I don't see any issues with 180 days out. Some people like to make their plans ahead of time so they can relax and not worry as the trip gets closer. If you don't like to make plans that far in advance, you have the choice to wait until your trip gets closer. Most of the restaurants allow for some walk-ins and their is always the concierge that can help get you in to a restaurant. As for planning the parks since COVID, we have not gone yet but may be later this year. We have always planned our parks around the dining reservations we get for our favorite restaurants. Since we have been so many times, we usually only spend most of the day at the pool. the guys golf and we go into the parks to do a few rides and dinner in the evening. If they don't bring back extra magic hours, this is going to cut down on our park time. So no matter how you look at it, everyone has a different way of doing things when the go. It's your choice on how far ahead you want to plan.
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Disney, DONT bring back 180-day-in-advance restaurant reservations.
- Thread starter Hitchens
- Start date
AGREE... and you sound a lot like me. We will go for a week or so and go to the parks hardcore for 3-4 days, then spend the others relaxing, golf, pool, etc. while mixing in the parks throughout. I enjoy having things planned and tweaking them as I hear about something or get the itch for something else. That is how it should be.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Fair enough, but I have made many ADR's, and many times I've waited well over 20 minutes past our ADR to be seated. When WDW was less focused on ADR's, we usually only waited a few minutes to be seated. It is also worth adding, I try to follow the old guideline of arriving 15minutes before the ADR time.
One trip, we had ADR's at both 1900 Park fair- waited over an hour past our ADR time, and Grand Floridian Café- waited 50minutes past our ADR time two days later. After waiting that long, everyone was very hungry and cranky both days.
I can list quite a few times/places we were seated 20+minutes past our ADR time, and most of these it wasn't just once, but pretty regularly: 'Ohana, Be Our Guest, Boma, Sanaa, Crystal Palace, Cali Grill, 1900 Park Fare, Cinderella's RT, Liberty TT, Plaza, Tony's TS, Le Cellier, Tokyo Dining, La Hacienda de San Angel, San Angel Inn, Mama Melrose, Flying Fish, Narcoosee's (usually pretty good though), and Whispering Canyon Café.
For a number of years, we generally made 1 ADR per day, but about 2 years ago, we finally got really sick of being seated late and cut back. The last time we had an ADR at 'Ohana - in 2019-it was especially bad. The whole meal was a disaster. We were supposed to be seated at 6:30pm, and I thought that would be plenty early to see the fireworks. Worse case, I thought we'd probably get to see them from our table, but we were given one of the tables that had no view (near the bar area), and the meal was so delayed, they were well over before we were done. The whole meal was bad, including being served room temp meat - eww! At then end, our server made a mistake on our bill, over charging us. She never came back. We waited about 10minutes, and finally gave up, and just left the correct cash on the table.
So I hear you when you say waiting can be a problem. Yet, it is also why I made the comments I did earlier. Over the last 15 years, WDW was trending more and more towards us having to rush from one FP/ADR/timed thing to the next. That was my family's biggest complaint about WDW.
It was more and more us rushing to be on time, but then when we arrived- we'd arrive just to wait some more. On top of that, there were frequently ride breakdowns, monorail breakdowns, buses that didn't arrive. More and more it felt like WDW's service promises were empty.
aliceismad
Well-Known Member
I agree with this. I don't care when Disney opens the booking window for reservations, but I prefer reservations. Yes, I'm one of those people who prefers to look at menus online ahead of time, etc. And yes, I have waited a few minutes to be seated for my reservation (Cough, Chefs de France, cough). That's a clear issue with not staffing to the demand.
But the idea of walking across the park only to find out that there's an hour or more wait at a place and then having to either wait or come up with a new plan sucks.
Honestly, I kind of like the longer booking window. It rewards people for booking in advance, which makes sense from a business standpoint for a place like Disney. And, as others have said, you can change your reservations. You can drop them. You can watch for reservations other people dropped. I do think Disney should perhaps be more stringent about not letting people have multiple reservations for the same meal.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Ideally though, that wouldn't happen if WDW had enough dining capacity.
In years past, it wasn't an issue at most WDW TS. The only exceptions were Le Cellier and Cinderella's Royal Table.
Even on major holidays, we did only walkups before 2006. From 2006-2010, I'd call WDW dining about 2-3 hours before we wanted to eat (party of 7-10), and even over holiday weeks the CM's would always offer us a long list of options in all 4 parks and at the hotels. It was always, "Where would you like to eat?" up through about 2010 or so.
Funny thing is, initially my extended family thought I was crazy when I started calling ahead!
aliceismad
Well-Known Member
Yeah I can't comment on that because I don't remember. I can say that if I have to call ahead to a restaurant, I will just not go. If I can check in online or order online, I will. If that were an option at Disney, that would be great. I just don't see Disney ever having a technology option that works that well. Even the wait times listed on the Disney app are usually overestimated.
