2xcited2slp said:
MImom-- your ADR's sound good. I have not been to Crystal Palace since I was little I don't believe I have ever been to Trails End. It will be interesting to see what your reviews are.
I stopped in this morning just to see what was going on. Met with the Realtor again last night.

And, it was late when he left and yada, yada, yada. Anyway, I saw this and had to tell you our Trail's End Buffet nightmares!! That's right folks, two of them!!!!!
Here's the background:
It was a dark stormy night. . . . . Just kidding

Ok, for real. . . .
My mom, aunt, cousin and myself went to Disney in 2002 and stayed at FW in one of the cabins. We ate breakfast every morning at Trails End. The food was delicious and the service was excellent!! See that folks? Excellent.
Then next year we go back w/ my mom, two sisters, my sister's husband and my husband. Mom and I raved over Trails End. Made ressies to eat there and talked it up all over the place. We weren't staying at FW this time so it was a bit of a travel but we assured all it was WELL worth it!! We get seated and this guy named Alex with a
strong Irish or Scottish accent is our server. He was
HORRIBLE!!!!! He took forever to get to us for a drink order and when we did get our drinks he
didn't come back to get us any refills. It was like he just forgot us!! Well, we made it through breakfast which was delicious! The food was excellent just like we had remembered it.

Well, we had long been done and Alex finally makes his way over to us for the checks. We specifically told him we needed to split the checks and he assured us it was no problem. He took all of our forms of payment (ours was cash as was my mom's, but two DSis's were card). He came back and somehow the charges were all messed up. Then he wanted to "assure" (argue is more like it) that it was indeed correct. Well by this time it's late in the morning and the place is empty thankfully because then we're taken to the manager so we can get this straightened out. He sees what the problem is but Alex is nowhere in sight. He has completely disapeared. No problem as long as it's taken care of so we can finally be on our way!
Well, we go back in 2005 ---2 years later--- because the food really
is good! we have our ressies and we're happy to be eating at Trail's End! Yum!! We get inside a guy takes our drink order, brings it back and then announces that
Alex will be our server!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Say it isn't so!!!!

Well, it's two years later we reason if he's still here he's got to be better right? WRONG!! Forgot to check us for drinks and when he did finally come around my sister ordered two just to have on hand and when he brought some of our drinks back they were wrong. It was just a mess. I mean, what are the chances??? Luckily, this time we had cash. Of course he left us there forever before he even brought us the check. We've always had great service at WDW. We are not pushy, rude, demanding customers but we would like the basics of service to be carried out. Watch our drink levels, and don't leave us sitting forever and a day before bringing us our check. At one point the guy who had originally seated us came back to fill us up and we did say something about Alex and he said, "Oh, don't be too hard on Alex. He's having a bad day." Well, there really was no reason to push it with him further so we just let it go but it was the same level of service from this person on two seperate occasions, two years apart.
Like I said, the first year we went in '02 for the four days we were there the service was excellent every morning. Then it went downhill. And what's worse, we saw people all around us with good servers. It's like, I want to go back because the food is so good and the atmosphere is great but do we take a chance? They say third times a charm.