Why did Olivia's @ OKW have to change?

[BCV23]

RR is not Disney owned and operated and of course neither is RR. But both are options for the DDP. There are really quite a few restaurants that aren't owned by Disney now.

As for spicier sauces hiding a poorer quality of meat, I don't agree with that. Having spicier sauces speaks to me of more variety rather than less.

But it is a shame for Olivia regulars that so many favorites are gone. However, I still think that is more likely a change in management or in chef rather than the DDP.

 

[jodifla]

Yes, I'm actually pretty furious that they don't do takeout at Olivia's. I plan to complain loud and long every chance I get about this arrogant, stupid, anti-family boneheaded decision.

We ate at Olivia's in May, and I liked our food. We didn't have the favorites alot of people have here. I did notice the change in the menu.

We had the steak salad...which was great. We had the same darn salad at the Yachtsman Galley. They are turning the place into McDonald's, with every restaurant serving the same food.

It's the dumbing down of the WDW menu, IMO.

 

[manning]

I was told by a long time employee of Olivia's that all the resort restaurants (and a good many park restaurants) are losing money because of the DDP. Somehow they are supposed to get reimbursed for money they are losing from the resorts, but they haven't seen any reimbursement. So they are streamlining the menu's to shave costs. So what do we get in return? A watered down menu.

That is just what he said. Makes sense to me. Sad though, pretty soon, you won't be able to tell the restuarants apart. Same food, just different colored seats.

Then the smart thing to do is to drop it. Then again Disney management hasn't been known to do the smart thing lately!!!



This will show how old I am, but the same applies today except for the prices. I am familiar with how much it cost to serve a coke 25 years ago. I had a friend who managed a McDonalds and I remember him telling me it cost 2 cents to serve a 35 cent coke. I'm sure this still applies today with profit margins on all drinks.

 

[Chuck S]

OMG, look at the lunch menus from Olivia's, Concorse Steak House and Yatch Club Galley...they are almost identical...all have a steak salad, club sandwich, burger, Rueben sandwich, penne pasta.

Turf Club has a burger, a Rueben and penne pasta.

Seems like a lot of standardization.

 

[BCV23]

LOL, I'd be surprised if any of those places did NOT serve a burger, reuben and/or club sandwich at lunch. Are these recent additions? If not, then it is not standardization due to the DDP obviously.

The penne pasta IS common on WDW lunch menus but again I don't think that is new or due to the DDP. And the versions vary. I imagine it is rather because penne pasta is probably easier to manage in large batches since it is not as fragile.

Steak salads are hardly new either. They've been on many menus for years. Is it new at Olivia's?

But I do hope you Olivias owners have good luck bringing back your favorites. My family is still mourning the loss of a a fruit juice mix at Kona and an iced tea at GFC despite the fact that both have been off the menus for many years now.

 

[Chuck S]

Steak salad is brand new at Olivia's, as is the Rueben. Burgers are of course, common...but Olivia's burgers were not the "run of the mill" standard burger as they are now. The almost total duplication of menus is new. They used to have a wonderful roast beef sandwich, which is no longer offered.

 

[jonestavern]

One of the things we enjoy most about staying at the resorts & touring the Worlds, are the different dining venues. True, way too much emphasis on the tenders, burgers thing & the 'dumbing down' of spices in dishes, ie Morocco--but we still enjoy the varied atmospheres & dishes. Morocco remains a favorite.

Seriously, hoping they aren't going to standardize away the 'foreign magic' of Epcot's restaurants & the themed resorts. It's too tame, now

I can see us going back to many of our very favs, but dining off site more frequently.
Like several posters have noted, how many times a week do you want to eat steak salad, a chicken pasta dish etc? over & over?
Hope Disney wises up. Standardization can be acheived in much smarter ways

Jean

 

[BCV23]

Steak salad is brand new at Olivia's, as is the Rueben. Burgers are of course, common...but Olivia's burgers were not the "run of the mill" standard burger as they are now. The almost total duplication of menus is new. They used to have a wonderful roast beef sandwich, which is no longer offered.

Well, that is a shame then.

 

[Beth]

They used to have a wonderful roast beef sandwich, which is no longer offered.

Oh my gosh.... I hadn't noticed that!!! That was like a "French Dip" sandwich - and it was SO good!!!

Good GRIEF - what's LEFT?!?!?!?

 

[LIFERBABE]

Good GRIEF - what's LEFT?!?!?!?

Steak Salad!

 

[Beth]

Steak Salad!

Woo HOO!!!

 

[BCV23]

Steak Salad!

 

[BelleBeast]

This realy is a shame...the standardization of the menus...

My kids are DD15, DD13 and DS10 and my husband and I once we arrived
at the Disney Resort we never left property to eat a meal. We would go to the different resorts and dine, for they had variety.

However, if all resorts are going to have the same menu - I can certainly see us leaving and going to Macaroni Grill, Chili's, Chevy's etc. All those located
just outside.

My husband doesn't go for the DDP - Why waste food we couldn't possibly eat. 5 appetizers, 5 desserts etc. I just think Disney is going to lose more $$ in the long run over this.

