Narcooseee's

[LENNON500]

Nothing particularly witty or special to say here other than we just booked another dinner (our 10th time) at Narcoossee's for 1/28/17 and we are just as excited as we were on our first time dining there!!!
I love everything about this restaurant; the theme, atmosphere, service, location and most importantly, the food are all nothing short of superb!
I hope everyone here gets to dine at this amazing restaurant.

 

[Lisa F]

I wish I had that experience. it was hands down by far the worst meal of my trip and even worse because it was the most anticipated. I am thinking they were having a bad night, servers kept dropping dishes and a friend dined at the same time and thought her food was not good either. Also they need to fix their bathroom situation, stationing a CM outside the men's room to hold women until it is all clear of men and little boys to use the bathroom is NOT the way to top off a $200 meal.

 

[Hopefully]

I wish I had that experience. it was hands down by far the worst meal of my trip and even worse because it was the most anticipated. I am thinking they were having a bad night, servers kept dropping dishes and a friend dined at the same time and thought her food was not good either. Also they need to fix their bathroom situation, stationing a CM outside the men's room to hold women until it is all clear of men and little boys to use the bathroom is NOT the way to top off a $200 meal.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Having enjoyed your posts for months as you planned, you were super excited about the twin butter poached lobster tails. I think your expectations were so high that you were setup for disappointment. I may have had a similar experience with our Raglan Road dinner. After years of loving it I was miserably disappointed. For us, after years of loving it maybe it was an off night. But a major disappointment none the less.
The Ladies Room situation was unfortunate.

 

[Lisa F]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Having enjoyed your posts for months as you planned, you were super excited about the twin butter poached lobster tails. I think your expectations were so high that you were setup for disappointment. I may have had a similar experience with our Raglan Road dinner. After years of loving it I was miserably disappointed. For us, after years of loving it maybe it was an off night. But a major disappointment none the less.
The Ladies Room situation was unfortunate.

Oh no, they were bad. Undercooked but I spent so much time dealing with my son's meal that by the time i got to my undercooked lobster tails I ran out of steam for complaining. I am not super hard to please honestly and have very few complaints (and any are minor and more along the lines of "this good thing could be better if...") about any other meal. But an ordered medium steak served to an 8 year old should not come out purple and cold - there is no excuse for that. And when they took it back to recook it, the sauce on it (I will take responsibility for asking for it "plain" and not specifying "no sauce") charred so much that the outer edges were medium rare and the inside was rare - he just ate the medium rare parts. After all that and the fact that a runner brought the recooked steak and the server never came back to check how it was, I just picked at my lobster tails which were underdone... not enough to make you sick but enough to have that off texture (I get it in shrimp sometimes if in my attempt to not overcook it they are a minute or so under). Just not good all around. My friend (at another table, another server) had way overcooked fish that night too.

It was definitely an off night and not my expectations. Other meals that had high expectations lived up to it and more. Out of all of the meals we had it was the only bad one, it's just a shame it was our last on DxDDP.

 

[bumbershoot]

Care to explain the bathroom thing? For those who haven't been there it makes no sense.

 

[Lisa F]

Care to explain the bathroom thing? For those who haven't been there it makes no sense.

When I was there the ladies' room was being renovated. They do not have a family restroom so they had a CM stationed outside of the men's room. Apparently there were already two men in there when I showed up and got in line behind one woman who had already been there a while. Then an endless stream of little boys showed up also needing to use the bathroom. No one ever came out of there in about 10 minutes and both myself and the other woman gave up on using the bathroom there that night (actually she commented that after the 8 or so unsupervised by the man they showed up with little boys went into the bathroom that she was no longer interested in using what she might find back there)... I ended up just taking that boat to the MK and making a mad dash for the nearest bathroom once we got through security and the tapstiles. It wasn't so bad at first but by the time I got there I thought I was going to explode. Maybe I should have just waited but the policy seems to be if anyone of the gender that is currently using the bathroom shows up, they will be continually allowed to go in and when everyone has cleared out the other gender can use it. In either case maybe I'm just being a baby but after spending $200 on a terrible meal, not being able to use the bathroom was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.

If anyone has a family member who may get hung up not being able to use the bathroom in a timely manner you might want to call the GF and see if they have both bathrooms in operation yet. They didn't say it was "repair" they said it was "renovation" which to me implies quite some time.

