So we just got back from a trip to WDW and piggybacked with a Disney cruise. I have been to BoG for dinner and for breakfast prior and this time we had a Quick Service lunch reservation. I cannot believe how backward the process is for this restaurant. So first, our reservation was at 1:00pm. It took probably 10 minutes of waiting to check in and the we were placed in line on the bridge over to the castle. We waited another 20 minutes here. Once inside, we waited another 20 minutes to get to the kiosks to order food. Now why Disney thinks it is smart for the guest to order their own food is absolutely beyond me. But the system is so clunky, it makes it even worse. So we were on Disney Dining plan. In order to use the plan each guest has their own ticket. So you DO NOT order for the entire party at one time. Instead, you order for each person individually and you absolutely CANNOT add anything here other than the rules for QS. Now, if you want something āExtraā you have another ticket you must order. So for a party of 4 you can easily have 5 separate tickets. So next you seat yourself after getting your own drink and flatware. Then the carts of food will magically appear 5 DIFFERENT TIMES!
So my question for DIsney is this: You are selling us on a restaurant called Be Our Guest where Lumiere will tell you about their amazing service if you want to sing-a-long with me. But It takes an hour to make it into a QS where I have to place my own order including running the backward technology, get my own drink and silverware, seat myself and wait for my food to arrive in parts? Methinks we missed the boat on this one. It we werenāt frustrated and hungry, it would be fun to watch all of the people meltdown at the ordering kiosks though. Maybe that is the new attraction.
Nope. Same reservation. Had to order my DD4 by herself because she is on a kids plan. The wife and I technically were able to order the two adults together but still clunky. And then we had to start a new ticket for French Onion Soup and a couple of Gray Stuff cupcakes. We had 3 tickets for the three of us. Then a 4th ticket to get some bread for our Infant to munch on. You have to separate kids dining, adult dining and extras regardless. But there is absolutely nothing that tells you this.
I am just never impressed with the place I suppose. Beast being there for dinner is ok but not the most inviting character for little ones and no Belle.
We really like lunch and we were there maybe 45 minutes the last time we went. We were on the dining plan, with kids, and preordered. And they only came once to our table with all our food. We are going again in May and definitely preordering again.
I had a similarly clunky and frustrating experience there - and like you - it was far from my first time at BOG (I think it was my fourth). I think it was a combination of issues for me. First there was a very large party ordering in front of me. Finally the CMs took mercy on me (I just needed to modify a pre-order) and redirected me to the non-preorder lines. And then I got super lost in the process and Iām a fairly savvy person. Ended up having two different orders like you (and we were there in December before the DP changes) and getting two different carts of food. Not a huge deal but justā¦not ideal. It was our first time there on the DP so maybe that added to the issues.
We havenāt done the dinner with Beast yet. I remember being shocked that BOG was basically a fancied up college cafeteria my first visit. My kids love it so weāll keep dining there but strictly preorder with no modifications.
When I was there in 2014 and 15 it was a really nice restaurant. We managed to get dinner both times and it was full service. If they are still doing that I definitely recommend the dinner.
This thread is a good summary of why I always get a reservation at 10:45am. Itās too late for breakfast and too early for most people to have lunch, but perfect for our family to have a shorter wait getting in and easy access to tables. I usually eat lunch around 11am regardless of location in the parks (and even at work back home!). Beat the rush.
We were there for lunch around Thanksgiving. We preordered, sat down and proceeded to wait for our food for about 35 min. Since we had no designated waiter, we kept asking random CMs where our food was. When it finally showed up, everything was cold, and the jus had congealed fat on top. We complained and they redid our order and gave us fastpasses, but we donāt plan to go backā¦
We had a very frustrating experience last week also. Had a PPO res, did the pre-order, got there early for our 8:15 res. There was a line over the bridge, but didnāt seem too bad.
Once we got up to the front, though, they decided to āopen upā a second pre-order line and put us in that line. Turned out it was really the ādidnāt pre-order lineā. We were in that line for a good 10 minutes and it was NOT moving. I asked the CM who was directing parties into the lines if we were in the right line for preorder, he said yes. After watching multiple people who arrived after us who were placed in the real preorder line breeze through, I pulled the family out of the line we were in and put us at the end of the true pre-order line. Grrr. It was a very frustrating start to the day.
To top it off, the food is not good at all, and outrageously overpriced for what you get.
Sadly, we had a frustrating experience last year also (waited over 35 minutes for our pre-ordered food!). I hoped that was a fluke, but after this year, never again. We would have been better off doing rope drop and saving a good amount of cash and frustration.
@ezed Thank you Luckily I was able to shake it off quickly once we left. Had a Grr moment for sure but didnāt lose sight of how lucky we were to be in the MK!
Same experience with pre-order, but with 5 adults and no dining plan. Iām a pretty big critic of Disney counter service (it always seems disorganized and slow), but this was the best counter service experience we had on our last trip in May 2019.
This was our first time at BoG and my expectations were not high. I hadnāt even attempted to go on a previous trip because the a) the table service dining sounded like a poor fit for our group (too loud and busy for the price) and b) the lunch ordering experience sounded like a big mess. After further research, it sounded like pre-order fixed that problem. We wanted to see the castle so gave it a shot. We enjoyed it and liked our food. Going back this May.
We were there a couple of weeks ago for breakfast and I couldnāt even figure out how to pre-order? Didnāt see it on the app? Looked both the night before and that morning. I must have overlooked something, I guess. (I had no trouble figuring out online ordering for everywhere else.) Shrug.
The kiosk was indeed clunky with DDP. Our cupcake seemed to have to go on a separate order from everything else to use a snack credit. And I think we ended up just paying for my mimosa because we couldnāt figure out the right way to ring it up and just wanted to be done with it.
The lines were short though at 840am with 9am park opening (we werenāt trying to work the system for RD).
Luckily I was able to shake it off quickly once we left. Had a Grr moment for sure but didnāt lose sight of how lucky we were to be in the MK!