getting ready to book dining!

[PigletIsMyCat]

tomorrow is 180 days for me! yay!

dh and i are planning to finalize our dining options today and then tomorrow morning i'll start making ADRs. i know it's 7am EST to call in - is it the same when making ADRs online? and does anyone have any info/preferences/advice about either? i've only made a few ADRs online and i know it's pretty easy, but does it get crazy at 'opening'?

thanks in advance

 

[walter1901]

The website opens at 6am EST, phone lines open at 7am!!! Congrats

 

[lilclerk]

Here's something I found out when I when I made mine a couple weeks ago: sometimes the calendar on the restaurant's website doesn't go out far enough. Use www.disneyworld.com/dining You can enter your date/time/party at the top, hit find tables, and it will give you availability for all the restaurants. Once I figured that out, I got 10 days worth of dining booked in about 20 minutes.

 

[75disney]

Here is a strategy that worked really well for us last year. The day before our window, I marked all of the restaurants that we wanted as favorites on MDE. We also wrote down what day/ times we wanted to eat at each place. The day our window opened, my DH and I both got up at 5:45. He used his laptop and I used my iPad. We split up our list of restaurants. A few minutes before 6, we logged onto MDE and pulled up the first restaurants on each of our lists. At exactly 6AM, we began to make our ADRs. We got everything (10 restaurants) we wanted and we were done in 15 minutes. He went back to bed; I was way too excited to sleep.

This may seem extreme, but if you are going at a really busy time (we were going over Thanksgiving) or want really popular restaurants, you do get what you want.

Good luck tomorrow. I hope you get everything!

 

[PigletIsMyCat]

ahh, we're going early october and i don't think we're looking at any super popular places. we'd like to do tusker house for breakfast, not sure how hard that is to get. the other ones i might be concerned about are bog for lunch and california grill for our anniversary night. we're supposed to be finalizing our choices now, but someone is snoring on the couch next to me... :/

thanks y'all!

 

[coltow]

The tough ones like CRT u will want to be ready before online opens up. If you're not shooting for the more hard to get places then you'll be fine using online early in morn. I got everything I wanted fir end if August online & have even made a few changes with zero difficulty on MDE

 

[LAKid53]

ahh, we're going early october and i don't think we're looking at any super popular places. we'd like to do tusker house for breakfast, not sure how hard that is to get. the other ones i might be concerned about are bog for lunch and california grill for our anniversary night. we're supposed to be finalizing our choices now, but someone is snoring on the couch next to me... :/

thanks y'all!

I'm going in October and so far you can only book through the first part of September.

 

[PigletIsMyCat]

I'm going in October and so far you can only book through the first part of September.

when you're staying on property, you can book dining 180 days out... which for me is tomorrow.

 

[LAKid53]

when you're staying on property, you can book dining 180 days out... which for me is tomorrow.

I'm staying on property. But it shouldn't matter - 180 days is 180 days. I've booked BoG for dinner before I've even thought about a trip. I still can't get my FP+ request for BoG to go through for our trip in two weeks, get all the way to the end and it just dumps me back to the selection screen, so maybe Dining on-line hates me...

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I'd book online as soon as the window opens for you- if possible. I know some things are easier to get than others, but still better to get them booked ASAP since others will still be booking too. I go as far as ranking mine, so I'm booking in order of popularity.

 

[PigletIsMyCat]

I'd book online as soon as the window opens for you- if possible. I know some things are easier to get than others, but still better to get them booked ASAP since others will still be booking too. I go as far as ranking mine, so I'm booking in order of popularity.

same. that's what we were doing - trying to decide which is most important so i can do those first. we're doing a day or two at universal too, and they haven't announced hours yet so grrr. makes it hard to kind of figure out those days.

 

[docdebbi]

I am sitting here ready to SPIT!!!!
oooohh I'm so mad
can't make my adrs online

it recognizes it's 180 days and is letting me book for that day ONLY !!!!

trying to get BOG for later in the trip, so really need the plus 10

it won't let me book for anything after 10/4, my arrival day .yes, I'm signed in, yes it shows my hotel reservation, yes the days after 10/4 are lighted up like I can book them, then it says, sorry, problem booking now, try again later!!!

want to scream

tossed and turned all night worrying about this happening on this stupid nonfunctioning site
now I've got to wait until 7 while everyone else who can book that day is snapping them up......

 

[PigletIsMyCat]

i'm sorry to hear you're having that problem! that sucks. i have most of mine done. i can't get it to do the afternoon tea online and we want BOG fastpass+ for our last day. i'm also considering adding a fun breakfast on our last day.... haven't decided though. we're going to be at mk so something in one of the mk resorts might be nice. we already are doing crystal palace (my fave) and have decided to skip chef mickey's this time. we're hoping to try new places - the only places we're eating that we've already done are crystal palace, raglan road, and the garden grill. we've only been to garden grill once and it was probably in like 2007. the menu is drastically different now.

 

[TheMouseFan]

i'm sorry to hear you're having that problem! that sucks. i have most of mine done. i can't get it to do the afternoon tea online and we want BOG fastpass+ for our last day. i'm also considering adding a fun breakfast on our last day.... haven't decided though. we're going to be at mk so something in one of the mk resorts might be nice. we already are doing crystal palace (my fave) and have decided to skip chef mickey's this time. we're hoping to try new places - the only places we're eating that we've already done are crystal palace, raglan road, and the garden grill. we've only been to garden grill once and it was probably in like 2007. the menu is drastically different now.

We enjoy the 'Ohana breakfast. We always do it on our last day.

 

[PigletIsMyCat]

@TheMouseFan, we've done 'ohana a few times and i'm considering it, especially because it's a buffet and dh eats about 4k calories a day (he's a weight lifter with a high metabolism). i'm also looking at the grand floridian cafe for breakfast... looks good!

 

[coltow]

Whispering Canyon at WL is one of our fave breakfast places

 

[Twhitty]

I am sitting here ready to SPIT!!!!
oooohh I'm so mad
can't make my adrs online

it recognizes it's 180 days and is letting me book for that day ONLY !!!!

trying to get BOG for later in the trip, so really need the plus 10

it won't let me book for anything after 10/4, my arrival day .yes, I'm signed in, yes it shows my hotel reservation, yes the days after 10/4 are lighted up like I can book them, then it says, sorry, problem booking now, try again later!!!

want to scream

tossed and turned all night worrying about this happening on this stupid nonfunctioning site
now I've got to wait until 7 while everyone else who can book that day is snapping them up......

Hope you got what you needed! I was able to book my clients entire dinning schedule this am.

 

[docdebbi]

Hope you got what you needed! I was able to book my clients entire dinning schedule this am.

yeah, thanks for the good wishes, no i did not get what i wanted

no BoG available by the time i got through on the phones. dialed at 700 AM sharp (according to the atomic time clock) still wasn't first one through, waited 15 minutes for an agent.

no Rose and Crown availability for right before Illuminations the night we wanted, settled for La Hacienda, but we much prefer the viewing ability from R&C (although interestingly, their last available time listed on website is 8 pm, which is strange when illuminations is 10 pm?? maybe they forgot to add this hour? LaHacienda lists reservations through 9 PM)

got times close to what i wanted for most of the rest, but just very frustrating. website should work, I get closed out of stuff because their website is barely functional.

just don't tell me you got BoG for 10/8 or 10/9, or violence may enter my mind!

 

[Twhitty]

No, my clients did not want BOG, but there was avalibility on the 6th and 7th, 6 days ago when I booked our dinning plans.