Disney Dining - Not So Good?

[Sparkly]

Disney food is alright, does the job. I had a few pretty good meals at TS places last trip.

 

[Dakota731]

It’s theme park food! And hey you gotta eat!

 

[Disneylover99]

I find most food overly salted any time I dine out no matter where I am. But I enjoy both TS and CS restaurants at Disney.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

I had also hoped WDW would be full of foodie-food restaurants. But no... it's theme park food barely disguised from its origins in food service bulk cans... thankfully I like a LOT of theme park food!

 

[married2mm]

It's a shame you didn't enjoy your meals

We have pretty much thoroughly enjoyed 90% + of our food.
Looking forward to next years adrs already.

 

[LSUfan4444]

Wrapping up a Disney vacation that covered 11/1-11/11 and a bit disappointed in the Disney food. We really liked California Grill brunch, and Via Napoli and Teppan Edo were pretty good. But none of the other TS places justified a return visit (except breakfast at Yachtsman - very good), and just about every QS, except Yak & Yeti breakfast, was subpar. The food & wine booths were really disappointing. Food was often super-salty, and nothing stood out as really good. I liked the crab cakes and scallops from Coastal Eats, and a few other things weren't bad, but wouldn't return for anything.

What places failed to meet your expectations? All I see are the places you enjoyed.

There are some gems out there (resort and parks) like Sci Fi, Columbia Harbour House, Satuli Canteen, etc, some are completely overrated (be our guest, chef mickeys) and some that are down right bad (hollywood & vine).

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

What places failed to meet your expectations? All I see are the places you enjoyed.

There are some gems out there (resort and parks) like Sci Fi, Columbia Harbour House, Satuli Canteen, etc, some are completely overrated (be our guest, chef mickeys) and some that are down right bad (hollywood & vine).

Le Cellier was poor, and certainly wasn't worth 2 credits. My steak was decent, but was rare when we asked for medium rare. Most of the sides and my wife's salmon tasted like nothing but salt. We won't return. 'Ohana was really bad compared to our first visit 3-4 years ago - chicken wings were cold (yuck), shrimp WAY overcooked, steak almost too rare to eat (and I like rare steak), and the chicken poor quality. My daughter and wife really liked La Hacienda, but the steak on the meat plate my son and I ordered was laden with fat. The heavenly ham from Raglan Road was also very fatty, with about half being inedible, while my daughter's braised beef was bland. As far as food and wine, there were too many plates that were disappointing to list. For QS places, the bratwurst at Germany tasted like canned vienna sausage (and we used to love that brat), the fish and chips in Britain is basically fried grease (I placed a napkin on top of the fish and it turned wet with grease), the buns on the burgers and hot dogs weren't fresh, etc.

Didn't eat at Sci Fi, CHH (which I liked in the past), or Satuli.

 

[SaintsManiac]

We haven't been in a couple of years, but our upcoming trip is very food focused. We are really looking forward to Via Napoli, Sanaa, Cape May, and Bon Voyage breakfast. It will be our first time at all of them. I've also got a list a mile long of snacks I "need" to try.

 

[Aimeedyan]

I think the problem I run into is how darn inconsistent Disney dining is - one trip it can be amazing and the next it's disappointing. We don't take time to eat table service much anymore partially due to this.

Outside of signature spots, most of the table service meals are decent, chain quality food. We dine at chains occasionally and they are fine for us but I'd hate for something to think because they are paying 3x as much, it'll be 3x tastier. It really isn't. But it's in a theme park and sometimes, just getting to sit in air-conditioning with a waiter is worth the upcharge on Chili's-quality food.

I enjoyed just about everything I tried at F&WF this year but have had years when I got really poor quality meat and it grossed me out. I give them some credit for cranking out high volume small bites in a cart, though.

 

[MillauFr]

I think the food at Disney compares favorably to the chain restaurants you will find next to a typical suburban freeway interchange. If you compare it to nicer restaurants with better quality food you will be disappointed.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

I think the food at Disney compares favorably to the chain restaurants you will find next to a typical suburban freeway interchange. If you compare it to nicer restaurants with better quality food you will be disappointed.

Agree. But that's problematic to me, since I'm paying $25 per person minimum to eat at the Disney TS restaurants.

 

[hllb]

Agree. But that's problematic to me, since I'm paying $25 per person minimum to eat at the Disney TS restaurants.

Yes, but you’re also paying for the convenience of not having to leave the park to eat. So think of it this way...if you had to leave to eat, you’d waste probably 2 hours of your admission time for each TS meal. Take your ticket cost divided by parkhours for all days, and calculate how much that 2 hours costs you. Subtract that from your meal cost and it’s probably a much better price point.

 

[hllb]

Yes, but you’re also paying for the convenience of not having to leave the park to eat. So think of it this way...if you had to leave to eat, you’d waste probably 2 hours of your admission time for each TS meal. Take your ticket cost divided by parkhours for all days, and calculate how much that 2 hours costs you. Subtract that from your meal cost and it’s probably a much better price point.

Ok, I’m a dork so I’ll calculate. For 6 day non PH tickets for my family of 5, it’s $1930. We are going in January so I’ll go with 13 park hours per day for a 6 day total of 78 hours. That’s $24.74 per hour for my family. So, by not leaving the park for a TS meal, I’m saving nearly $50 in park ticket cost. So, if I pay $150 for a meal for my family, it’s $30 each on average. Reduce that by $50 and it’s now $20 per person for a sit down dinner. That is absolutely typical for my family at a regular family restaurant.

