Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World (WDW) has rolled out an intriguing new offering this past week: a picnic "basket" with sandwiches, sides, desserts, and bottled water, designed for you to take away and eat on a bench (or a picnic table) just out and about.

There are two price tiers. The cheaper one features turkey Focaccia, chicken wrap, ham grinder, or tuna pita, and the pricing (all before tax) depends on how much food you are ordering:

• Meal for Three: $25
• Meal for Four: $33
• Meal for Five: $41
• Meal for Six: $49

Prices for the second tier (where the main course is rotisserie chicken or ham) are $5-7 higher.

There's good signage for it at the front of the park, but not all employees inside knew about it.

The Meal for Three was a good match for our family (the two year old currently doesn't eat much, so it's just the six year old plus parents). For the price, you get any three sandwiches, 1 side item, 3 desserts, and 3 bottles of Dasani water. (You get progressively more side items and desserts as you add main courses.)

You probably noticed the odd dessert selections. Apple, orange, or cornbread as dessert? But that actually makes sense once you know how big the sides are. The macaroni and cheese, which we got, was a pretty full serving; possibly even enough to fill up one not-insanely-hungry person even if they ate nothing else. So to put an apple or orange as a comparable item would not have been fair. I suppose they could rename it to "small side" instead of dessert (and then rename the other category to "large side"); that might make more sense.

Here's how it works. A-frame signs set up just inside the main entrance turnstiles promoting alert you to this new offering, and point you to a podium set up at nearby Guest Relations. It's only available until 1:30 pm; after that, you can't order a picnic any more.

You tell the Cast Member there what tier you want, and how many sandwiches, and you start to get specific about exactly which sandwiches you want, and which sides. They ask for your first and last names, which is recorded at the bottom of the sheet, and then inform you that your food will be ready in two hours. Apparently, there is always a two hour interval between your order and when you can pick it up.

You could stop by the podium at the front of the park, or inside at Tusker House.

You are handed a pink carbon-copy of the order, which you present at the Kusafiri bakery window (just outside Tusker House) in two hours to pick up your food. The pink sheet reminds you where to go, in case you didn't also pick up the colorful brochure advertising this new feature.

We ambled back just a touch early, and I got in line a few minutes before the stated return time of 2:10, partly to see if they would allow it (after all, I was planning to write this up, so any data helps). Let me provide a timeline of what happened next:

The line just does not move.

The picnic tables around the park are often full of people who did not buy picnic lunches.

That's it for the facts. Now for the opinions.

Unless and until they fix this stupendously awful and insanely slow mode of service, I cannot in good conscience recommend the picnic to anyone. It doesn't matter what the food tastes like--the point is that they had my order for two hours and then took a full twenty-six minutes to dole it out once I got in line. The line was short, but it was largely unmoving.

What really gets me is that the food is quite clearly 100% pre-made. There is no provision for customizing your sandwich on that pink sheet (i.e., no tomatoes), and it comes delivered to you in a thin plastic shell wrapping, sealed up by a sticker listing ingredients and a "sell by" date (it was tomorrow). These are some pretty big signs that the sandwiches were made early in the morning, or perhaps even last night, rather than at some point between the time I ordered the food and when I arrived.

I'm guessing this wasn't made just for me.

As such, the line and the wait become utterly and completely inexcusable. All they have to do is grab the pre-made sandwiches, grab the side dishes (some were hot, so they had to be dished up into containers), and throw everything into the bag. I could run that whole operation myself and take 60 to 90 seconds for each order. They had at least three people (possibly more; I didn't crane my neck to see what was behind the counter and around the corner) and it took them a minimum of three minutes to assemble each bag.

And hold on a sec. Isn't the whole point of the "two hour wait" so they could make my food? Shouldn't it be sitting there, assembled, and waiting for me when I arrive? Forget even sixty seconds… shouldn't it take but two or three seconds to grab the bag with my name on it?

Clearly, what this means is that the bags and the orders are not assembled at all until you arrive with your pink sheet. The waits were long enough that I wondered if the sandwiches were not even made, and had to be made on the spot when the pink sheets arrived. If true, that further implies that the two-hour wait is something of a sham, probably more about spacing out orders than about any real preparation time.

