Review of Blue Bayou Restaurant

I'm sorry to say that I was super disappointed in Blue Bayou. I called 60 days in advance to make reservations for a party of 16 (family reunion), and gave them a list of our guests' food allergies, as requested. When I arrived in the park (24 hours prior), my reservation appeared on the Disneyland app as 5 separate tables.

I called the Disney Dining number and asked to speak to Blue Bayou. The girl who answered said that I was (I know now that I probably was speaking to a Disney Dining rep, not someone actually at the restaurant). I asked why my reservation showed 5 tables, and she said that was the best arrangement for our party, as we could push the 5 tables together and eat all together. I asked if they still had the list of food allergies I had given them, and she read them back to me. All's well, right?

Unfortunately, when we arrived at Blue Bayou, the host seemed confused and annoyed. First he said that he couldn't find our reservation. After he found them, he said that he didn't understand why I had 5 separate reservations, and would need to create a new one. When I told him that this was for a party with multiple food allergies, he handed me the generic GF menu (which doesn't list any of the ingredients), and then asked me to give him the list all over again. I told him, "You already had the list. You've had it for 60 days!" He replied that it must be on one of the old reservations, but he couldn't look them up, so I needed to give them all to him again, right there, off the top of my head. I had to ask my family members to each list their allergies because I didn't have them written down.

Then we had to wait another 1/2 hour to be seated, only to discover that they had split our family up between two different tables with two different waiters. My brother had flown in all the way from the Middle East for this family reunion, and we couldn't even sit together at the same table!

The waiters were completely unprepared and asked us to list our food allergies AGAIN! We gave them our allergy dining cards, and then they brought the chef out to speak to us. After looking at the cards, he looked at the generic GF menu and said, "I'm sorry, there's not much here that I can offer you." Seriously? After 60 DAYS of knowing we were coming??

My understanding was that if you made reservations and alerted them of your food allergies within the appropriate time frame, they would ensure that there was something on the menu that was safe for you to eat. Instead, we were offered generic choices minus the "good stuff", with no allergen-free alternatives.

My mother ended up with a plain baked chicken breast and roasted potatoes. My daughter was stuck with another dry chicken breast, white rice, and steamed broccoli. No seasonings, no dairy-free margarine, no GF soy sauce, no allergen-free dressing...NOTHING. I could have made a meal better than that at home for 1/10th of the cost.

This meal at a gourmet restaurant in the middle of our 3-day Disney trip was supposed to be the highlight of our family reunion and a special treat for those who can hardly ever safely eat out. Instead, it turned out to be a huge disappointment. I will never bother spending that kind of money for a special meal again. Even the quick service restaurants had better service than this.