 

[disneyvoice]

I've only ate at 2 restaurants at Disney that I really thought had bad food. One was the mac n cheese at Friars Nook (easily the worst thing I've ever tried at WDW),

These threads make me LOL because of how everyone's view points are so completely varied. We LOVE the Mac and Cheese at Friar's Nook. In fact, we have decided to forego TS at MK because we love it so much. And we are super foodies.

There are MANY restaurants at WDW that we really enjoy. We also really enjoyed many of the booths at F&W. No, we didn't like all of them (Sweet Lord, Japan was AWFUL this year!!!). Although we really enjoy good food, we also go to WDW understanding that we are dining in amusement parks. Having been to many other amusement parks I feel confident saying that WDW has MUCH better food. You also have to keep in mind that WDW has to cater to people with varied appreciation of food. Some people want very basic, bland food. Some want to try more exotic dishes. There are A LOT of kids that have to eat at WDW so they need to make sure they have something kids will like. Then you have people who expect every dining experience to be an out of this world experience.

I do agree that the food at WDW is ridiculously salty, but so is the food at MOST restaurants. Even very fine restaurants tend to use way too much salt in my opinion, but we don't salt our food at home AT ALL so I'm sure we are much more sensitive to it. As someone who really does enjoy fine dining, I don't expect a place that has to feed thousands of people a day to be able to provide a truly fine dining experience.

 

[MillauFr]

Yes, but you’re also paying for the convenience of not having to leave the park to eat. So think of it this way...if you had to leave to eat, you’d waste probably 2 hours of your admission time for each TS meal. Take your ticket cost divided by parkhours for all days, and calculate how much that 2 hours costs you. Subtract that from your meal cost and it’s probably a much better price point.

Agreed. You are paying $10 for the meal and $15 for the convenience. Which in my book is a pretty good deal. They aren't marking up the food prices nearly as much as they could. From what I have seen the demand is far outstripping supply. Those reservations are very hard to get for many of the restaurants.

 

[hllb]

These threads make me LOL because of how everyone's view points are so completely varied. We LOVE the Mac and Cheese at Friar's Nook. In fact, we have decided to forego TS at MK because we love it so much. And we are super foodies.

There are MANY restaurants at WDW that we really enjoy. We also really enjoyed many of the booths at F&W. No, we didn't like all of them (Sweet Lord, Japan was AWFUL this year!!!). Although we really enjoy good food, we also go to WDW understanding that we are dining in amusement parks. Having been to many other amusement parks I feel confident saying that WDW has MUCH better food. You also have to keep in mind that WDW has to cater to people with varied appreciation of food. Some people want very basic, bland food. Some want to try more exotic dishes. There are A LOT of kids that have to eat at WDW so they need to make sure they have something kids will like. Then you have people who expect every dining experience to be an out of this world experience.

I do agree that the food at WDW is ridiculously salty, but so is the food at MOST restaurants. Even very fine restaurants tend to use way too much salt in my opinion, but we don't salt our food at home AT ALL so I'm sure we are much more sensitive to it. As someone who really does enjoy fine dining, I don't expect a place that has to feed thousands of people a day to be able to provide a truly fine dining experience.

I live near Cedar Point. Other than ice cream, their food is atrocious. We found one thing reasonably priced that tasted ok. A walking taco. Yup, a single serve bag of Doritos with taco meat, cheese, lettuce, and sour cream dumped in the bag. Not bad for $6 but talk about not fine dining

 

[disneyvoice]

I live near Cedar Point. Other than ice cream, their food is atrocious. We found one thing reasonably priced that tasted ok. A walking taco. Yup, a single serve bag of Doritos with taco meat, cheese, lettuce, and sour cream dumped in the bag. Not bad for $6 but talk about not fine dining

Yep! We have been to Cedar Point as well. "Atrocious" is the perfect descriptor for the food there.

 

[hllb]

Let me also say, OP, that I’m sorry you were disappointed and I hope next time you find more food options you like. It stinks to spend a lot of money and feel so underwhelmed.

 

[hsmamato2]

it really just depends on each person and preference...... I find certain places at WDW to pretty good,and lots of them that others here seem to love, I dislike a lot! Everyone seems to have a different opinion about the food lol. I enjoyed almost every item I got at F&W a couple of years back....(lamb lollipop!) and we still have a couple of TS places that we eat at on our visits....I don't know about 'foodie' here except that I really love food... Example, we ate brunch at the wave,and it was literally one of our best meals ever at WDW. Yet I've heard many here saying how much they dislike the place. Likewise,I've heard rave reviews about QS Yak and Yeti and to me that place is the PITS. Ew. No thank you. (the TS Yak and Yeti is pretty similiar to a PF Changs, which is to say ok in general but nothing to write home about) and don't even get me started on the "Italian" food offerings at WDW...... (No thanks) ....... Again, for me, I'm always just looking for decent food that I can stand to pay for onsite.....

 

[Pygoplites]

I absolutely agree with those who say that consistency in food/service is the biggest issue, but to make a blanket statement that the food overall is not good or just "theme park food" or has no foodie appeal isn't really fair. During my most recent trip (2 weeks ago), ALL of my full meals ranged from good to excellent. My only disappointments were some of the items at F&W, which weren't up to the quality that I expected.

But even the "bad" stuff was better than the slop that poses as food at my local Six Flags park. And their food is even more expensive than WDW.

Disney Springs has some great food across a wide price range and Magic Kingdom is no longer a food wasteland. Yes, there are still plenty of dry burgers served all over the resort and some of the buffets are not good value vs. quality propositions, but there's a lot more "ok to good" food than there is "terrible to OK" food. And, from my perspective, a growing number of places that aim high and actually deliver.