Someone is Selling Restaurant Reservations....

[PhotoDave219]

Okay kids, Strap in because this is a good. Corporate lurkers, pay attention too. This affects us all.

So its come to my attention that some opportunist out there is charging money to make reservations for you for the hard-to-get dining reservations like Be Our Guest. Ohana's, and reservations on party nights. For $15 a reservation, they'll guarantee you can get in.

They claim:

Does *** sell dining reservations?

No. A small fee is charged for the service provided in booking hard to get reservations.

This is some straight up BS. Reservations are difficult enough to get at some of these places but now there's someone reselling reservations? Just some repugnant crap right here.

Naturally their domain is registered anonymously - I will not give these people free advertising nor drive their site traffic, but it seems pretty "small time."

Clearly someone found a way to game the system and this needs to be stopped.

 

[Arthur Wellesley]

Okay kids, Strap in because this is a good. Corporate lurkers, pay attention too. This affects us all.

So its come to my attention that some opportunist out there is charging money to make reservations for you for the hard-to-get dining reservations like Be Our Guest. Ohana's, and reservations on party nights. For $15 a reservation, they'll guarantee you can get in.

They claim:

Does *** sell dining reservations?

No. A small fee is charged for the service provided in booking hard to get reservations.

This is some straight up BS. Reservations are difficult enough to get at some of these places but now there's someone reselling reservations? Just some repugnant crap right here.

Naturally their domain is registered anonymously - I will not give these people free advertising nor drive their site traffic, but it seems pretty "small time."

Clearly someone found a way to game the system and this needs to be stopped.

Complaining about it online doesn't change the fact that you still owe me $$$ for getting your 7:30pm seat secure at Le Cellier for next Wednesday.

 

[Nemo14]

Okay kids, Strap in because this is a good. Corporate lurkers, pay attention too. This affects us all.

So its come to my attention that some opportunist out there is charging money to make reservations for you for the hard-to-get dining reservations like Be Our Guest. Ohana's, and reservations on party nights. For $15 a reservation, they'll guarantee you can get in.

They claim:

Does *** sell dining reservations?

No. A small fee is charged for the service provided in booking hard to get reservations.

This is some straight up BS. Reservations are difficult enough to get at some of these places but now there's someone reselling reservations? Just some repugnant crap right here.

Naturally their domain is registered anonymously - I will not give these people free advertising nor drive their site traffic, but it seems pretty "small time."

Clearly someone found a way to game the system and this needs to be stopped.

If it's the place I'm thinking of, it has been referenced here before, and it really made me wonder then.

 

[draybook]

I already knew about the "Buddy" app or whatever it is, but I thought they charged $8 to notify you of an opening. Not the same thing I suppose.

 

[Chef Kronk]

To quote Big Hero 6: "Someone's making more....." (dramatic music)

 

[PhotoDave219]

I already knew about the "Buddy" app or whatever it is, but I thought they charged $8 to notify you of an opening. Not the same thing I suppose.

I'm not sure how they go about it. And it's someone else... Different pricing.

Anyways, how far off are we from people selling fast passes. This is an issue that needs to be stopped before it gets out of control.

 

[Kate Alan]

I already knew about the "Buddy" app or whatever it is, but I thought they charged $8 to notify you of an opening. Not the same thing I suppose.

The Buddy site only notifies you when Disney opens up reservation availability - they don't book it for you and flat out say they don't guarantee you'll get the reservation you're setting an alert for. You miss the email/text telling you Disney's site has availability, and other people snap those reservations up, too bad (though they'll keep alerting you for any subsequent availability).

Holding and reselling reservations crosses a huge line, and is hopefully something that can be stopped before it gets out of hand.

 

[mousehockey37]

Okay kids, Strap in because this is a good. Corporate lurkers, pay attention too. This affects us all.

So its come to my attention that some opportunist out there is charging money to make reservations for you for the hard-to-get dining reservations like Be Our Guest. Ohana's, and reservations on party nights. For $15 a reservation, they'll guarantee you can get in.

