reservation times

[surfergirl602]

I'm frustrated with the dining that we observed on our trip. Mainly, with the reservation times. More than once we waited... and waited... and waited.... forever even after checking in sometimes 20 minutes or more ahead of our reservation time. Why even bother having set reservation times if they aren't going to be honored?

We had a 5:10 reservation for Crystal Palace. After waiting over an hour and a half, we were finally seated. We kept checking back with the desk, and they kept telling us, "any minute now." Try telling that to three very hungry children. The wait was absolutely ridiculous, in my opinion.

Another one... Ohana!

We waited over an hour for this one, too! And the food wasn't even worth it!
Most of our food was dry and cold, it came pretty much all at the same time, dumped on our table. The steak was still mooing, and the shrimp was inedible. I don't think I've ever had to work that hard just to eat something. The steak knife wouldn't even cut through the hard shell of the shrimp. Not worth it. The only good part about that meal was the potstickers and the pineapple bread. Those were very yummy. We left hungry... and spoke to the manager about it. The only time we saw our server is when we arrived, and when she handed us our check. We couldn't even get drink refills.
The manager put our credits back our our dining plans, and we went and got dinner at our own resort.

These are just two examples.

Dining seems to be going down hill. Maybe its because of the cuts, but still... something needs to be done.

Okay.... rant and vent over. Phew.... had to vent to someone! Feels better to get that off my chest. Now time to continue on with my fay and uploading trip pictures to facebook.

[TDC Nala]

They don't do actual reservations (the table is not held open for you prior to your arrival). What happens is that you are given the next table to open up that will fit your party. Even then I don't get it sometimes - longest wait I have had in a long time was 45 minutes to be seated at Kouzzina and once my party walked in the place was full of empty tables. Wasn't a staffing thing either because by the time we left all those tables were full.

[surfergirl602]

Originally Posted by TDC Nala

They don't do actual reservations (the table is not held open for you prior to your arrival). What happens is that you are given the next table to open up that will fit your party. Even then I don't get it sometimes - longest wait I have had in a long time was 45 minutes to be seated at Kouzzina and once my party walked in the place was full of empty tables. Wasn't a staffing thing either because by the time we left all those tables were full.

Yeah, its not like all the tables were full at CP. I know that its a character interactive place and they need to do their rounds, etc, but jeez... don't keep lying to me telling me just a few short moments when its really going to be another hour. At least there was a stage show going on over at the castle and my kids were kind of able to see some of it.

[princessmom29]

The shrimp at Ohana are peel and eat. You ar not supposed to cut through the shell at all, but take it off and then eat the shrimp. That may be part of the problem. They would be close to indeible by the time you cut them up in the shell.

[surfergirl602]

Originally Posted by princessmom29

The shrimp at Ohana are peel and eat. You ar not supposed to cut through the shell at all, but take it off and then eat the shrimp. That may be part of the problem. They would be close to indeible by the time you cut them up in the shell.

I know they are - that's what I meant... they were too tough to peel. I'm from New England, I've peeled plenty of shrimp in my day. We couldn't get them to peel, and tried even cutting them out. Wouldn't budge. lol

[disnut8]

Wow. I've eaten at Disney World many times and I've never had to wait longer than 10 minutes for any seating. And the ten minutes was with a party of 11 when the second of our two tables still had people there who were already done (they had paid their check) but were just sitting there talking. Maybe we've just been lucky or eaten at the right times and the right places.

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I've seen alot of threads lately about really long waits at CP. That's awful.

And good for you to complain about the O'Hana meal to the manager. I'm glad they gave you your credits back.
I've only eaten there once for breakfast and had no issues.

[surfergirl602]

Originally Posted by GaSleepingBeautyFan

I've seen alot of threads lately about really long waits at CP. That's awful.

And good for you to complain about the O'Hana meal to the manager. I'm glad they gave you your credits back.
I've only eaten there once for breakfast and had no issues.

It takes a lot for us to speak to a manager. We are pretty go with the flow type of people, and we know that everyone has there days, but being ignored on top of bad food just really put us over the edge. Especially for a deluxe dining place.

[Ted C]

I posted this in another thread but I feel it's more suited here.

I bet you they've loosened up the online dining system to allow more double bookings at the larger restaurants. I know they are adjusting as we speak. The more people who double book, and don't show or cancel, causes them to loose lots of money. Allowing more bookings per hour is the only way to combat this. If nobody would double book, and they would cancel their unused ADR's, this probably wouldn't happen. My friend in Guest Services indicated the problems doubled once the online booking went live.