 

[GPC0321]

I'm so torn about Narcoossee's for our December trip next year. I really want to try it because a lot of people seem to love it, but the occasional bad review does pop up (as this thread proves) AND I actually like the look of Citricos' menu more. Of course, there's no reason we can't eat at both!

What I kind of want to do is eat dinner at Citricos at a decent hour and then have a later reservation for Narcoossee's for dessert and watching the fireworks (preferably on a MVMCP night so it's Holiday Wishes).

 

[Lisa F]

I'm so torn about Narcoossee's for our December trip next year. I really want to try it because a lot of people seem to love it, but the occasional bad review does pop up (as this thread proves) AND I actually like the look of Citricos' menu more. Of course, there's no reason we can't eat at both!

What I kind of want to do is eat dinner at Citricos at a decent hour and then have a later reservation for Narcoossee's for dessert and watching the fireworks (preferably on a MVMCP night so it's Holiday Wishes).

I think honestly you can get a bad review everywhere. Everyone has a bad night, including the best of restaurants. A friend from the DISboards was there at the same time across the room and her food was subpar too. Also the wait staff kept dropping stuff... I counted twice and she said one more time after I left (like catastrophic drops in the middle of the dining room). I'm not judging because i'm a klutz myself but I am just saying I think it is more of an indication of a very off night at the restaurant. I'm just disappointed that it happened to me, but I guess you can't win them all. That said it's kind of off my list for a while and the new Flying Fish and Artist point have gone to the top for the next sig I want to try. I'm also ticked that I sent an email to Disney about it last week (I did not complain while there because I did not want to take time out of my vacation to complain and I was not looking for compensation of any kind) and have not heard a peep beyond the auto reply they send, so that is kind of ticking me off about it also. But again not a reflection of that particular restaurant. All of our other meals were great even at places that get very mixed reviews so I guess I should not complain about one bad one...but it is not gonna stop me!

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

Oh no, they were bad. Undercooked but I spent so much time dealing with my son's meal that by the time i got to my undercooked lobster tails I ran out of steam for complaining. I am not super hard to please honestly and have very few complaints (and any are minor and more along the lines of "this good thing could be better if...") about any other meal. But an ordered medium steak served to an 8 year old should not come out purple and cold - there is no excuse for that. And when they took it back to recook it, the sauce on it (I will take responsibility for asking for it "plain" and not specifying "no sauce") charred so much that the outer edges were medium rare and the inside was rare - he just ate the medium rare parts. After all that and the fact that a runner brought the recooked steak and the server never came back to check how it was, I just picked at my lobster tails which were underdone... not enough to make you sick but enough to have that off texture (I get it in shrimp sometimes if in my attempt to not overcook it they are a minute or so under). Just not good all around. My friend (at another table, another server) had way overcooked fish that night too.

It was definitely an off night and not my expectations. Other meals that had high expectations lived up to it and more. Out of all of the meals we had it was the only bad one, it's just a shame it was our last on DxDDP.

We got RAW lobster as well but at Cali Grill! We were told that's how it is served...
I'm here to tell ya, I have dined at clam shacks and 5 star restaurants in my life, and never once in my many many years have I been told "poached equals raw"!
From our experience the "signature" restaurants have not loved up to all the hype...

 

[GPC0321]

I don't east lobster very often at all (last time was at Red Lobster, blech, can't stand that place), though I do vaguely remember eating some good lobster at some point in the distant past of my life. No idea when and where that was or how it was cooked. It SEEMS like it was probably steamed?

Just wondering the difference between steamed and poached and if that has something to do with the quality of the lobster that people get.

I wouldn't order lobster anyway. It's way too darn expensive and there are other things on the menu that appeal to me more.

 

[BK2014]

We were at WDW Dec. 1-9. Narcoossee's was the last ADR of our trip. After having been really blown away by meals at the Boathouse and Trattoria al Forna, I was not expecting much from Narcoossee's. It was picked by another couple who we were meeting there for dinner. There wasn't much on the menu that appealed to me, so I just ordered a soup and side of their lobster mac and cheese. The food I had was good, but I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere. I was worried that it would be somewhat stuffy, but it was very relaxed and enjoyable Even at night, the view was great.