 

[manning]

I'm sending Disney a thank you note. I have started to look offsite to eat. Bet they are as good or even better and will save a ton of money.

I remember years ago when Disney got a reputation for having expensive not so good food. They ended up scrambling to improve things.

 

[Chuck S]

This realy is a shame...the standardization of the menus...

My kids are DD15, DD13 and DS10 and my husband and I once we arrived
at the Disney Resort we never left property to eat a meal. We would go to the different resorts and dine, for they had variety.

However, if all resorts are going to have the same menu - I can certainly see us leaving and going to Macaroni Grill, Chili's, Chevy's etc. All those located
just outside.

My husband doesn't go for the DDP - Why waste food we couldn't possibly eat. 5 appetizers, 5 desserts etc. I just think Disney is going to lose more $$ in the long run over this.

Yes, and for a smaller dinner, we drove over to POP and ate at the food court a couple of times last trip, as well as offsite at Bob Evans. Olivia's does still have some very nice (though pricey as always) breakfasts, and the breakfast servers are just fabulous.

 

[diznyfanatic]

We had been on the DDP our last two trips, but had decided not to use it anymore as it was simply too much food. Since purchasing DVC, we felt we could use our kitchen to prepare our meals and save some money.

We kept wondering why restaurants just didn't offer a version of the Fixed Price menus that are so common in Europe and some U.S. restaurants for DDP guests. They could allow DDP diners to choose from 3 or 4 appetizers, 3 or 4 entrées and 3 or 4 desserts.

In fact, I believe Chefs de France already had this option on their menu (which wasn't a DDP choice as we could order from the regular menu) when we were there for the Candlelight Processional Dinner Package on Christmas Day.

That way, they would be able to control DDP costs without having to revise or standardize their entire regular menu and wouldn't have to drop long time favorites just because of the DDP.

 

[disneyaddict]

Does anyone know an email address to send complaints about the restaurants to? We had a somewhat unpleasant experience eating out last week. We went to O'Hana and felt entirely rushed, no breaks between courses, and had terrible service at the Concourse steakhouse. We did not have the dining plan. Well anyway, I have a draft set up to go to disney but am not sure where to send it. Here is a look:

Hello, I am writing regarding my recent stay at Disney World. Overall it was a wonderful stay as usual. We were in a grand villa at Old Key West for a mini family reunion. However, we were a bit disappointed with the dining experience we had. We only ate out twice, and twice we actually gave up our ADR due to the previous service we had. We ended up just eating in our room. It just was not worth the money we were paying for the service we were getting.
Just to give you more specifics, our first night we ate at O'Hana. We felt rushed, and unable to enjoy the meal as all the food basically came out at one, not leaving us any time between courses. Another night we ate at the Concourse grill. Here, our waitress failed to give us much attention at all. We did make an obsevation here though. We have eaten here many times in the past. On a previous visit, our waiter had to keep refilling our waters as it was an extremely hot summer day. Finally we just asked for a pitcher and he told us that they were only allowed to bring a pitcher if the guest asked. This was so that we did not feel that he did not want to serve us. On this visit, the pitchers came out with the first round of glasses without us even asking. Not that we are incapable of pouring our own water or anything, but just an example of a change in service.
This change in service seems to be correlating to the popularity of the dining plan. We did not have that. We are visiting in August on the free dining plan, and if sevice still seems to be the same, I would assume on return trips we will be dining out less on property or eating in our room more.
I hope that these concerns can make it to the proper place in your company. Hopefully these were isolated incidents, and the wonderful dining experiences we remember will come back for us and other guests.

 

[mello]

OMG, look at the lunch menus from Olivia's, Concorse Steak House and Yatch Club Galley...they are almost identical...all have a steak salad, club sandwich, burger, Rueben sandwich, penne pasta.

Turf Club has a burger, a Rueben and penne pasta.

Seems like a lot of standardization.

Because it's on nearly every single menu - not just those 3.

 

[mello]

You should send it on to Disney management and all the restaurants!
Clearly some compromise is in order.

We had been on the DDP our last two trips, but had decided not to use it anymore as it was simply too much food. Since purchasing DVC, we felt we could use our kitchen to prepare our meals and save some money.

We kept wondering why restaurants just didn't offer a version of the Fixed Price menus that are so common in Europe and some U.S. restaurants for DDP guests. They could allow DDP diners to choose from 3 or 4 appetizers, 3 or 4 entrées and 3 or 4 desserts.

In fact, I believe Chefs de France already had this option on their menu (which wasn't a DDP choice as we could order from the regular menu) when we were there for the Candlelight Processional Dinner Package on Christmas Day.

That way, they would be able to control DDP costs without having to revise or standardize their entire regular menu and wouldn't have to drop long time favorites just because of the DDP.

 

[LIFERBABE]

Because it's on nearly every single menu - not just those 3.

Mello, I agree!

I envision this Mack Truck backing up and unloading a pile of Penne!

They shovel it into barrels and deliver it to the restaurants.

I can get a 10lb bag of pasta at Sam's Club for less than $3, so no way are we paying a penny for Penne at WDW!