As someone who wrote thousands of words on WDW vs UOR dining (with data!) this spring for TP I have some interesting insights.
For guest ratings, UOR actually is very competitive with WDW. This is based on a thumbs up/down rating from Unofficial Guide and TP readers.
These are the star ratings for the restaurants by the professional Unofficial Guide critic. Now, you can see UOR does lack the big, high-end dining like V&A, Cali Grill, Jiko, etc., BUT they still hit the same middle percentile that WDW does. BUT, you also see UOR doesn't hit the same lows at Disney does with some of their dining locations (Rix, Tony's, Rainforest, etc).
There are two dining locations that hit the high end, thought:
- The Palm at Hard Rock
- Bice at Portofino Bay
I think there are two things holding back UOR's dining: the pricing and the clientele.
UOR aims for a lower price point than Disney, and it's not even close. The average full-service entre at WDW is $29.57, and $23.80 at UOR. I think UOR's keeping their dining prices lower as a competitive advantage which while is great for us, it doesn't allow for more creativity or the attention fine dining requires.
Second, WDW just has more people and more people who will spend more money. Simple as that, they have a clientele that will pay for it. Just as why when WDW has two parks they couldn't do the same things they can now they have four, UOR just can't pull that yet.
So that leaves us with likely three new full service restaurants coming to UOR in 2025:
- Grand Helios water show side dining
- BBQ place
- other dining in the hub (location/theme escapes me sorry)
BBQ ain't going to be high end, I think the best bet is Grand Helios pushing dining up the next level. Even at Disney most of the fanciest restaurants are at hotels!