Took Survey; Do You Agree?; What Would You Add?

[TwoAtDisney]

Made & tried to make dining reservations on Disney World site today. Survey popped up. I took it. Here's what I said. Do you agree? What would you add? If you agree, & you get the survey, please submit the same change requests on your survey.

The survey was about making resort & dining reservations on WDW website (I posted the resort issues on that board).

If any of the items I requested below are incorrect, please let me know. Maybe these options are on their website & I just don't know it - but would like to know it!

In the survey comments sections, I wrote -
1. Want section for adding my resort stay beginning & end dates & then getting the availability for my entire stay for this one restaurant that I want & for the meal I want. I get so tired of entering each restaurant request for every day because it's not available - but I don't know that until I enter every day separately!

2. Want the meal start & stop times listed on the screen where I am entering my request info. It's listed after my data is input, but that is too late. For instance, we eat dinner early, so I always try for the earliest dinner time. But the dinner time is not listed until I've input my request. Trails End & Crystal Palace dinner times are much earlier than Cape May. I realize that I can take the time to get that info before I start making ressies, but the survey was asking for ways to improve the site.

3. Now that credit cards are being charged for ressies not cancelled in time, I want cancellations numbers. If I don't get a cancellation email or I'm using my laptop without a printer, I don't have any proof of cancellation. The current method of referring to my reservation number is not proof of cancellation.

4. I want a "Wait List" option. If my request is not available, put me on a wait list. I agree to giving a credit card for this. I agree to charging me a fee if the ressie becomes available & I don't take it or do take it & then cancel it - would prevent everyone from putting everything on the list, but it's available for everyone who is very serious about getting that special ressie.

As requested, I listed the restaurants that were not available during my search - Cape May, Whispering Canyon Cafe, & Le Cellier.

That's it.

 

[hidmickey:myantidrug]

I haven't gotten this survey yet, but I've been saying for a LONG time that if I ever did, your first point would be the first thing that I put down. Playing the trial and error method is not my idea of a fun or effective way of making ADRs!

 

[Nohal]

I like your suggestions, especially for the wait list. I spent (so does everyone else) a lot of time trying to make my reservations. I had them all set then our plans got changed. Had to cancel them all and start over again. Even at 150 days out had trouble getting Le Cellier and had to check every day for every day of our trip for this ressie. I finally got one for lunch but of course not the day or time I wanted.

 

[karrit2000]

I agree that they should set up some way for you to input your trip dates and give you availability for all days of your trip if you want to look that way. I find the generic Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner options somewhat limiting as you have now way of knowing what the actual hours are that they serve each meal at any particular restaurant. The seem to pick a middle point for the dining period in question and give you the closest open times to that point rather than all available times. For example if I choose Lunch for Le Chefs it only gives the three closest times to their midpoint of 1:30PM and Dinner gives the three closest times to somewhere between 6-6:30PM. If I'm choosing a Dinner time those are the latest times I would most likely be interested in.

Be careful what you wish for with the waitlist request. It isn't a perfect system as evidenced by the DVC reservations now being available for members to book villas on line. They run a program several times throughout the day to try to match up waitlist request but if a member checks the database themselves throughout the day they have a much better chance of grabbing available dates as soon as they show up in the system. If someone cancels their spot immediately becomes available to anyone who is looking at that particular time. Unfortunately the cancelled spots don't go into a holding queue until the automatic program gets run. The dining reservations work the same way and I don't see them changing it to enable dining waitlists.