Worst WDW Food Experience

[huntconn]

Another vote for Tony's. I have read bad reviews of Tony's for years but had never eaten there. Kevin and John's hysterical thumbs down review of the place always stuck in my head as well. My wife told me that she works with a guy who goes to Disney every year and he swears by Tony's. She claimed that his family eats there every vacation and they all love it. So we decided to give it a try. Should have listened to Kevin and John! Terrible food. The pasta looked like it had been sitting for hours. Flavorless sauce. Slow service. Took forever to get seated. Not good at all. Beautiful restaurant though.

 

[Revf]

Tony's Town Square is easily the worst dining experience we've had at Disney.

Long wait, flavorless sauce on top of bland noodles. It's bad.

 

[scrappingbuckeye]

Tony's
Coral Reef
Wolfgang Puck's not the express one
O'hana's - tried charging me $45 for a grilled cheese sandwich, I don't think so.

 

[EasternShoreGal]

ESPN Club at the Boardwalk is terrible. I tried it several times and each meal was worse than the one before it. Finally gave up several years ago.

I'm surprised by all the mentions of Chefs de France. That's one of my favorite non-signature restaurants. I've been around a dozen times and never had a bad meal (or bad service for that matter). I guess it really does take all kinds to make a world.

I only frequented ESPN for sports viewing, never because the food was good and I agree it had really gone downhill-finally swore we wouldn't go back. I did speak to a cast member recently who had taken over the oversight of some of the Epcot resort area restaurants and she said they changed the menu up a bit. I am willing to give it one more try.

 

[dcassetta]

Tony's - every six or seven years I forget how bad it is and try it again. One of these days, I will learn.

 

[si-am]

I have a tie between two:

Akershus one year wouldn't take our party of 12 because they couldn't find our reservation, even though we had a confirmation number. Turned us away and acted as though we were lying about our reservation. My aunt had Stage 4 breast cancer at the time and this was to be her special princess meal with her 3 granddaughters. No sympathy or offers to help from hostess or manager. Later, after we complained at Guest services, they mailed my aunt a Cinderella lithograph which was kind of like rubbing salt on the wound. She never did get to experience that meal before she passed. We ended up being able to walk in to San Angel but the girls were all in their princess dresses and it was kind of sad.

Rose and Crown: service so bad that we had to go to the pub and BUY soft drinks when we needed refills. Plus the sticky toffee pudding was burned.

We haven't been back to either.

 

[serenitynow]

Another vote (thumbs down?) for Tony's. Ordered a pasta dish that included Italian Sausage. When the dish came, the sausage was served link style and could not be sliced with the knife and fork on the table. I mentioned this to the waiter, showed him that it was too tough to cut into and he took it away. About 10 minutes later the same dish came back, waiter said "be careful it's hot" and left quickly, never to return.

When I say the same dish, I mean the exact same plate, minus the sausage. There was actually a depression in the pasta where the sausage had been! It was so hot, I'm sure they had just removed the sausage and reheated it in the microwave. At that point, we just asked for the check and left. We wanted out of there pronto.

 

[dizzyjen]

I have a tie between two:

Akershus one year wouldn't take our party of 12 because they couldn't find our reservation, even though we had a confirmation number. Turned us away and acted as though we were lying about our reservation. My aunt had Stage 4 breast cancer at the time and this was to be her special princess meal with her 3 granddaughters. No sympathy or offers to help from hostess or manager. Later, after we complained at Guest services, they mailed my aunt a Cinderella lithograph which was kind of like rubbing salt on the wound. She never did get to experience that meal before she passed. We ended up being able to walk in to San Angel but the girls were all in their princess dresses and it was kind of sad.

Oh, that's awful!

 

[KimBean]

Chef Mickeys.

 

[KimBean]

I’m legitimately surprised at the amount of complaints about Le Cellier & Coral Reef.

I feel the same about Coral Reef. We have had excellent meals there.

 

[Hisgirl]

Surprisingly, California Grill. We chose it for our wedding anniversary dinner, based on reviews. I eat my steak cooked medium and have never had a cook not be able to deliver a nice pink interior. Not only did our waitress take our order and then disappear, never to return to check on our food, my husband ate his dinner alone while I was presented with not one, but two purple rare filets. Completely unacceptable for a $49 steak and a restaurant that touts itself as an upper scale dining establishment.

 

[KnittingMom]

I haven't gone back and it's rated very well now, but Maya grill was my worst dining experience at WDW. Out of the four adult entrees, three were inedible. One was a pork dish, which was basically all fat and gristle. Mine was a chicken dish, according to the menu. It was truly awful and I'm not picky.

The waiter was rude. When he saw we hadn't eaten our food he made a few choice comments about our inability to know what we liked to eat.

Bad experience all around and I really wanted to like it.

Maya Grill is routinely given bad reviews, and I'm afraid to try it.

 

[KnittingMom]

I guess it all depends on what kind of service you expect. In American restaurants, we expect service to be very quick so we can get in and out to do other things. In Europe, service is slower, much slower. People take their time enjoying a meal. We've spent hours eating dinner in Paris where we might spend an hour or less in a home town restaurant. When we eat in Epcot, we like the slower, European pace while others may want a more American experience so they can get to their next FP+. Since the servers in the Epcot WS restaurants come from the countries represented, we expect slower service. In other restaurants, we expect it to be more like we have at home. Could this be the issue?

this is a very good point. When we went to Via Napoli, we put ourselves in the waitress's hands as to which pizza she really liked, and we had two amazing pizzas and quite lovely salads. And excellent service.

