Ridiculous wait at Mama Melrose...

[Nancyg56]

It isn't ridiculous to stop doing something that is only bringing you misery. That is common sense and self preservation. Note too that I suggested letting Disney know what the problem is.

I agree that if one is not happy with teh way things go at any destination it is best to find one that works. I also think that it never hurts to share experiences that are negative with DIsney.

 

[steves100]

Reasonable is so subjective. Another guest may say 10 minutes is reasonable. I know it sounds trite, but if you don't like the way the system works, don't book ADRs. And write Disney and let them know why. Otherwise by booking ADRs and getting upset by it all of the time you are only making yourself crazy. If having ADRs sucks the fun out of your trip, then don't make them.

It is not REASONABLE for Disney to EXPECT you to show 15 minutes before a reservation!

55 minutes wait is not REASONABLE either!

 

[steves100]

That's the norm for the dis. You could of waited 2 hrs and people would of still said "be happy, your at Disney". MM was the only restaurant we waited at our last trip to Disney. To be honest, the food was terrible and we would never go back. I am sure there will be people saying it is gourmet Italian!

I agree 100% terrible food and service, will never be back!

 

[steves100]

I say this as gently as possible... You asked what people would have done. You deliberately solicited opinions and now you're upset that people are giving them. Is it possible that maybe you're over reacting a little?

I think that they should have offered a profound apology, a voucher for the later Fantasmic and yes, the fast pass was a nice touch.

I would be annoyed at the wait. I would probably be a pest about "when will we be seated?" I would expect the manager to fix the Fantasmic problem. If it was an isolated incident I would chalk it up to a bad night and let it go.

I was just surprised that EVERYONE who commented early depend MM. Now I see others who have had the same issues.

I didn't expect a free meal, just fix my Fanatsmic issue.

 

[steves100]

I think if you walk up to a restaurant, any restaurant, and there's a line out the door you know things are backed up inside. The ONLY part I'd be upset about is that they initially told you it would be 30 minutes but turned out to be quite a bit longer.

Actually told us it would be 20 minutes. Then was told I didn't check in on time. DUE TO THEIR LINE!
So you wouldn't be mad that you missed the 1steve showing of Fanatsmic???????
Something you had planned for????

 

[steves100]

We were there a few days ago and although we were seated within 15 minutes we ended up waiting for 15-20 minutes at the table without any wait staff arriving. Finally we stopped someone to ask and then we had 3-4 people checking on us and taking our orders. It was a glitch and it happens. The food was great and we were able to sit and relax. It may not have been perfect, and it started off in a non Disney/vacation bliss way, but oh well. The manager was aware and multiple wait staff, but not one fastpass was given or expected. Even though it happened I still have it as a reservation for my next trip as well. Just an FYI there is actually a waiter there who was a WDW employee of the year. In case anyone doesn't realize what an honor and achievement that is he told us he had to have a perfect record without complaint to receive it and he had worked there for around 20 years or more. Next time I will remember to ask for him as our waiter!

Food is not great, mediocre at best. Both Italians in EPCOT are way superior.

 

[steves100]

Does that mean get in the 20-minute-long line 15 minutes early, or try to be at the podium 20 minutes early?

#1 it was the week before Christmas!
#2 Exactly, we were on line 10 minutes before reservation. LINE WAS 20 MIN!!!! UNACCEPTABLE!!!

 

[Jetta8300]

It isn't ridiculous to stop doing something that is only bringing you misery. That is common sense and self preservation. Note too that I suggested letting Disney know what the problem is.

Again, I'm telling you there is a huge difference between being MISERABELE and mildly annoyed. We were annoyed we had to wait over an hour each time we went to mama melrose during slow season and that they were rude. This by no means made us "miserable". What would really make me miserable would be trying to do walk ups everywhere with no ADRs and not being able to go anywhere we want, having to wait 2 hours for a meal. So it's like choosing between the lesser of two evils. Still doesn't make it ok to make people wait well over an hour with a reservation in my opinion. Especially since there were empty tables everywhere when we finally got to eat.

