180 Days Dining Reservation Issues

Annalise Davis

Annalise Davis

Member
Original Poster
Is anyone else having difficulty with 180 day out dining reservations? (I know I'm speaking to a limited number of people that have the same stay booked to research dining.) The website and phone line have been over-utilized the past four or five days since FD was released, but wanted to see if my experiences are at all 'the norm.'

During the day, I'm only able to click on my 180 day out date (ie today it was October 27) to search for open tables. At night, my trip entirety (ending October 30) is available to view availability; for which I can see open tables but not book a time. Is this typical or is this another issue to add to the FD webpage crash?

My other issue/question relates to the above. When I'm able to see 181+ days availability, there are popular restaurants (BOG) that do not have one single time available and there are less popular (1900 Park Fare, as an example) with multiple times available. When I click on a time to book a reservation, the date reverts back to my 180 day date. SOOOO... this leads me to believe that even at 180 days at 6am, there still isn't EVER going to be availability at popular restaurants.

Usually I'm pretty good at finding answers, but I am totally stumped (and completely frustrated)! Anyone out there have some insight they'd care to share?
 
SnowWhite1015

SnowWhite1015

Well-Known Member
Disney's website is full of problems, now exacerbated by the recent announcement of free dining. When I booked my ADRs a week or two ago nothing worked until almost 7 am EST, but after that it ran smoothly (this was before free dining was announced and there were still problems).

We were able to get a table at BOG at 180+9 at the time we wanted (super early bird dinner before MNSSHP). There was nothing available at 180 days. As for it reverting back to 180 days when you click on a time, that sounds like another glitch. I just called Disney just to pay off my trip and they said the system was down. For such a big company, their website/reservations system could use a LOT of work.

Sorry you're having issues. Hope you're able to book everything you want soon!
 
jlsHouston

jlsHouston

Well-Known Member
Heck y'all are doing good if you are able to use the website to book dining this week. Ever since Free Dining was announced, I get nothing but errors on the website trying to look for availability....
 
Annalise Davis

Annalise Davis

Member
Original Poster
Anyone notice that the website survey doesn't pop up since the issues? Pretty convenient so that it doesn't effect their metrics, huh?

At any rate, I asked a chat person if they had a link to the survey I could fill out and she gave me an email address instead (yeah, that's gonna elicit a response :facepalm:). I just wrote an email about how truly disappointed I am in the Disney reservation system this time around with booking. I just don't believe Disney doesn't have the resources available to fix the issue and fix it quickly. #endrant
 
Tinkerkelle

Tinkerkelle

Well-Known Member
I had issues but it was because I was a day early! :rolleyes: The ADR calculator I used was a day off - my excuse anyway. When I went on next day it was fine. I lucked into a BoG at dinner on day 5. Our 180 was over 2 weeks ago, maybe before US free dining available?
Hope you get it sorted.
 
bee

bee

Well-Known Member
When I booked our ADRs for October 25-31 I didn't have too much trouble for our party of 2. I couldn't get BOG for dinner but most of those nights are MNSSHP nights and therefore the restaurant is open only until 6. I was, however, able to get multiple lunch reservations. One issue I kept having was that the site kept logging me out and therefore only showing me 180 days (not 180+length of stay). I had to keep logging back in to get reservations on the later days. And we did experience the system being down both online and by phone. In the end, though, we got what we wanted.
 
jlsHouston

jlsHouston

Well-Known Member
Yah honestly I have to say, in the 3 years of going to WDW, always booking less than 60 days out about the only ADR I have never had success with getting too much last minute is the Dessert Party at MK. And not that I recommend this, but when I was unable to get a Chef Mickey for breakfast and we really wanted to do it, we just showed up and begged and they let us in.
 
rob0519

rob0519

Well-Known Member
It's simple. If Disney would stop the "Free" dining, a lot of these problems would never exist. The idea of having to make a dining reservation 180 days in advance is insane enough to start with. Now, fighting with thousands of people who are determined to get reservations at the highest priced restaurants to be sure they get their free money's worth makes it impossible for everyone.
 
Master Yoda

Master Yoda

Pro Star Wars geek.
Premium Member
rob0519 said:
It's simple. If Disney would stop the "Free" dining, a lot of these problems would never exist. The idea of having to make a dining reservation 180 days in advance is insane enough to start with. Now, fighting with thousands of people who are determined to get reservations at the highest priced restaurants to be sure they get their free money's worth makes it impossible for everyone.
Click to expand...
I doubt it would make little difference. Dining for a few particular places is hard to get year round at WDW as certain restaurants have now become as "must do" as attractions like POTC and Space Mountain. However, dining "somewhere" is not all that hard to get day of outside of peak and holiday seasons. You just can't be picky about where you eat.
 
bethymouse

bethymouse

Well-Known Member
The website itself has ALWAYS had issues. I sometimes end up calling, but I still don't always get what I want! For the past 2 years, I have tried for BOG dinner. Not a chance! I snagged it FINALLY this year! Just luck I guess.:jawdrop:
 
CJLove79

CJLove79

Active Member
elfshadowreaper said:
So for BOG what's the best way to get a table? My current process is...
"Find a Table"...nope.
"Find a Table"...nope.
"Find a Table"...nope.
"Find a Table"...nope.
Is there a more efficient way?
Click to expand...

I had that same mindset a couple weeks back for my ADR too. I even added one of those Reservation Snipers to alert me when my preferred times were available at BOG then decided to set my expectations low & even put in my head that I won't get even one BOG reservation, that way if I get one, it'll be a surprise. I don't know what happened but a couple days after I made my ADRs, I would do random searches for BOG dinner & lunches on the Disney site and times were popping up like crazy. I wound up beating my own snipers and now I have multiple lunch & dinner reservations scattered across the days and nights me and my girl will be at Disney World. LOL. So my advice to you is to never give up and set your expections to where you don't even have any expectations and before you know it, they'll pop up, you'll see. I learned from the experts on here and other sites, blogs & forums that people cancel all the time & that openings pop up more than you think. And I would recommend signing up for a Sniper too at either www.wdwtools.com or www.wdwtablefinder.com
 
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M

MissingDisney

Well-Known Member
Remember, it's your 180 day, but 180+10 to others so those same people (180+1, 2, 3, etc) have been making reservations for date xx/xx/xxxx for days. You didn't get beat out that same day, but by others, several days prior. It's probably best to try for BOG towards the end of the trip when less people have had a crack at that day already. Make sense?
 
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G

GrammieBee

Well-Known Member
Interesting, to us, anyway. My adult daughter who is on our reservation is able to book 180+10 on her computer, but I am able to book only 180 days out on mine. I can't find anything I'm doing wrong.

Fortunately, we booked the day before the big "crash" of the Disney reservation system. I managed to get through on the phone line at 7:00 am (to the second) , but my daughter couldn't and had to go to her computer. She did better than I and booked both BOG and the dessert party. Go figure.
 

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