The only negative was the awkward bathroom situation as mentioned above. It seemed to be freezing inside the restaurant, and I am normally hot. But then I polled my DW and the other couple, and they said they were not cold. Turned out that was the first sign that I was coming down with a cold the last day of our trip.

 

[LENNON500]

We were at WDW Dec. 1-9. Narcoossee's was the last ADR of our trip. After having been really blown away by meals at the Boathouse and Trattoria al Forna, I was not expecting much from Narcoossee's. It was picked by another couple who we were meeting there for dinner. There wasn't much on the menu that appealed to me, so I just ordered a soup and side of their lobster mac and cheese. The food I had was good, but I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere. I was worried that it would be somewhat stuffy, but it was very relaxed and enjoyable Even at night, the view was great.

The only negative was the awkward bathroom situation as mentioned above. It seemed to be freezing inside the restaurant, and I am normally hot. But then I polled my DW and the other couple, and they said they were not cold. Turned out that was the first sign that I was coming down with a cold the last day of our trip.

Trattoria al Forno was such an amazing surprise when we ate there. We had breakfast (Italian scrambled eggs) and it was the best breakfast we ever had on property. We went back for dinner last June and again, it was fantastic. I think it's a "hidden gem" amongst Disney restaurants!

 

[FatOldHillbillie]

Nothing particularly witty or special to say here other than we just booked another dinner (our 10th time) at Narcoossee's for 1/28/17 and we are just as excited as we were on our first time dining there!!!
I love everything about this restaurant; the theme, atmosphere, service, location and most importantly, the food are all nothing short of superb!
I hope everyone here gets to dine at this amazing restaurant.

We've given that place 2 tries, the latest was in this last October and quite frankly we were disappointed with the food and the menu both times. There will not be a third attempt.

 

[FatOldHillbillie]

I wish I had that experience. it was hands down by far the worst meal of my trip and even worse because it was the most anticipated. I am thinking they were having a bad night, servers kept dropping dishes and a friend dined at the same time and thought her food was not good either. Also they need to fix their bathroom situation, stationing a CM outside the men's room to hold women until it is all clear of men and little boys to use the bathroom is NOT the way to top off a $200 meal.

I can assure you that it wasn't a bad night. They just have the most disappointing menu and food of all the places we've eaten at the world.

 

[Lisa F]

I can assure you that it wasn't a bad night. They just have the most disappointing menu and food of all the places we've eaten at the world.

Well the menu I knew I was getting going into it and wanted a simple meal. But the preparation was horrendous. That can't possibly be a regular thing or they would not stay in business!

 

[FatOldHillbillie]

Well the menu I knew I was getting going into it and wanted a simple meal. But the preparation was horrendous. That can't possibly be a regular thing or they would not stay in business!

I don't know. They have the view and they are at a deluxe resort so they get the "press" for being all that. Like I said we've been twice with 3 years apart and my wife said after this last trip, Never again. Citricos has a limited menu but they actually cook the food well and the wait staff actually cares.

 

[Lisa F]

I don't know. They have the view and they are at a deluxe resort so they get the "press" for being all that. Like I said we've been twice with 3 years apart and my wife said after this last trip, Never again. Citricos has a limited menu but they actually cook the food well and the wait staff actually cares.

we had the best meal of our trip at CA Grill with an absolutely fabulous server. I see tons of reviews that they are not as good as they used to be etcetc but we have had consistently amazing meals there. Narcoossees is off our list too but I'm sure someone else will take our place

 

[senadler]

I know that every place has off nights and gets some bad reviews, so just wanted to share my experience.

During our trip last May, Narcoossees was by far the best meal of the trip. I had the Shrimp and Grits appetizer and the Lobster. I rarely get a whole lobster (too much work and all), so loved the fact that they have it broken down. The service was excellent as well.

This is the one signature meal we have planned for our trip in March, so I am hoping your experience was just a bad night.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We are doing the Deluxe Dining Plan for our October trip so we can experience some of these fancier places without the huge sticker shock. I am super excited to try Narcoossees.

 

[SurferStitch]

Narcoossee's is our favorite signature restaurant!! We've dined there at least 20 times over the past 20 years. We were just there this past October, and our meal was amazing. You'll be there on my birthday.... I'm so jealous!!!