Don't Stop - part one of Disney trip COMPLETED About This Page:

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Sunday 13 December – part five: service failure requires service recovery

We were soon called and all discussed the differences we saw between the place now and when it was Spoodles. It hasn’t changed that much, but you will spot some subtle differences, like the map on the front now reflects Greece and that part of the Mediterranean, rather than Spain and Italy, as it did in the past. Inside, it felt smaller, but generally seemed very similar to what we were all used to previously.




When the menu arrived, that didn’t seem similar at all. : It was full of wonderful sounding items. I struggled to say some of them and was very glad that they had descriptions of everything, so that I could work out what they were. I thought this was very adventurous for Disney, which does seem to have got more and more homogenous over recent years. You can usually walk into most restaurants and find the same items, but not here.

I went for two appetisers, the goat cheese-stuffed grape leaf and the spanakopita, which is traditional phyllo pie of spinach, feta, leeks and dill, according to the menu, along with the roasted red pepper and chickpea soup with hummus.





Mark had the Kouzzina spreads, harissa yoghurt, Kalamata fig and chickpea hummus with grilled pita for appetiser, followed by the wood-grilled flank steak with fresh herb saltsa and Kouzzina potatoes.




I really couldn’t fault the flavours in any of mine at all, very ethnic and full of unique tastes, although I did find the cps a bit overpowering in the grape leaf dish. The stand out was perhaps the soup for me, which did surprise me, as I don’t usually like chickpeas at all. Mark enjoyed his, although he found his meat a bit greasy.

The food was wonderful, the company was great, as we chatted away and put the world completely to rights. The problem was the service. It all started out so promisingly too. Our server was so enthusiastic when she greeted us and read out each of our names from our PassPorter name badges. I thought we were in for a great night, but how wrong you can be.


The photo our server took of us....

... and a glimpse of her

The problems started when our entrees turned up as the appetisers were still being eaten. I think maybe Larry and I had finished, but Mark, Lorie and Heather were still eating theirs. That never sits well with me when that happens. It says to me that they are just not keeping an eye on things.

The real issue came at dessert. We were asked if we wanted to look at the dessert menu and about three or four of us said yes. We sat there and sat there and nothing more. Eventually, apparently our server came over and asked Bob if he wanted something from the dessert menu. He said no and she then took my menu away. I suspect that this all happened while I was in the bathroom, as I had no knowledge of this. Anyway, the check then appeared, before the rest of us had been asked if we wanted dessert. This really wasn’t on.

Let’s just say, perhaps mistakenly, I fired Heather up a bit to go and speak to the manager for the second time, as she had already spoken to her earlier in the meal and not been at all impressed by her attitude, shall we say. She headed off, with the rest of us cowering at the table. As Mark said, Heather is not the sort of person you mess with, in the nicest possible way. Don’t get me wrong, she is such a lovely sweet person, but when things get bad, she is a very good person to have on your side. She came back again and, once again, no satisfaction with the manager. It wasn’t good enough. We had had poor service and no-one really seemed to care. By now, the good food had pretty much been forgotten, as we were all left with a nasty taste in our mouths from service issues. We sorted out the check and our service reluctantly came over to us. She had pretty much tried to avoid us, ever since our first complaint, but as was pointed out, she was getting $35 for her troubles, as the 18% gratuity had already been added in, as there were six of us. You know, in hindsight, I wonder if we should’ve spoken again to the manager, as it grates that she got 18% for what I would call poor service, but by now, I think we were all tired of arguing and it was getting us nowhere. We settled up (I think it came to something like $34 per person, which was good value, considering that we had shared a pitcher of sangria) and headed out. What should’ve been a good dining experience had sadly been marred for us.


Heather at work, scribbling a message to them on the check – I seem to recall it’s something like service failure requires service recovery....

Kouzzina:

Appetiser 9 8½
Entree 8 8
Service 4 3
Atmosphere 9 9
Value for money 9½ 8

Average score: 7.60


Mark and Larry both demonstrating their flashing bits but you can’t see Larry’s – they were on his hat!

We headed to get the boat to the Studios, but there was such a long line, so the others opted to walk, but there was no way that I could do that for the second night running, so I opted to drive there. We were all standing with the others, waiting for Larry, who was chatting away to Mark and eventually they just suggested that he come over in the car with us, so we did that.




We picked the car up from valet parking and goodness they were fussy about giving us the free parking with the Tables in Wonderland card. I never experienced anything like it anywhere else, so I guess they have issues here. They asked for the card, as all places do and then they wanted the receipt. Well, because it was a group meal, I didn’t pick it up. I showed the woman the menu from there and found the final receipt where we’d paid using a gift card, but she sternly told us that usually we would have to present the first receipt, proving we’d used our Tables in Wonderland card. Good grief! Finally, she gave us the free parking, once she had finished grilling us and we drove over to the Studios. They were directing people to a lot towards the edge of the parking lot, so Mark asked the guy about parking closer, because of my Guest Assistance Card and he waved us through. We couldn’t fathom where the actual disabled parking was, so we just parked near the front of the lot, near the taxi rank, which was good enough for us. We walked in and took our time walking over to the Osborne Lights, getting some Photopass pictures on the way.




Next: a great end to our gathering