 

[KnittingMom]

We've had a number of bad experiences over the years, usually the problem is with the wait staff, rather than the food itself. I've come to expect that Disney food is just not that great, and I'm OK with that.

I particularly recall one O'hana breakfast where our server was quite rude and uncompromising. The communal breakfast trays were delayed by the kitchen that morning. I asked her if she could bring the Mickey Waffles around for my son, who is autistic, has a very limited palate, wouldn't be eating from the breakfast platter, and was very hungry after we waited 40 minutes beyond our reservation seating time. She was quite rude to me and flat-out refused to bring Mickey Waffles around until *after* each table received their breakfast platter. Not only did she make him wait for the rest of the table, she (seemingly) made sure to visit our table last when bringing the waffles so he was the absolute last person at the table to have food.

I wish you had reported her to the manager. A child with autism was deliberately mistreated, and she should have been immediately fired. If I ran that venue, I would have been reduced to tears of anger.

 

[fly girl]

QS: Cosmic Rays. Filthy! Huge spider web by our booth. There's now way it went unnoticed it was that big. Just gross.

TS: Kona Cafe. Food and service abysmal.

 

[1nfrequent]

Just back from a trip to WDW and had a poor experience at the Rainforest Cafe. I hadn't eaten there before (usually eat at Yak & Yeti at AK, but I was with my parents who don't really like Asian/fusion food) and didn't have any preconceptions about it either way.

Experience started out fine - our server came over promptly and took our orders. About 5 minutes later, she came back with another server, explained that her shift was over but that the new server would be taking over. The new server seemed fine, brought us drinks refills and said he'd bring our food as soon as it was ready. So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

45 minutes later, I saw that the table who'd arrived 15 minutes after us were getting their food. Couldn't see our server so went over to one of the stations and politely asked if someone could check on our order. A server did so and after another 10 minutes our server brought the food out and offered his apologies. Unfortunately it was pretty obvious that the food had been sitting somewhere for some time. My ribs were tepid, my dad's fish was barely warm and my mum's steak (which she'd ordered well done) was running blood. Again, our server had disappeared so I went back to the station and asked if someone could arrange for the food to be taken away and hot food brought over. A team leader (I think) came over to see what the problem was, so I explained the problem - the team leader apologised profusely, took away the food and promised we'd get replacements as soon as possible.

So we waited again.

And waited.

And waited.

By this time 3 tables that had arrived after us were all on desserts. Our food finally came out again. My ribs and my dad's fish had clearly just been put into a microwave but my mum's steak was little better than it was before. I ended up calling the team leader over, who took my mum's steak away again. I also said that I wasn't prepared to pay for my mum's meal given the issues and asked for it to be comped (which the team leader, to his credit, immediately agreed to - adding that he would also comp our beverages). When the steak came back, it had basically been cremated and my mum gave it up as a bad job.

My mum's meal and my meal were comped as were our beverages, so the service recovery wasn't too bad but the whole thing was a big disappointment. The Cafe was fairly busy when we were there but it wasn't packed out - I suspect the issue was that our server was working too many tables and we just got lost in the mix. That stuff happens and it's not the end of the world, but it has ensured that I won't ever go back there again.

1F

 

[jrmint2]

Worst was at Bongos at DS. Not a true Disney restaurant, but onsite. Service was fast - too fast. When your entree's arrive at the table 3 minutes after ordering and lukewarm that can only mean that they have been sitting on a steam table forever. The food was mediocre at best to downright inedible veggie mush - and overpriced.

Never again.

Omgoodness. I forgot about Bongo's. It was from my very first visit 14 years ago. If was inedible....all 8 of our meals. We should've just walked out.

 

[Eastern]

I have a tie between two:

Akershus one year wouldn't take our party of 12 because they couldn't find our reservation, even though we had a confirmation number. Turned us away and acted as though we were lying about our reservation. My aunt had Stage 4 breast cancer at the time and this was to be her special princess meal with her 3 granddaughters. No sympathy or offers to help from hostess or manager. Later, after we complained at Guest services, they mailed my aunt a Cinderella lithograph which was kind of like rubbing salt on the wound. She never did get to experience that meal before she passed. We ended up being able to walk in to San Angel but the girls were all in their princess dresses and it was kind of sad.

omg that is sad.

 

[Eastern]

Maybe not the worst, but the weirdest: we went to GG and we all washed our hands before going in. The server came around and shook hands with each one of us as she introduced herself. It was so weird. And she was holding a tray in the other hand. She was probably cleaning dishes off another table. We all just looked at each other in disbelief.

Another one: we were at Rainforest Cafe in DTD. The server was coughing like mad, into her hand. Then she served us our glasses of water. When she went away to do something, we left and went somewhere else.

 

[TheRealDrDisney]

Couldn't see our server so went over to one of the stations and politely asked if someone could check on our order.... Again, our server had disappeared so I went back to the station...

I just wanted to comment on how good it is to see another person with good common sense. I feel such a sense of frustration reading about folks that sit and wait forever for refills, for addressing meal issues, a check, or anything else. You're not tied to your chair people! I will look for my server first from my seat, then try to talk to a different server from my seat, and failing that (and I won't wait too long) I'll get up and find someone. Some of the fastest responses I've ever gotten has been when I was carrying several empty glasses across a restaurant.

It doesn't have to be rude or confrontational, just find someone and politely ask for what you need - but don't just sit there and be miserable!