I know in August they had an awful time with restaurants showing full online but in reality they really weren't in most cases. We went to the Blue Zoo for instance with no ADR (non available all night) only to find they were half full. The manager indicated it was really causing problems. We heard this property wide, restaurants sitting half full showing no availability in the system.

Until they can really track double bookings and stop it, or they start taking CC's for every ADR like they do for Cal Grill or CRT, then we're going to see these kinds of issues happening... I have five very busy restaurants, tried the "call ahead seating" thing a few years back. We had to finally abort. It was a complete disaster, lost lots of money/efficiency...

I dreaded the day the online system came into play, knew this would happen. Anybody and their dog can book from anywhere, at anytime, and as much and as many ADR's as they want. Disney is going to have to control it somehow now that the whole world is involved at the touch of a mouse (no pun intended...). And yes it is different than calling in like before, much more opportunity for abuse...

Basically they probably had tons of "no shows" the last 60-Days so they overbooked to offset, but it sounds like a lot of people recently did show up as planned causing complete chaos. It's the ole, "Plan for 150% and hope only 100% show up". I know for a fact they do this with the hotel properties and sometimes it results in a complete nightmare. Recently (August) Pop was way overbooked and had to spill a good amount of people over to the Grand Flo.

[kt_mom]

We ran into the same thing at Tusker House on 9/21 and 1900 PF on 9/26. Our Tusker house ADR was for 10:20 and we weren't sat until 11:30 along with a lot of other people. The food was poor, the service was crappy and the characters were rushed through. No song and dance, nothing. I had to go and ask them to have Daisy please come back long enough to take a picture with my daughter because she had rushed off so fast. We were very unhappy, especially after this being one of our favorite meals last year. We had talked it up to my family and they try it this time and it's horrible.

Then Saturday night we had 4:45 ADR at 1900 and didn't get sat until almost 6:00. This was partly our fault as were checked in about 10 minutes late, but I still feel the wait was longer than it should have been. Luckily we had a wonderful server and the food was excellent. The character interaction there for the girls was great and we had a very enjoyable meal.

On the other hand, at Ohana's we didn't wait at all. We were seated quickly, our service was good and the food was great. But there were at least 5 empty tables just in the section we were seated in with what looked like several more towards the back. I didn't walk back there to see, but with the trouble people seemed to have getting ADR's there, I was very surprised. When we left most of those tables were still empty.

[Ted C]

I can tell you from being in the restaurant business for 20-years that overbooking like this really puts stress on the staff and the kitchen. You're basically throwing yourself into a tail spin. In this case it's even worse because the restaurants really have nothing to do with the overload, it just shows up on their screen and they have to deal with it. Of course this can make the food not be up to par and the service to hurried, less attentive, and less friendly. It's not a good thing.

I think Disney will get a handle on it. They don't want people mad. It sounds like it's gone from one extreme to the other in the last 2-months. I'm telling you, although convenient, this on-line dining system is like opening Pandora's box...

[mickeyluv'r]

I agree that online diing ressies are largely to blame. It was easy to predict that was going to be an issue. Maybe online diig should be restricted to those with resort reservations. That woud help becsue all your online reservations would be linked to your resort reservaion. They could limit the number of bokings allowed that way. I'd hate to everything go to cc required though because I think that would turn a LOT of folks off before they set foot in WDW.

[GovieMom]

Originally Posted by Ted C

I think Disney will get a handle on it. They don't want people mad. It sounds like it's gone from one extreme to the other in the last 2-months.

Naw, we had the same problem over two years ago. We waited over one hour past our ADR time at two different restaurants. And up to a half hour at a couple more. Crystal Palace had the longest wait times then, and sounds like it still does now.

[Ted C]

Mickeyluv'r you're exactly right. That's actually a great idea they're considering. The problem lies in the "Day Bookings" beyond that. They're working to get ADR's tied to reservations as we speak. Unfortunately the system has some serious internal problems which are well known to them. If they would tie a CC# to every reservation that would pretty much nip it except for people who don't have/use CC's.

One of my friends in GS told me the other day they caught one lady with 40-ADR's for a five day trip, many double bookings of the same restaurants too. They actually called her to deal with it. The system is going to have to get smart enough to deal with this.

GovieMom, I really do feel Disney wants to deal with this. The last thing they want is people unhappy and not eating at their restaurants, or not tipping their servers due to the current aforementioned issues. The funny thing is in the last 6-times we've been there during the last 2-years, three of those times we did standby at CP and got in in less than 20-minutes. I was told by management that CP has a lot of guests who "camp out" which even complicates things further.

Boy, it makes me want to make earlier ADR's coming up in November hearing all this. As we all know when the kids get hungry and they have to wait things go south in a hurry!