Tusker House RoL dining package lunch was dreadful!

oceanscape

DIS Veteran
Joined
Oct 22, 2006
We had lunch reservations at TH at the AK on Tuesday. Reservation was for 12:30. We checked-in at 12:25 and were handed a buzzer and told that they were running 20 mins behind schedule. Fine. The check-in line went all the way back to the main pathway in Africa and must have been 15-20 families deep. The area to wait in was outside and was very hot and overcrowded and there was nowhere to sit. Worst of all, we were waiting ONE HOUR past our reservation time and were eventually buzzed at 1:30. By the way, other families were in the same boat (one family who checked-in ahead of us was still waiting at 1:30 and they were fuming and lashed out at a CM when we were buzzed ahead of them).

As we went inside my heart dropped. This place is INSANE. Kids EVERYWHERE running around like a kindergarten. Mess EVERYWHERE, including discared plates and food on the FLOOR. It was DISGUSTING. The tables are rammed together and our table was sticky. It is so noisy you cannot think let alone hear each other talk. Server was SLOW - 15 mins until we had our drinks. Food was WORSE THAN A GOLDEN CORRAL. Very poor quality, flavorless, poorly presented and generally unappetizing. It was really bad; not just slightly bad. The scratched-up plastic plates really cheapened the atmosphere.

My fault for doing the RoL Dining Package but I could cry thinking that we spent $300 on lunch for the 4 of us in this travesty of a restaurant. Seriously, I recommend avoiding this place like the plague. Thankfully we got some good character interactions as that was the only positive. To make it worse, the RoL seating was so disappointing: I don't know if we chose the wrong row but it was directly parallel to the row in front (not on an incline) so we LITERALLY just looked at the back's of other people's heads for the entire show and could not see a thing. We wished we FP+'d and saved the $$$.
 
We had lunch reservations at TH at the AK on Tuesday. Reservation was for 12:30. We checked-in at 12:25 and were handed a buzzer and told that they were running 20 mins behind schedule. Fine. The check-in line went all the way back to the main pathway in Africa and must have been 15-20 families deep. The area to wait in was outside and was very hot and overcrowded and there was nowhere to sit. Worst of all, we were waiting ONE HOUR past our reservation time and were eventually buzzed at 1:30. By the way, other families were in the same boat (one family who checked-in ahead of us was still waiting at 1:30 and they were fuming and lashed out at a CM when we were buzzed ahead of them).

As we went inside my heart dropped. This place is INSANE. Kids EVERYWHERE running around like a kindergarten. Mess EVERYWHERE, including discared plates and food on the FLOOR. It was DISGUSTING. The tables are rammed together and our table was sticky. It is so noisy you cannot think let alone hear each other talk. Server was SLOW - 15 mins until we had our drinks. Food was WORSE THAN A GOLDEN CORRAL. Very poor quality, flavorless, poorly presented and generally unappetizing. It was really bad; not just slightly bad. The scratched-up plastic plates really cheapened the atmosphere.

My fault for doing the RoL Dining Package but I could cry thinking that we spent $300 on lunch for the 4 of us in this travesty of a restaurant. Seriously, I recommend avoiding this place like the plague. Thankfully we got some good character interactions as that was the only positive. To make it worse, the RoL seating was so disappointing: I don't know if we chose the wrong row but it was directly parallel to the row in front (not on an incline) so we LITERALLY just looked at the back's of other people's heads for the entire show and could not see a thing. We wished we FP+'d and saved the $$$.
Im so sorry you had a bad experience. I actually agree with you about the food/atmosphere. I really didnt like the food at lunch/dinner at all. Im not a picky eater, i just wasnt impressed. I didnt like how chaotic it was, and ya, the tables were rammed together.

Breakfast was a totally different experience thou! I LOVED the food at breakfast, and we had a great table. We were in a smaller room where the tables weren't too rammed. And characters came fairly quick. Whereas with lunch/dinner, they took FOREVER. Go figure.

Characters there are very cute though, so yes, thats a positive.
 
We loved breakfast there. We experienced very low crowds (9 am on an 8 am EMH day) and everything was clean and orderly. And the food was great!

Sorry you had a bad experience. That doesn’t sound fun at all.

We booked ed the ROL package again for our trip next month, but will probably gift those tickets to someone else. I think ROL was one and done for us (especially since they cut the live performers!)
 
I heard so many good things about TH and the menu sounded good online. I think most people enjoy the breakfast and we should have opted for that. The lunch was really poor quality, it wasn't even that the actual selection of items was that bad it was just the quality - very cheap cuts/produce and nasty salty flavors. Felt very budget, even more so with the very old, scratched brightly colored plastic plates and bowls. I wouldn't have minded so much at $20 each but $70 was crazy poor value for money.
 


Wow-- so sorry you had such a bad experience. We had an experience almost exactly like that 2 years ago at Hollywood and Vine for Minnie's seasonal meal-- we won't ever go back. We have never had a bad experience at Tusker House- and I can't recall ever having to wait more than 20 minutes past the ADR and usually you can do that under the covered area near the podium where I think there are ceiling fans. We were there 2 weeks ago-- we usually do a late breakfast right around when they change over to lunch so you can eat both the breakfast items and then some of the lunch items. I will say that 2 weeks ago we noticed that the quality of the lunch items had really declined from what we had experienced in the past. We were a bit surprised by that because we had always thought the lunch items were pretty good. There were also some things missing from the breakfast items that we remembered always getting in the past. All in all, we still had a good experience though. We have always thought the tables in there were so crowded together that it is hard to get a decent picture of the characters with a child.
 
