ADR's: Travel Agent vs. Do-It-Yourself...

[GoCamels]

I just ran into a curious situation...the "Disney Authorized Travel Agent" Im using for my trip tells me yesterday that Category 1 seating for Hoop De Doo is unavailable the entire length of my stay May 23-27 (2 families of 5, so qualify as Grand Gathering).

Made me scratch my head, considering that crowd counts have been traditionally low the week before Memorial Day. Just for "fun" I went to the ADR site this evening, checked for a party of 10 for May 23 at 7:15pm (our arrival night)...and the ADR site says IT IS available.

Am I missing something? I know there were some issues late this week with the ADR system according to our agent...do the agents have something different in front of them...does the Grand Gathering designation raise a red flag with ADR's at times...or did my T.A. miss something?

Curious if others have run into this before?

 

[RonAnnArbor]

I would never let my travel agent arrange my ADR's...just do them yourself either online or by calling Disney Dining...That is the last thing you need to worry about for your trip. Its a three minute visit to their website or a three minute phone call, your choice.

 

[cmwade77]

We always have our ta make our adrs and have never had a problem, she has even gotten a few that we were told were not available online and over the phone.

 

[Monty]

The availability shouldn't change because of who is looking. But what can possibly happen is if someone else is looking for similar availability and it's being shown as available to them, it may temporarily show as unavailable to you. :shrug: I know when I'm booking concert tickets, the on-line system holds the seats I'm looking at until I either complete the transaction or cancel out of the ordering process.

The odds of two people looking at a 10-person ADR at a specific restaurant at the same are probably so slim that the question doesn't come up often.

 

[Master Yoda]

Both the travel agent dining booking page, the guest booking page and the one used when calling in directly to Disney are supposed to pull from the same database. However, there has always seemed to be a little of a disconnect between the online ADR's and over the phone. I have run into situations with clients where online showed booked but there was availability over the phone. Because of this I always start online and then go to the phone. All of the other TA's I know, both with KK and with other agencies, do the same thing. Also availability can change quite rapidly especially with the prepaid meals and shows as people rarely let one of those go unused do the the CC guarantee required.

If I had to guess I think someone canceled between when your TA checked and when you checked on your own. It does not take much to lock out a party of ten and at times all it would take is a party of two canceling or even changing seating tier to open it up for you.

 

[DisneyJoe]

I've stopped using the TA Online Dining system, as the one on the disneyworld.com public site always has better availability. All of my agents confirm this too. I check disneyworld.com and then phone in if I need to.

I'd suggest to your agent to try the same thing.

I've told my main contact at Disney and they are aware of the issue.