We have found the waitstaff very friendly and on both occasions they encouraged us to take our time with our meal. In fact, I asked one server multiple times for the check before Illuminations (so we could quickly leave afterwards), and she kept postponing it and saying she'd bring it afterward. It's my theory that she did this on purpose, thinking that we'd be in a great mood after Illuminations and leave a larger tip. Well, it worked! We did have a very nice meal and she was very, very delightful, so I enjoyed leaving her a good tip.
My comment, for what it's worth, is that we're all free to order whatever we want at any Disney restaurant, and I haven't ever experienced anything to make me uncomfortable with whatever was ordered or if food were shared. No matter where we eat, I gauge the size of the tip on the total of the bill, the quality of the service and any special requests or extras, AND the amount of time that we've leisurely spent that might have kept the table from turning over (and kept the server getting an additional tip from a new party). I would feel as if the server were getting 'short changed' if we were there a long time and had a small bill, so I'd definitely add to the standard tip. If it's not a busy season and there's empty tables (as it was one night in March because it was cool), I wouldn't be as concerned about this.
PS -- I don't read this particular board much, so haven't read if R&C still allows people to wait for a patio table or they followed through on a policy change that some people posted about last year ---- that people are seated at which ever table is available when they check in and can't request to wait. The point being, there's never any guarantee of getting an outside table there.
