Oh How the Tables Have Turned

[Animaniac93-98]

Browsing through restaurant availability in October and I'm surprised at how booking habits have changed since the parks have reopened.

Places that were easy to get pre-COVID are now extremely difficult, while others that were hot tickets before are now much easier to get.

Some old standbys like Be Our Guest are as difficult to find as ever, but I'm shocked at how popular a place like Hollywood and Vine is now (and without the dining plan!) and how much Crystal Palace has fallen out of favor in comparison to years prior.

Of course, I'm just looking at availability 60 days out and not 60 days out from check in like most on-site guests are doing.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Side note, the website is very finicky when you do a search.

Even a slight change in time or party size for another search seconds apart can yield very different results.

 

[TrojanUSC]

With the DDP gone, it's a hard pill to swallow to spend that much on mediocre food - especially now that's no longer all you can eat and there aren't true character meet & greets.

 

[JIMINYCR]

Just wait til the parks get back into normal activity levels and staffing. As the 50 th brings in the crowds and normalcy hits you’ll be seeing things return to panic mode with table space being sparse.

 

[crawale]

Side note, the website is very finicky when you do a search.

Even a slight change in time or party size for another search seconds apart can yield very different results.

I don't know why they don't fix this. If you search on breakfast you may come up with nothing yet if you search on 8am then you get many options. As a developer it is not that hard to create an accurate search engine so I wonder why it seems beyond Disney I.T.

 

[Sans Souci]

I don't know why they don't fix this. If you search on breakfast you may come up with nothing yet if you search on 8am then you get many options. As a developer it is not that hard to create an accurate search engine so I wonder why it seems beyond Disney I.T.

This is what was happening to me. I thought selecting "dinner" would give me a wide range of times to select-maybe 4pm to 10pm. I was getting four restaurants as search results. I then selected 8 PM and got so many more options. What is the point of searching by meals, then?

 

[crawale]

This is what was happening to me. I thought selecting "dinner" would give me a wide range of times to select-maybe 4pm to 10pm. I was getting four restaurants as search results. I then selected 8 PM and got so many more options. What is the point of searching by meals, then?

Actually if you select 5pm you may get a different selection from selecting 5.30 pm - example select 5pm and you get 4pm, 5pm and 5.50pm. Select 5.30 and you get 4pm, 6pm and 6.30pm. There is simply no consistency to it. I cannot imagine the algorithm they are using.

 

[Jon81uk]

With the DDP gone, it's a hard pill to swallow to spend that much on mediocre food - especially now that's no longer all you can eat and there aren't true character meet & greets.

Some places are still all you care to enjoy? Some of the buffets got replaced with family style such as Biergarten. Others that always have been all you can eat family style still are such as Garden Grill or Ohana.

Hollywood and Vine currently has characters again, but is a prix fixe menu not AYCTE.

 

[Sans Souci]

Actually if you select 5pm you may get a different selection from selecting 5.30 pm - example select 5pm and you get 4pm, 5pm and 5.50pm. Select 5.30 and you get 4pm, 6pm and 6.30pm. There is simply no consistency to it. I cannot imagine the algorithm they are using.

I think they give you times +- an hour outside of your selected time. I ended up using Open Table for two of my dining reservations. I got tired of messing around with the app.

 

[Ghostdog]

If you have a set reservation give yourself LOTS of extra time to get to your dining destination if it’s elsewhere from where you are. Do to the extended time need for travel, we decided to cancel most of our reservations and just check the app for available reservations when we were ready to eat. We were please at the variety that popped up. We we’re able to grab a seat at both LeCellier and Tiffins on the fly.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I'm not sure why, but the system has always favored inputting a time vs. inputting a meal. I don't search by meal unless it shows me nothing available around the time I requested. I also don't think we can use current popularity as a gauge. Crystal Palace isn't currently offering characters, so Hollywood & Vine would surely be more popular right now. On top of that, other restaurants that were previously quite popular have yet to reopen. So, more limited options is still impacting things. I think you'll have to wait until everything has reopened and offering full experiences to fully judge what's a long-term popular ADR compared to how things were pre-Covid.

 

[Chip318]

As I booked yesterday for October, I found searching the exact restaurant gave me the best options.

 

[Plowboy]

I count myself among the fortunate. So far I've been able to get all our favorites and at about the times we wanted. All I've left to do is maybe fine tune the a time or 2, and hope for Boma to be open by 10/6.