 

[maxiesmom]

#1 it was the week before Christmas!
#2 Exactly, we were on line 10 minutes before reservation. LINE WAS 20 MIN!!!! UNACCEPTABLE!!!

How is unacceptable for a restaurant to be very busy a week before a major holiday?

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

I would be furious if I was seated almost an hour after my reservation time. You are paying thousands of dollars for a Disney vacation and don't want to spend that time waiting for a table. The time of year doesn't matter -- Disney needs to get its act together and people shouldn't be making excuses based on the fact that it might be "busy" - Disney is always busy.

 

[steves100]

How is unacceptable for a restaurant to be very busy a week before a major holiday?

As I have said be for, this was the ONLY restaurants w an issue. BoG, California Grill, Germany, Italy, Morimotos all no issue.

BTW the week before Christmas is NOT that busy.

 

[Jetta8300]

I would be furious if I was seated almost an hour after my reservation time. You are paying thousands of dollars for a Disney vacation and don't want to spend that time waiting for a table. The time of year doesn't matter -- Disney needs to get its act together and people shouldn't be making excuses based on the fact that it might be "busy" - Disney is always busy.

Agreed. I've been to Disney now 3 times, all during slow seasons, and the restaurants are usually completely packed. No matter the season, ADRs can be tough to get and they somehow manage at a lot of these popular places to seat us within a reasonable time. Disney is always busy. It's just certain places that seem to be an issue. So I don't think "they're busy" is an excuse for an hour wait because they always are. I'd be annoyed at a wait over 30 minutes with a reservation.

 

[maxiesmom]

I would be furious if I was seated almost an hour after my reservation time. You are paying thousands of dollars for a Disney vacation and don't want to spend that time waiting for a table. The time of year doesn't matter -- Disney needs to get its act together and people shouldn't be making excuses based on the fact that it might be "busy" - Disney is always busy.

It isn't always the same busy though. There is a scale of a little busy to super crazy busy. Apparently Mama Melrose was super crazy busy.

Again, Disney could get their act together by cutting the amount of ADRs they take. Which would only mean people would then start complaining about not being able to get ADRs anyplace. So you would only be shifting the annoyance from one group to another. I guess each of us can only state for ourselves which we would find worse.

 

[Disneylover99]

It isn't always the same busy though. There is a scale of a little busy to super crazy busy. Apparently Mama Melrose was super crazy busy.

Again, Disney could get their act together by cutting the amount of ADRs they take. Which would only mean people would then start complaining about not being able to get ADRs anyplace. So you would only be shifting the annoyance from one group to another. I guess each of us can only state for ourselves which we would find worse.

I would prefer that they make fewer ADR's available. I hate when I have to wait 15-20 minutes past my ADR time, especially when I've checked in 15 minutes early.

 

[Baklava]

I was just surprised that EVERYONE who commented early depend MM. Now I see others who have had the same issues.

I didn't expect a free meal, just fix my Fanatsmic issue.

In fairness to the rest of us, several said that we would have been unhappy and your first post didn't mention you asking for the Fantasmic issue to be fixed. What did you ask them to do and what reason did they give for refusing?

 

[GaryDis]

What people have trouble understanding about Disney is they don't and can't operate like other restaurants simply do to demand. In the restaurants in our hotels we book to give you a table at a specific time. That's because we aren't inundated like Disney and as well people don't linger at tables like they do at Disney restaurants. So we can pretty reliably predict the average time per table and know reliably when a table will open up. We book to that average meal length.

There's nothing about lingering per se that makes it harder to predict. They're going to have a predictable average meal length as well, just longer than yours.

What might make it harder is the standard deviation - in other words, how much variation there is between how long it takes. For example, if they know that 90% of the tables finish within 80 to 90 minutes (a ten minute range), they can predict more reliably that a different restaurant in different circumstances where all they know is that 90% of the tables finish between 60 and 80 minutes (a 20 minute range), even though the average time is less as the second restaurant.