We had dinner at Tusker House a couple of weeks ago and had the opposite experience. There was no wait and the food and atmosphere were wonderful. There are lots of loud excited little ones of course, but it’s a Disney character meal so that’s par for the course. Tusker House food is consistently almost as good as Boma. All the restaurants at WDW with characters are very expensive, regardless if you are doing a package. You are not just paying for the food, but the access to the characters.
 


We had dinner at Tusker House a couple of weeks ago and had the opposite experience. There was no wait and the food and atmosphere were wonderful. There are lots of loud excited little ones of course, but it’s a Disney character meal so that’s par for the course. Tusker House food is consistently almost as good as Boma. All the restaurants at WDW with characters are very expensive, regardless if you are doing a package. You are not just paying for the food, but the access to the characters.
Just to be clear, you would recommend both of these places? We have these both booked for our trip in November. TIA
 
We've had lunch there several times and loved it, our experience was nothing like yours. It sounds dreadful, I'm wondering if they were having a problem with CMs that day? That would explain why they were running so far behind and why everything was in such a disarray.
 
So sorry for your difficult experience. I can say, having eaten at Tusker numerous times, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I have never had that kind of an experience or anything close to it. I am sure you hit it on a bad day, which doesn't lessen your negative experience, but is only meant to say, that is not typical.
 
I tried the lunch there once. I much prefer the Breakfast. I like a lot of different foods but not into the African & Asian inspired/flavored offerings personally. I wanted to try it once just to see for myself. I found enough to eat but not worth that kind of $ to me so I don't plan to try it again in the future. Unfortunately all the Character meals are overcrowded with kids running around & harried servers and the later you go each day the longer the wait seems to be. I think the Tusker House issue with fairly early Lunch ADR's is that a lot of people try to book late Breakfast so they can get both the breakfast & lunch foods for the breakfast price so they hog the tables longer than normal to make their meal a Brunch. I think Tusker should buffer the switch over like they do @ BOG so they can clear the place prior to putting out the Lunch food but they'd rather have a few unhappy paying lunch customers who get seated very late than leave some empty tables for an hour. Sorry you had such an awful experience.
 
I tried the lunch there once. I much prefer the Breakfast. I like a lot of different foods but not into the African & Asian inspired/flavored offerings personally. I wanted to try it once just to see for myself. I found enough to eat but not worth that kind of $ to me so I don't plan to try it again in the future. Unfortunately all the Character meals are overcrowded with kids running around & harried servers and the later you go each day the longer the wait seems to be. I think the Tusker House issue with fairly early Lunch ADR's is that a lot of people try to book late Breakfast so they can get both the breakfast & lunch foods for the breakfast price so they hog the tables longer than normal to make their meal a Brunch. I think Tusker should buffer the switch over like they do @ BOG so they can clear the place prior to putting out the Lunch food but they'd rather have a few unhappy paying lunch customers who get seated very late than leave some empty tables for an hour. Sorry you had such an awful experience.


That’s Disney’s problem not the customers. By now they should know that’s going to happen and have adjusted the reservations accordingly.
 
Definitely write guest services. That's ridiculous. I guess I am secretly glad that DS doesn't like lunch/dinner food there anymore. First time was fine, last time we waited more than 30 minutes over. Not nearly as bad as yours though. We did end up leaving with him kind of crying and me wanting to abandon both DH and DS wherever and go around the park by myself. However, that was at the end of a long vacation and we had been up since 4 or 5am getting of the DCL Fantasy. We have a late breakfast next month. Hopefully, that won't be bad. DH and I have always enjoyed the food there.
 
Well Disney messed with our park hours, so our Tusker House breakfast is shot. :sad:

So glad I didn’t cancel our Boma breakfast reservation for our other AK day. I think we will try that instead.
 
We had lunch there in 2015 and I was also disappointed. I’ve done tons of character meals so I get it’s full of kids. That didn’t bother me. However, the tables were so close that it was difficult to walk and we didn’t find the food enjoyable. I’m not willing to give it another try since it’s so expensive.
 
We had the ROL breakfast ADR, which I didn't realize was more expensive than the regular breakfast seating when the ADR showed up as available. We were one of the first tables seated for the day so the restaurant was very clean and I enjoyed the food, but there was no way the food and character experience was worth ~$160 for our family to eat breakfast.
 
That’s Disney’s problem not the customers. By now they should know that’s going to happen and have adjusted the reservations accordingly.

Then people will complain they can't get ADRs.

But I agree, if they are running consistently behind they need to fix it.
 
I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience and I would bring up your concerns with guest services. I also found it extremely loud (even in the restroom) both times we went and I taught pre-K for years. We choose the Tiffins ROL package now--the food, service and atmosphere are wonderful.
 
Yeah, we have never been big TH fans but we eat breakfast there almost every trip because it is the only place you can get breakfast in the park besides the Rainforest Café. It is one of the most hectic environments, hard to move around, and we have never been able to get good (or even decent) service. The breakfast food is good enough for us and we tend to eat quickly, get a picture with Donald (one of my faves) and then leave.
 
So what did the manager say when you brought all of this up at the end of the meal?


Unfortunately all the Character meals are overcrowded with kids running around & harried servers and the later you go each day the longer the wait seems to be.

Agreed.

I think the Tusker House issue with fairly early Lunch ADR's is that a lot of people try to book late Breakfast so they can get both the breakfast & lunch foods for the breakfast price so they hog the tables longer than normal to make their meal a Brunch.

Agreed.

We did it once. Breakfast was absolutely nothing special. We were mystified as to why it’s so popular.

That’s Disney’s problem not the customers. By now they should know that’s going to happen and have adjusted the reservations accordingly.

Eh. Only the fanciest of places truly hold tables. Disney just hopes people will get out in a timely fashion.
 

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