Don't give up! We went Dec 7-13 last year and while I booked a lot of that stuff at day 180 - I revamped our dining MANY times during that 180 day window. With the exception of a dinner at Chef Mickey's and a lunch at CRT... all of our character meals were booked after the 180 mark. Each one booked after that mark felt like a battle victory! :lol: I remember it was mid November when I finally got a pre-park opening slot at Tusker House and it was literally 3 days before we departed that I got my breakfast at 1900 PF. I remember getting 'Ohana in late November, and within 5 days of us leaving I was able to find an even better time slot at 'Ohana...I even had similar luck w/'Ohana dinner!
Stalking the web site is a a bit of a pain (and depressing when you search 50+ times in a morning just to come up with nothing), but I've found that the only way to make this happen is to stalk the site any time you can. It became an obsession! :lookaroun I wouldn't even bother with the phone unless it's something that has to be booked by phone. I found that weekends, just before work and after work to be the best times for hard to get things to open up. So, basically the times when people have some free time to sit back and revamp their dining plans. I was stalking specific adrs, but I saw just about EVERYTHING open up at some point. In some ways it's annoying to see good things come up that you don't need, but it's also always gave me hope that the ADRs I wanted would appear at some point.
I know some people say that you'll see spots open up at the 45 day mark for people who are canceling pkgs, 2 weeks out seems to be a very popular cxl time, and 5-6 days out seems to be popular adr cxl time for people w/room only adrs. Anything currently requiring a CC guar might not free up until a day or two before, but the chances are quite good that things like that will open up since people don't want to pay for an ADR they don't want.
Just be persistent and I think you'll eventually find things open up here and there. Good luck! :wave:
