I was able to visit several of the popular restaurants on this trip. BOG Lunch, CRT Breakfast, Boma, Tusker House, Trail's End Thanksgiving Buffet and 'Ohana. I almost cancelled the 'Ohana reservation because of all the posts I have seen about their recent problems with poor service and dried out meats. I have read many tales recently of 15 minutes waits for a drink refill, being rushed, or being ignored and horrible food. In the end I read some good reviews and since I had never dined at 'Ohana before we gave it a try. I'm glad I didn't get scared off.
Service: Good, not excellent, but decent. Our server had an assistant that handled drinks, salad, clearing plates, and other small items while our main server brought the food and made sure we were taken care of. There were a couple of times we had to wait longer than I thought we should on some items (therefore good not excellent), but certainly not enough to make for a bad experience. Our drink glasses were never empty, we were not rushed, and we had ample opportunities to ask for more of any item we wanted. I don't know if it is just luck of the draw or if 'Ohana has worked on the reported service issues.
Food: Bread - yuck, Salad - Meh, Wings - blah. Noodles - good and nice with the meal but they are just noodles. Pot stickers - great, Shrimp and meats - very good. I like my beef medium to medium rare. I had one piece of beef (our of 4) that I would say was a bit dry and tough. It was a small piece so that may have been the problem. All of the rest of the beef and chicken was excellent. Juicy, flavorful, and properly seasoned and prepared. The shrimp was good as well. If I had just had that one small piece of beef my opinion would not have been the same. I try to keep my salt low for medical reasons and I thought the meat was well seasoned. Someone who still loves salt might find it bland and give a different review. My whole family thought it was pretty good.
Ambiance: There was a live singer working the crowd with Hawaiian style Christmas tunes, no other games or etc. We were far back in the room but did see the castle fireworks through the window which was really awesome.
Overall: It was good, don't be scared off by the recent bad reviews. Service and food were on par with other Disney restaurants. If you love 'Ohana or have never tried it then go ahead. However, my family just didn't get the big deal. Three out of four of us would rather just have the Trails End Buffet which is much less expensive. Boma and Tusker house were both considered better choices. To be honest - minus the fireworks - I would be every bit as happy with a $25/person Hibachi dinner. It is enjoyable and we might go again, but it wasn't our 'best meal ever at Disney' either. Your mileage will vary.
Service: Good, not excellent, but decent. Our server had an assistant that handled drinks, salad, clearing plates, and other small items while our main server brought the food and made sure we were taken care of. There were a couple of times we had to wait longer than I thought we should on some items (therefore good not excellent), but certainly not enough to make for a bad experience. Our drink glasses were never empty, we were not rushed, and we had ample opportunities to ask for more of any item we wanted. I don't know if it is just luck of the draw or if 'Ohana has worked on the reported service issues.
Food: Bread - yuck, Salad - Meh, Wings - blah. Noodles - good and nice with the meal but they are just noodles. Pot stickers - great, Shrimp and meats - very good. I like my beef medium to medium rare. I had one piece of beef (our of 4) that I would say was a bit dry and tough. It was a small piece so that may have been the problem. All of the rest of the beef and chicken was excellent. Juicy, flavorful, and properly seasoned and prepared. The shrimp was good as well. If I had just had that one small piece of beef my opinion would not have been the same. I try to keep my salt low for medical reasons and I thought the meat was well seasoned. Someone who still loves salt might find it bland and give a different review. My whole family thought it was pretty good.
Ambiance: There was a live singer working the crowd with Hawaiian style Christmas tunes, no other games or etc. We were far back in the room but did see the castle fireworks through the window which was really awesome.
Overall: It was good, don't be scared off by the recent bad reviews. Service and food were on par with other Disney restaurants. If you love 'Ohana or have never tried it then go ahead. However, my family just didn't get the big deal. Three out of four of us would rather just have the Trails End Buffet which is much less expensive. Boma and Tusker house were both considered better choices. To be honest - minus the fireworks - I would be every bit as happy with a $25/person Hibachi dinner. It is enjoyable and we might go again, but it wasn't our 'best meal ever at Disney' either. Your mileage will vary.
I had excellent service and a wonderful window table. I dined there November 2014. I found all the meat (beef, shrimp & at that time pork) to be either completely undercooked or chewy, leather-like overcooked. Everything was cold to lukewarm and every bite of the meat plus the noodles tasted the same mono-teriyaki flavour. I asked for the salad and it was just OK and also had the potstickers and they were meh. Little flavour. At the time, I thought it was my tastes that just didn't jive with most people. I'm not a fussy eater at all (I love Trails End buffet dinner & Biergarten and rarely eat at a Signature so nothing elite going on here). I would also add that the place was a wild, jam-packed zoo when I was there and so likely would have been difficult to track down a manager unless I wanted to wait. I believe my disappointment in Ohana was my food experience contrasted with the high praise dinner has received not just here on the Boards but on other online dining sites. I had high(ish) expectations. It remains one of the most hard to get dinner ressies. The best I can figure is that given the high praise for dinner, there must be a huge problem with consistency. If my problem was only with flavour (ie if the meat was served at a decent warm temp and allowing for some normal variance in undercooked/overcooked but I just didn't care for the taste) then I would chalk it up to my personal tastes. But I was served from multiple skewers from different wait staff over the course of an hr and a half so it looks like it was a restaurant wide problem the evening I dined. When I asked my server why my meat was cool and either undercooked or overcooked, she smiled, shrugged and just explained that was the nature of the dining experience. So for me, I will try other consistent dining experiences at WDW.