Ideally it would be lovely if dining capacity always met guest capacity. Realistically, I just don't see Disney ever fully staffing everything. They like cutting operating costs. They probably also like creating that perception of exclusivity.
Disney doesn't want to have enough capacity for that. They want everything booked solid far enough in advance to allow proper staffing.
danyoung56
Well-Known Member
Whatever, dude.
JusticeDisney
Well-Known Member
Not my fault you can’t keep up. Dude. LMAO!
Oh, and I want that nickel that you owe me.
danyoung56
Well-Known Member
We both seem to have the same problem - we both want to get the last word. So this is my last word.
Word.
Word.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Disney World is currently offering online ordering at a number of table service locations for carry out. They have also adopted electronic menus if diners choose to dine in-person.
More or less, mobile for for QS and carry out orders are the same. In the app, diners choose an arrival time window when they order. Order= pay for food. Diners can't pick up food before that time, but late is allowed. When diners arrive/wish to pick up food, they tell the restaurant they have arrived, and that's when the food is prepared. From what I have read, most orders only take a few minutes, but sometimes the restaurants get busy, especially during late-meal time windows. (so the tail end of breakfast hour, tail end of lunch hour, and tail end of dinner/near closing)
The mobile order is - I think all same day. From what I have read, ordering earlier in the day= more time slots available.
To me, this sounds like a good option, but I wouldn't be surprised to see WDW expand this even further. More mobile ordering = less staff that WDW has to pay. The sooner WDW has our $ the better it is for WDW. It isn't much of a leap to think WDW might soon require all meals to be pre-ordered and prepaid 30 or 60 days before we arrive.
mergatroid
Well-Known Member
Everyone's different but thinking back to when I was a kid in the 70's, this is what we did. We'd turn up at park opening or just after and at lunchtime, we'd grab a burger, hotdog or pizza at a fast service place in the park. We didn't really consider the proper restaurants which often required same day reservations, we were there more for the rides than the food.
Now obviously I don't expect everyone to be like that, some may want a restaurant meal with both a server and a choice of more than just 'fast food'. My point is that if you fall into this category, I'd assume you'd already done some research to know that Disney parks actually have proper restaurants? Point in question we introduced three English friends to Disney World late in 2019. None of them knew Disney parks sold meals beyond burgers and stuff and were completely shocked to discover otherwise. This October we're taking another Disney virgin from England and guess what, he was completely blown away to discover they had restaurants in the parks.
Now perhaps us Brits are just thick or perhaps it means if you're new to Disney, you don't realise the eating options they have? If you didn't know then you'd probably assumed you'd be grabbing a burger in between rides, meaning your holiday wouldn't be ruined if you only realised upon getting there that you could have in fact made reservations for better quality meals as you'd still be able to eat what you'd assumed was available. If you knew before going that Disney had restaurant options then you'd probably think "Perhaps they need reservations" and you probably knew because you'd done a bit of research?
I can see all sides of the argument really but still think if you plan ahead you deserve a slight advantage over those that don't. It may seem 'unfair' but it's not like you're going to starve in the parks if you don't have reservations, worst case scenario you're going to be left eating some type of fast food wishing you'd made more of an effort with your planning.
Now obviously I don't expect everyone to be like that, some may want a restaurant meal with both a server and a choice of more than just 'fast food'. My point is that if you fall into this category, I'd assume you'd already done some research to know that Disney parks actually have proper restaurants? Point in question we introduced three English friends to Disney World late in 2019. None of them knew Disney parks sold meals beyond burgers and stuff and were completely shocked to discover otherwise. This October we're taking another Disney virgin from England and guess what, he was completely blown away to discover they had restaurants in the parks.
Now perhaps us Brits are just thick or perhaps it means if you're new to Disney, you don't realise the eating options they have? If you didn't know then you'd probably assumed you'd be grabbing a burger in between rides, meaning your holiday wouldn't be ruined if you only realised upon getting there that you could have in fact made reservations for better quality meals as you'd still be able to eat what you'd assumed was available. If you knew before going that Disney had restaurant options then you'd probably think "Perhaps they need reservations" and you probably knew because you'd done a bit of research?
I can see all sides of the argument really but still think if you plan ahead you deserve a slight advantage over those that don't. It may seem 'unfair' but it's not like you're going to starve in the parks if you don't have reservations, worst case scenario you're going to be left eating some type of fast food wishing you'd made more of an effort with your planning.
I think it will come back because Disney wants more people to book early and know the flow of restaurants. That data is important to them. I also still think those who plan should be rewarded and should get that advantage. But most importantly, as the poster above me stated, no one is going to go hungry. There are a lot of options and I have made many same day reservations for very good sit down dining places in WDW. People cancel all the time and people make new ones all the time.
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