I guess I would want to know why dinner was $500 and what caused the spill. Normally if it was the waitress' fault I would have expected her to be extremely apologetic and the manager to come out automatically and try to make things right. It definitely sounds like something was very off.
What I am getting at is that sometimes the customers can contribute to an accident, and some people exaggerate in order to get as much as they can out of a situation. If it was purely the waitress' fault and the damage was as bad as you were told, I would have expected replacement shirts and something on the house along with profuse apologies. I just wonder if this turned adversarial too soon. It reminds me perhaps of management that cannot admit to fault in an accident because they are afraid of being sued.
It is interesting that Disney always seems to go above and beyond when they are clearly NOT at fault, for example I have personally received free change of clothes for a child that spilled on himself, and have heard so many similar cases. If they were at fault here and offered nothing at all initially that is a shame.
I will also say that I have occasionally gotten attitude from CM's who thought I was trying to get something for nothing, when that was not the case. I think they deal with people who try to scam them all day long and get too defensive. (In one case I was at boardwalk with my elderly mother and the room was a really really long walk for her, when I asked if we could please change rooms I got the bizarre response "we have no upgrades available" when I made it very clear that I was not looking for an upgrade, and would also be fine with a downgrade, it was the distance that was the problem, her attitude changed and we ended up getting a suite.)(On another occasion at animal kingdom I asked if we could get a late checkout so my husband could sleep in while I was at a conference, I was told that there was absolutely nothing available, when I said that I would be perfectly happy to pay for the late checkout, something suddenly became available at no charge).
While the sweatshirts may well have been sufficient compensation, what is disconcerting is that the husband had to seek out the manager in order to have this offered in the first place.