I try to be a positive person, but two bad experiences on recent trips.
Kona Cafe: The timing was just WAY, WAY off. Seated. Wait about five minutes for a server. Order drinks. Wait a bit more, server comes back says drinks will be a few minutes. Order appetizers and entrees. Wait quite a while. Appetizers come. Finally drinks come. Entrees come two minutes later --- literally we weren't even two bites into our appetizers. Oh wait, those aren't ours. Have a long discussion with the food runner to try to convince him that that these weren't our entrees. ("No, sorry. We had two sustainable fishes, a lamb, and a duck --- you clearly have three steaks."/"But this is the table number on the ticket"./"There are four of us. None of us ordered steak."/ "Are you sure?") Which only gets solved in the end because another food runner comes up with our actual entrees and finally convinced runner number one that we didn't order seven entrees for four people. The food was fine -- not as good as I've had in times past, but the service was just all over the place. We had been hoping to stay for dessert and coffee, but instead decided on dole whips and after dinner drinks at the tiki terrace.
1900 Park Fare (Breakfast): Started off well --- didn't have to wait long to be seated, table was in a nice location. We sit. And wait. And wait. And wait. After 15 minutes when I'm seriously contemplating going to ask the gentleman who appears to be a manager if he could find our server, a server stops by and says she'll be right back. Comes back five minutes later with water and POG juice. Asks about coffee --- we all want, but tell her we need more mugs. More waiting...we finally all go the buffet. Server is back --- Brings coffee --- no mugs. We remind her. She disappears for long enough that I liberate mugs from a nearby table (probably not cool - but at this point we've been seated over half an hour and REALLY want coffee). Food was meh for me -- but it's a breakfast buffet, what can you do - most things were passable but the "lobster" eggs benedict were disappointing (and I knew that it was only a "lobster sauce", if the DIS hadn't warned me in advance, I would have been annoyed). At one point in meal ask for more coffee --- the server gave a bit of an attitude (maybe she was mad about the previous mug pilfering although she never did bring more mugs so I'm kind of guessing she had entirely forgotten) and took 17 minutes to bring another carafe (yes, by this point I was timing everything). Finally done eating --- ask for the check. 22 minutes to get it. Breakfast took FOREVER and not in a good way. My family enjoyed the character interactions --- but since that's not a draw for me, if I had my way I would NEVER, NEVER go back.
It's Disney, I expect all the dining to be a little over-priced and mass-produced, that's the nature of the beast, but those two were real standouts. Luckily, far more of my Disney dining experiences have been stand outs in the good way. Brunch this weekend at Narcoosees --- fingers crossed.