I'm a bit flabbergasted by this line of thinking. Here you have visitors willing to pay you for a quick pre-assembled meal, and you build in an intentional wait?! Wouldn't you make more money if you let folks wander up and, oh I don't know, maybe grab the food they want on the spot? There's a grab-and-go refrigerator with sandwiches and salads across the park (in a shop opposite the exit to It's Tough to be a Bug) and they manage to do it with no wait whatsoever. In terms of convenience, that shop scores a ten and this new picnic scores a zero.

That's a lot of extra packaging.

It is possible, however, that the two-hour wait really is about making my sandwiches. In that event, all they really need to fix is the delivery mode. Melissa is already aware of the biggest problem: there is no way this should have been rolled into an existing food service operation. The picnic pickup should be its own window, with no distraction of people buying coffees on the spot, and the clogged lines.

So I'm hopeful they will rectify that part of the problem soon. If they are planning to relocate, that would explain why there is no signage in the area for the picnic; Kusafiri only has its normal signage up (this creates confusion in every picnic guest, wondering if it's the right place or not).

But those coffees and bagels at the bakery did not cause the three-minute delays for each picnic order. Something else did. Either they ran behind and had to make sandwiches on the spot, or else the assembling process needs drastic revision. Either way, they simply must look for a radical change in operations. The process as it flows now is broken. They need queue poles and ropes. They need to not collect the pink sheets and re-order by time (that just encourages people to be late. Show up twenty minutes late for your food, and be escorted to the front of the line!)

And above all else, they need to make the wait minimal once you show up for your food, even after they cut out the Kusafiri confusion. I wonder if part of the delay is that they don't want people to order food but never show up, so they wait for folks to show up before they assemble anything? (Remember that you don't pay until you pick it up). They need to rethink this.

Enough about service; now let's look at quality and value.

The food comes not in a basket, but in a green canvas bag like those currently in vogue at supermarkets, meant to be reusable for your groceries. The bags are also sold for $3 in shops in the park, so this is a nice perk. I wish they'd cut the price tag off the bag, though. I threw mine atop the stroller and ambled through a store, then realized the bags were on sale in the store and mine looked like I was about to shoplift.

This bag has got Environmentality!

Our three sandwiches were the tuna pita, the chicken wrap, and the turkey focaccia. The tuna pita was surprisingly good. It appeared to be a high-quality tuna, it was amply moistened and seasoned, and the tomato and lettuce that came with it were fresh. Thumbs up from me.

The turkey focaccia used medium quality deli turkey (neither "too thin and processed", nor "thick and actual cuts of breast meat") and it took me only a bite to recognize the spicy mayonnaise they use on the turkey sandwich at Sunshine Seasons Fair at Epcot's Land pavilion. By the time I swallowed the bite, I'd concluded that it was not just the mayo; this was the exact same sandwich, probably using the same recipe.

The one sandwich we didn't get on this menu was the ham grinder, and looking at the color brochure, it too appears to be a twin of the sandwich on sale at Sunshine Seasons Fair. Hm. This must be part of the homogenization movement for WDW menus. The company saves money if it can hire fewer chefs and re-use the same recipes in multiple locations. So much homogenization is not all that optimal for us customers, though.

And my chicken wrap tasted familiar; I think it was the exact same recipe I'd seen for sale at Pecos Bill (yet more duplication of recipes). That makes me wonder if the tuna pita comes from elsewhere on property. But back to the chicken: the chunks of meat were processed, and there were carrot slivers and red leaf lettuce which made up most of the filling. The sauce was light (it could have used more) so I can't be sure of the taste, but it might have been Caesar.

I wonder if the Tier Two food is higher quality?

The macaroni and cheese side, as mentioned earlier, was plenty big for three people to share. The "dessert" wouldn't add much volume if you got an apple or the cornbread (which was a tiny cornbread muffin), but woe is you if you got the brownie. More of a fudge heart attack than a simple brownie, this confection weighed heavily in the hand and I swear it felt like more than half a pound. It's rich beyond your dreams, too--rare indeed will be the person who can eat this by himself. Even three of us working together couldn't quick finish that last bite.

The water was a disappointment; the promised Dasani bottle was the smaller 12 ounce variety, not the larger one.

