reviews I've been reading generally suggest otherwise.

What's been your overall experience?

We had a late seating at Coral Reef (8:10, I just looked) and we did have very bad service. Here's an except from my post about it:

Every course came out exceedingly slow. Even when we ate at Narcoossee's later in the week, our food came at a better pace. Eventually, we were done with dessert and we didn't see our waiter at all for over 20 minutes. He came and dropped off the bill, and it was ANOTHER 15 minutes and he hadn't come back for our KTTW cards or anything. My husband actually got up and went up to the front desk to ask where our waiter was. He came back while my husband was gone, and my MIL was getting upset at this point. Finally the manager came over and just kept saying "He's working on it, he's working on it" but it was still 10-15 minutes MORE and he still hadn't returned with our paperwork to sign. He finally came back with one of our three cards (six people, three rooms) and the said he had to do the other two.

At this point my usually incredibly laid back MIL was fit to be tied. We had been done eating for nearly an hour, and still hadn't been able to pay and leave. It was going on 11 and we'd had 8:10 reservations! No other meal all week took this long, including three signature restaurants. Eventually they waived the required 18% gratuity (since we were a party of six) and we got out of there, but it was just AWFUL. Waiting and waiting and waiting and absolutely no acknowledgment of my husband's birthday - the waiter never even said happy birthday to him once he realized it was an adult's birthday and not a child's.

 

[Pakey]

We usually dine late since we come from the left coast and do not adjust for the 3 hour time change. We have not experienced later ADRs are directly related to worse service or food quality. We have often not been seated before 9:30 and generally have good dining experiences.

Coral Reef, regardless of the time we have dined here, including the first ADR for lunch, always has poor service. We have dined here many times and that's a given for this place. I'm always happy when we don't have new people in our group who want to eat here so that we can skip this place.

 

[Masonmj84]

Sorry to hear that about Coral Reef (I'd heard that it had gotten somewhat better recently - maybe not).

We have an 11:30 am ADR there next Feb and was hoping the early booking would offset some of the issues I've heard about the service there.

I'm thinking this will probably end up being a one and done experience, given all of the other choices in Epcot (kids insisted on doing it and it's convenient to where we plan to be in the park at the time).