Pizza Hut — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

The absolute worst dining experience we have ever had. We arrived at about midnight. They close at 2:00am. There was only one other family in the restaurant when we arrived. They had already (understandably) closed a section off due to the late hour and barked at us that we were not allowed to sit in the closed section. We weren't trying to. We were just trying to follow the host. Inexplicably rude.

We should have left at this point, but we we were starved and dehydrated after a day at Disney, so we just overlooked it and sat down. Now we order cheese sticks, a large pizza and 5 glasses of water because we're dying of thirst. No water. Cheese sticks come. We devour them. No water. About 20 minutes after that our waiter comes back and claims that our pizza "exploded" in the oven and they had to remake it. Hmmmm....ok.... I ask him for our water. He apologizes and promises to bring it right away. About 10 minutes later another waitress brings us our pizza (which is borderline cold) and we devour it. It wasn't bad, just cold and we still had nothing to drink. Time to go. I rarely ever complain. I'm typically a non confrontational introvert. I say this to illustrate that if I actually complain to someone at a restaurant, it was BAD.

I tell the original host at the register that we never received our drinks and that this was just a horrible experience. He apologizes and offers 10% off. I'm pretty hot by now and it was so bad I'm thinking if I was him, I'd be saying, "sorry guys, pizza was on us and please let me get you some to go drinks since you're so thirsty." Nope. Nothing like that. He claims his access card only allows 10% off so he'd have to get a manager for more. "Ok," I said, "let's do that." A "manager" then comes over and begrudgingly gives us 20% off. Woo. The smart aleck original host comes by and tells her (while we're still in the middle of our transaction) that he tried giving us 10% off. She condescendingly says (in front of us), "well that apparently wasn't enough." They were just rude and hostile from beginning to end. We left still sans drinks and drove back to our hotel.

I have never experienced anything quite like that. It was surreal. They got progressively busier as we were there for an hour and a half and the tiny section they were packing people into got pretty full. Some people (smarter than us) got up and left because it was so bad.

Pizza Hut has now become a joke on our vacation. We ask the kids where that want to go eat and the response is always an enthusiastic "anywhere but Pizza Hut!"

We were never rude or loud. We were too exhausted and tired to be. This Pizza Hut staff was rude and hostile and I'm pretty sure they lied to us. Avoid at all costs.

-----------------------------UPDATE-------------------------- I complained through the Pizza Hut website and received a quick and satisfactory response. I doubt I'd go back to this particular restaurant, but I at least believe that Pizza Hut overlords cared about the incident and will take action to correct it.

---------------------------UPDATE TO UPDATE----------- The Pizza Hut rep who claimed to care about this incident promised to send a small gift card to pay for the meal. It's been a few weeks and nothing yet. I guess they didn't care...

I ordered a pizza for delivery to the Caribe Royale hotel. The driver called me ahead of time to ask which tower and to request I wait outside since they cannot come inside the guest towers. This is good. But from here everything went way downhill.

I waited outside, standing, with a broken back and sprained knee, for 20 minutes before I finally went back upstairs to get my phone. By that time I had two voice mails from the driver and a third from the store manager. I immediately called the store back, and the manager handed the phone to the driver. She insisted she waited outside the correct tower. She insisted she had been looking at a sign that said "Tower 2." She even had the nerve to ask me if I was sure which tower I was in. (FYI: The first digit in the room number tells you which tower.) I kept telling her she could not possibly have been outside Tower 2 because I was there. I told her she had to have been outside Tower 1. (I left out the possibility of Tower 3 because it is empty and under renovation.) She insisted that was not possible because Tower 1 is on the opposite side of the resort from Tower 2. Also wrong. The guest towers are in sequential order around the main lobby building which faces south. Tower 1 faces east. Tower 2 faces north. Tower 3 faces west. If she was outside one tower with another tower opposite her - she was outside the wrong tower. My guess is the sign she was looking at was a directional sign saying Tower 2 was to the left or right.

I finally canceled my order, and talked to the manager again. He assured me my money would be refunded, and did ask if there was anything that could be done to rectify the error. I said "Not right now" - I certainly didn't want another delivery driver coming out and making the same mistake, and I have no way to leave the property to go get anything, let alone pick up a pizza. I asked the manager to simply contact corporate and have them email me some coupons. He said that would not be possible, and that it had to be handled locally and immediately. Again - wrong answer.

I've already emailed...

Is negative stars possible? This location consistently messes up orders, fails to deliver items and has poor customer service. Order a pizza for delivery and as a bonus you get falsely accused of racism and have to go through the embarrassment, stress and anxiety of being consistently accused by the store's manager just to have their General Manager apologize days later for his staff, VIA EMAIL, for their "misunderstanding" after listening to the phonecall recordings. Thank goodness their phone calls are recorded. No person, especially a customer, should ever have to go through an experience like that. In this day and age, these things are actually happening on the daily and falsely accusing someone takes away from the validity of that and being able to act appropriately when you actually need to. I will say that I eventually did get a call from the District Manager (who had also listened to their phone calls) and he was genuinely apologetic and willing to try and make the situation right. He then offered me a credit for future use at a different location because I will never return to this location nor recommend anyone go to this location. However, I was then denied being able to use said credits at the International Drive location because the manager that used to be at the location, Jonathan (who was amazing) is no longer there and new managment 'had never heard of this'. The credits felt like hush money, especially since I have my conversation with their staff recorded on my home security as they harassed me and continously accused me of saying things I did not. McKenzie, Alex and Derek should not be in customer service and this review was well over due. Go to Papa John's, NYPD Pizza, Flippers Pizza or...