"Just curious. I think there's a perception that it's more common to get food poisoning from a buffet, rather than a seated meal. Is this perception true? Or are buffets needlessly getting a bad rap?"
Here's the problem with buffets. It's called, "cross contamination", and not from bad food necessarily but from "person to person." Now what I'm about to say may make some of you feel a bit squimish however it's the absolute and undeniable truth. The untensils on a buffet line are nasty. Think about it, people go through the buffet, return to the table, lick their fingers, etc., return to the buffet line and get more food without ever washing their hands. You might as well be kissing everybody that goes through that line at least until the untensils are changed out. Some states make you get a new plate when returning through the line but this does nothing about the cross contamination issues with the "community" utensils. I don't have a phobia about this but you can bet I always wash my hands, or use antibacterial wipes, before I go through a buffet line and in between returning and coming back from a buffet line. It's the proper thing to do.
When I was on the "Wonder" a couple of year ago I asked the officer in charge of dining why they made us use wipes before entering the buffet line fully knowing the answer... She told me it was to help from spreading the dreaded "Norovirus". In a non sarcastic manner I shared with her that it would do little good due to the major cross contamination happening at the untensils. She got quiet, actually a bit astonished, and then said, "I must bring that up in the next staff meeting. I never thought about that." I told her one solution would be to make people use wipes before they went back through the line rather than just before. Of course the other solution would be for one CM to serve from each position. This is the choice they obviously made and is really the best choice at least during epidemic season.
Also the other myth is if you're the only one that got sick out of your party then it's not the place where all of you ate. This is very untrue. The one person easily could have gotten a single piece of contaminated food while others didn't. The most common cause of food borne illness is indeed cross contamination at restaurants and at home. Here's an example how it happens... Someone use a knife and cutting board to cut a piece of raw chicken, sets the knife down, and goes to put the chicken on the grill. Someone else comes along and uses the same utensils to cut some lettuce, etc.. This leads to the next big mis-conception of people blaming the chicken, etc... You see the chicken that went to the grill is probably just fine as it got cooked properly (you hope) but the lettuce or whatever else those contaminated utensils were used to cut didn't a "kill cycle"(Defined in food borne safety classes as something that gets cooked after being raw or contaminated in order not to spread pathogens. Washing your hands is a kill cycle in other words.) So actually what one might have blamed on the chicken, may and most likely, was the salad. Since lettuce for example comes in individual pieces it is very easy for only one piece to be contaminated while the rest is just fine.
The other thing I look for at buffets is to make sure they are properly cooled. In the summer it's very easy for the refrigeration to go down on these things causing the food to sit in the "danger zone"(over 45 degrees if cold food or under 140 degrees if hot food). These are the kinds of violations that cause many people to get sick at one time.
All this being said, you can bet Disney is pretty careful about food safety. They can't afford not to be however a lot depends on our own behaviors as described above when it comes to not spreading the "person to person" virus's etc...
Sorry for the long rant...
Here's the problem with buffets. It's called, "cross contamination", and not from bad food necessarily but from "person to person." Now what I'm about to say may make some of you feel a bit squimish however it's the absolute and undeniable truth. The untensils on a buffet line are nasty. Think about it, people go through the buffet, return to the table, lick their fingers, etc., return to the buffet line and get more food without ever washing their hands. You might as well be kissing everybody that goes through that line at least until the untensils are changed out. Some states make you get a new plate when returning through the line but this does nothing about the cross contamination issues with the "community" utensils. I don't have a phobia about this but you can bet I always wash my hands, or use antibacterial wipes, before I go through a buffet line and in between returning and coming back from a buffet line. It's the proper thing to do.
When I was on the "Wonder" a couple of year ago I asked the officer in charge of dining why they made us use wipes before entering the buffet line fully knowing the answer... She told me it was to help from spreading the dreaded "Norovirus". In a non sarcastic manner I shared with her that it would do little good due to the major cross contamination happening at the untensils. She got quiet, actually a bit astonished, and then said, "I must bring that up in the next staff meeting. I never thought about that." I told her one solution would be to make people use wipes before they went back through the line rather than just before. Of course the other solution would be for one CM to serve from each position. This is the choice they obviously made and is really the best choice at least during epidemic season.
Also the other myth is if you're the only one that got sick out of your party then it's not the place where all of you ate. This is very untrue. The one person easily could have gotten a single piece of contaminated food while others didn't. The most common cause of food borne illness is indeed cross contamination at restaurants and at home. Here's an example how it happens... Someone use a knife and cutting board to cut a piece of raw chicken, sets the knife down, and goes to put the chicken on the grill. Someone else comes along and uses the same utensils to cut some lettuce, etc.. This leads to the next big mis-conception of people blaming the chicken, etc... You see the chicken that went to the grill is probably just fine as it got cooked properly (you hope) but the lettuce or whatever else those contaminated utensils were used to cut didn't a "kill cycle"(Defined in food borne safety classes as something that gets cooked after being raw or contaminated in order not to spread pathogens. Washing your hands is a kill cycle in other words.) So actually what one might have blamed on the chicken, may and most likely, was the salad. Since lettuce for example comes in individual pieces it is very easy for only one piece to be contaminated while the rest is just fine.
The other thing I look for at buffets is to make sure they are properly cooled. In the summer it's very easy for the refrigeration to go down on these things causing the food to sit in the "danger zone"(over 45 degrees if cold food or under 140 degrees if hot food). These are the kinds of violations that cause many people to get sick at one time.
All this being said, you can bet Disney is pretty careful about food safety. They can't afford not to be however a lot depends on our own behaviors as described above when it comes to not spreading the "person to person" virus's etc...
Sorry for the long rant...
Seeing the hidden cameras pre his arrival...... 
(Like taking a large food mixer directly off the path of a kitchen and stirring a large bucket of mix....