Obviously, we can't talk about the food's quality and infer value without also talking about pricing. To measure the value, I first compared these picnic meals to other offerings at WDW. Just across the street (in the former ice cream shop), they sell a turkey and swiss on focaccia (hmmm again) for $7.79. I didn't check to see if it's the same sandwich, but the turkey sandwich at the Land (which is identical for sure) costs $7. So it would cost $21 just for the sandwiches in our picnic lunch, and $3 for the reusable bag to round out the $24 purchase price. The side item, the desserts, and the drinks are all "free" when compared to this metric.

Comparing Disney prices to Disney prices, the picnic is a clear winner. The margin is so large, in fact, that I'm surprised the pricing comes in this good. Perhaps we can expect price hikes in the future to close the gap?

This line of reasoning made me curious how the pricing compares to external food options. So I headed to the very close, recently-opened Target on 192-West (really just a mile or two from WDW) and took some notes.

At the deli near the front of the store, they sell sandwiches almost the same size as Disney's (perhaps 80% or 90% as large?) for much less. You could buy one of everything on menu and not hit $24: a turkey club ($3), a ham and cheddar sandwich ($3), a chicken parmesan pita melt ($3), a turkey club pita melt ($3), and a chicken Caesar salad ($4) would only add up to $16. Throw in a 24-pack of Dasani (the large bottles) for $6 and you're still two dollars shy of the Disney total.

The produce is especially fresh.

The nearby grab-and-go refrigerators have even more variety. The $4 sandwiches are as large as Disney's: ham and Swiss, turkey and brie, turkey and havarti, and buffalo chicken. There are $4 wraps like Caribbean chicken or Southwest vegetarian. If you want a "regular" sandwich on white bread, those only run $1.50 or $2 each. The $4 salads include chef salad, Cobb salad, Southwest salad, steak salad, or salmon mango salad.

Since this Target also has a supermarket, your variety is endless for side items, fruits, and snack-type additions. A ten-pack of Quaker brand Chewy granola bars costs $2.34, while bananas go for 69 cents a pound. Lunchables for your kids will run $2.24 each, a far sight cheaper than the usual $5 Disney child meal on property.

But let's cut to the chase. What would it cost to build a similar meal to the picnic, but using ingredients purchased at Target?

• $3 Dasani water
• $3 macaroni & cheese
• $2 brownies
• $1 fruit
• $3 three loaves of fresh bread (yes, it's that cheap)
• $6 for deli turkey & ham (these two containers easily provide enough meat for three very loaded sandwiches)
• $1 lettuce
• $1 tomato
• $3 cheese slices in a bag
• $2 mayonnaise

That's a grand total of $25. You could use some cheaper ingredients (especially the meats and cheese), but then again, the picnic constructed above has less variety than the Disney picnic I purchased, so it's kind of a wash.

I was surprised by the above result. The Disney meal was priced at about supermarket prices (or possibly even cheaper). Not bad at all. Of course, it could be possible to eat differently and save some money. If your Target purchases focused on sandwiches only instead of sides and desserts, you could easily make six or even eight large (not standard loaf) sandwiches for $17--that would be enough to feed four or five hungry adults. Disney's price for five adults is $41. There's an economy of scale to consider; the more people you feed via "build your own" ingredients, the greater the savings compared to Disney.

Nope, no one with a Disney picnic at this area either.

And the addition of picnic areas around the park in some ways invites people to bring in their own food, and treat it like a local city park. As noted here previously, Disney's own website no longer says that outside food is prohibited (a policy enacted in late 2008). Instead, only glass bottles and alcohol are forbidden. Since then, I've seen several roll-around coolers in the park.

I can't decide if this policy change is a good thing or not. On the one hand, you'd think it would portend bad news. If some folks bring in their own food, Disney will simply raise prices in the restaurants to compensate (after all, they have profit margins to defend), and everyone else will be the loser. That can't be good. But on the other hand, you've got the first new food offering since the policy change--this picnic thing--and the prices are not only reasonable, they border on extraordinary. Does this signal a change in thinking at WDW? That the fleecing of the customer doesn't have to extend to food?

Putting it all together, I see decent quality, solid value, and horrendous service. If they address the service, we'll be back for this every few months, I reckon. The pricing is good enough that I'm considering a return visit anyway, to see if maybe I just had really bad luck on the opening week.

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

• Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
• The Walt Disney World Menu Book lists restaurants, their menus, and prices for entrees, all in one handy pocket-sized guide.
• Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
• Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above books, along with ordering options are at this link. Kevin is currently working on other theme park related books, and expects the next one to be published soon.