They claim:

Does *** sell dining reservations?

No. A small fee is charged for the service provided in booking hard to get reservations.

This is some straight up BS. Reservations are difficult enough to get at some of these places but now there's someone reselling reservations? Just some repugnant crap right here.

Naturally their domain is registered anonymously - I will not give these people free advertising nor drive their site traffic, but it seems pretty "small time."

Clearly someone found a way to game the system and this needs to be stopped.

Are you talking about who I think you're talking about? It wouldn't be someone who was on this board and had other sites as well....

 

[bethymouse]

No way!

 

[PhotoDave219]

Are you talking about who I think you're talking about? It wouldn't be someone who was on this board and had other sites as well....

No. Apparently there's multiple services... They call themselves DDA.

 

[mousehockey37]

No. Apparently there's multiple services... They call themselves DDA.

I don't see how they are legally gaining access to dining system. Kind of like how someone else is "legally" accessing that AND the ride timing system.

 

[rob0519]

Are they taking requests for reservations or simply selling reservations they already have. For example, I get lucky and find a BOG dinner reservation. I book it online using my standard Disney account, no resort reservation # required for that and guarantee it with my credit card. Through my super duper top secret web site I let it be known I have this reservation and will be willing to part with it for say $15. I get your money, give you my reservation number and you show up at BOG. Is such a scenario plausible? It's not exactly accessing the ADR system.

 

[Bairstow]

I'm just mad I didn't think of it first.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Are they taking requests for reservations or simply selling reservations they already have. For example, I get lucky and find a BOG dinner reservation. I book it online using my standard Disney account, no resort reservation # required for that and guarantee it with my credit card. Through my super duper top secret web site I let it be known I have this reservation and will be willing to part with it for say $15. I get your money, give you my reservation number and you show up at BOG. Is such a scenario plausible? It's not exactly accessing the ADR system.

Its still repugnant.

 

[PhotoDave219]

I'm just mad I didn't think of it first.

Its gonna screw up life for people.... much the way te unscrupulous tour guides did

 

[Cosmic Commando]

As much as I don't like the direction this has us headed in, it's not much different than having a travel agent booking dining reservations for you. I assume travel agents will now book FP+ for you, as well.

I imagine, though, that places like this that are constantly tracking many restaurants presumably at many different times of the year must generate a fair load on the site. I wouldn't mind if Disney could shut these super-users down, but I think it would be too difficult to do. I wouldn't be surprised if it said somewhere in the TOS for the Disney site that it was for personal, noncommercial use. You could sick the lawyers on them in that case.

 

[Jon81uk]

Theme Park Insider have a blog post on this today http://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201508/4686/

I agree with some of Roberts ideas, such as forcing you to have a park ticket to book a restaurant reservation inside the park (in the same way as FastPass+) or the system only allowing you to book each restaurant once per day (so I can't get BOG at 6pm and 7pm and decide later which to keep), it could even go as far as only allowing one reservation on your MDE per dining period (so you can hold one reservation for lunch between 11am and 4pm and then one reservation for dinner between 4pm and 11pm).

I would also support holding some capacity back for same day reservations at the restaurant or walkups. Or keeping some capacity for those in a hotel, so for example if you were staying at the Polynesian, you could book Kona cafe whereas everyone else can only do walkup (or something like that).

 

[wdrive]

There's plenty of people who will gladly pay more than $15 for a Be Our Guest or a CRT reservation.

 

[Nemo14]

This reminds me of that group years ago who used to sell reservations to dine at the castle. Didn't they eventually get in legal problems over that?

 

[Master Yoda]

I hate it when you make me say stuff like this, but it is a free market. Several people are providing a service that others are willing to pay for. I would plan on seeing a lot more of this until Disney steps in, if they even can.

The kind of ironic thing is most Disney travel agencies like @Kingdom Konsultant have been providing a similar service for its clients for years at no charge. They can't "guarantee" (I don't know how this other company can either) reservations, but they will be on the computer at 6:00 AM 180 days out getting your ADRs.