Winnie the Pooh Character Meal at the Crystal Palace
Written: Jul 07 '00 (Updated Jul 07 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nice waiter; at least it was air conditioned;
Cons: bad food, rude manager, long wait, expensive, did I say BAD FOOD?
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| Starrrynit's Full Review: Walt Disney World Dining & Entertainment |
All of my friends kept telling me that a Character Meal was a "must do" during my family's visit to Disney World. Gullible as I am, I believed them and signed up for the Winnie the Pooh luncheon at the Crystal Palace, located in the Magic Kingdom.
A brochure told me that I was able to reserve a table through my resort, Dixie Landings. We made the reservation the might before from our room phone. I distinctly remember asking the girl to repeat the date, place, and time to make sure I had the right information. I wrote everything down, except the girl's name, of course. I mean, why should I have done that? A well-trained Disney employee was taking my reservation so everything will turn out fine, right???
The next day, we strolled up to the ticket window at the Crystal Palace so we could be seated. A receptionist stared at me blankly and announced we were not on the reservation list. I told her that I placed my reservation with a Dixie Landings employee, and I gave her my room number. She wrote this incident on a form and grumpily stated she could get us a table but we would have to wait a while.
We should have taken this problem as a sign from above and had lunch somewhere, ANYWHERE else!!! But, of course, we didn't and waited 20 minutes before being seated.
The atmosphere at the Crystal Palace was bright and cheery. We were seated and served by a wonderful waiter. He was completely professional and attended to every one of our requests with a smile.
Lunch was buffet style, with the Children's entrees first. The offering for kids were chicken nuggets, sticky pasta mystery dish, and supposedly pizza - I never saw any out the entire time. My husband and I weren't impressed with the adult entrees either. We ended up with salad, salmon, and some mighty sad looking beef. None of the food had any taste! The selection and quality of the meal was deplorable. At $15 (adults) and $9 (children), I expected more for my money. We filled our stomachs at the dessert table. Basically, we paid almost $50 for dessert.
Here is the clincher: we almost didn't get to meet Pooh at a Winnie the Pooh Character Meal! Tigger and Eeyore came to our table during our "dessert"...oops I meant "luncheon" and signed the kid's autograph books.
We were at the Crystal Palace for well over an hour waiting for Pooh to get to our half of the restaurant. Itching to leave, the kids and I walked up to Pooh just to say "hello". We were stopped by the manager and told that we were not to aproach any of the characters. I explained that we waited a *very* long time already and we wanted to leave.
I could sort of understand why management would want to keep order in the restaurant...otherwise it would be a free-for-all in the place and the characters/people may get hurt.
What I could NOT figure out was how everyone I talked to about these meals were delighted by them...how magical they are...blah blah blah!
Believe me, all of the Disney Magic was drained out of this luncheon after our wait to meet Pooh escalated to over an hour. Two small kids in a sit-down restaurant for OVER AN HOUR....get me OUTTA HERE!!!
I commented further that I was essentially paying $50 to shake the hand of a costumed character since the food was completely inedible. The manager told us to sit down and wait at my table but I refused. I argued that it was ridiculous to wait over an hour to get an autograph from some guy in a costume AND PAY FOR IT!!
By this time, other customers that were sitting on my side of the restaurant were questioning what the hold up was. I wasn't the only one annoyed by the wait.
After causing a bit of a stir, the manager told the girl leading Pooh around to get to the other side of the restaurant because the patrons were getting angry.
No, my kids are not scarred by any of the happenings because they were standing by the dessert table helping themselves to more ice cream. Luckily, they didn't hear my comments about our luncheon at the Crystal Palace.
Finally, we met and received an autograph from Winnie the Pooh. Was it worth $50, the aggravation, the 2 HOURS wasted, the bad food, and the confrontation with the manager? No way. I will never do this again.
That's my Epinion and I'm stickin' to it!
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Starrrynit
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Location: Chicago, Illinois area
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 24 members
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