But Disney, unlike the typical standalone restaurant, can afford to hire the statisticians and queuing theory experts to figure this out. And even when they are hit with a worse variation, they can still take action. Suppose their ADR statistician says "In Sep., we normally operate with 90% confidence that 98% of all ADR holders will have a wait of less than 10 minutes. But in late Dec., our standard process only has 85% confidence because we know from our carefully gathered metrics over the last ten years that the variance increases in Dec." What do you do? You reduce the number of ADRs. It's really that simple. Disney, unlike the typical restaurant, has a huge advantage for their park restaurants. They can safely reduce the ADRs without any loss in throughput or revenue, by relying on walk-ups. Or at least they could, before they allowed the ADR system to destroy the walk-up approach.

This of course assumes that there really is an increase in variation. It's certainly a plausible conjecture, but I don't think we know for sure that lingering increases variation, just the average (predictable) table time. Even this being the last year of Osborne will just increase the total number of people in the park, but not necessarily the variation.

TL;DR: Longer table times don't mean less predictability, but variation in table times does. Yet Disney can still predict that their estimates are less reliable, and compensate by reducing ADRs.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

There's nothing about lingering per se that makes it harder to predict. They're going to have a predictable average meal length as well, just longer than yours.

What might make it harder is the standard deviation - in other words, how much variation there is between how long it takes. For example, if they know that 90% of the tables finish within 80 to 90 minutes (a ten minute range), they can predict more reliably that a different restaurant in different circumstances where all they know is that 90% of the tables finish between 60 and 80 minutes (a 20 minute range), even though the average time is less as the second restaurant.

But Disney, unlike the typical standalone restaurant, can afford to hire the statisticians and queuing theory experts to figure this out. And even when they are hit with a worse variation, they can still take action. Suppose their ADR statistician says "In Sep., we normally operate with 90% confidence that 98% of all ADR holders will have a wait of less than 10 minutes. But in late Dec., our standard process only has 85% confidence because we know from our carefully gathered metrics over the last ten years that the variance increases in Dec." What do you do? You reduce the number of ADRs. It's really that simple. Disney, unlike the typical restaurant, has a huge advantage for their park restaurants. They can safely reduce the ADRs without any loss in throughput or revenue, by relying on walk-ups. Or at least they could, before they allowed the ADR system to destroy the walk-up approach.

This of course assumes that there really is an increase in variation. It's certainly a plausible conjecture, but I don't think we know for sure that lingering increases variation, just the average (predictable) table time. Even this being the last year of Osborne will just increase the total number of people in the park, but not necessarily the variation.

TL;DR: Longer table times don't mean less predictability, but variation in table times does. Yet Disney can still predict that their estimates are less reliable, and compensate by reducing ADRs.

What incentive do they have to "fix" it? If they force you to wait you're paying for overpriced mediocre food. If you get mad and leave they hit you for a cancellation. Poor service is big business for them.

 

[B-Ride]

People bend over backwards to defend VERY poor management at Disney sometimes

Posting a reply which tries to look on the positive doesn't seem like "bending over backwards". All I can say is your avatar is appropriate.

 

[ChasingLeslie]

Waiting an hour sucks...I don't think anyone is disputing that.

However, as mentioned numerous times, it's more of an extreme call ahead rather than a true "reservation."

If I try to go to a popular restaurant on a weekend during prime dinner hour, the wait is going to be 45min-hour. So why wouldn't one expect that a restaurant at WDW during the holidays would be equally busy??

 

[Jhondy210]

I'd have been upset that I was waiting for an hour for a table but I would have quickly let it go once we were seated and eating. Things happen and sometimes restaurants don't run as smoothly as you hope. You, OP, said all your other ADRs were fine so I don't see the point in complaining about one bad wait time when Disney seemed to do well managing your expectations for wait times at all the rest of the restaurants. Also, since you don't know what you wanted Disney to do for you to make you happy then Idk how you expect Disney to know. I think they were generous to give you FP because you have to figure many many others in that restaurant also waited as long as you and got nothing.