50 minute wait WITH ADR? How often does this happen?

[BikeFan]

We just got back from a wonderful trip (9/29-10/8) with the free dining plan. The meals were all pretty good, but our Ohana dinner (9/30) took forever for us (party of 6) to be seated; the wait was 50 minutes! We arrived right at the podium at 7:10, the time of our ADR, but weren't seated until 8. The place was clearly packed, and they told us right at the start that they were running "15-20 minutes" behind, but I thought the 50 minute wait was a little much. Still, the meal was quite good, and the rest of our table service meals had pretty quick seating (no more than 15 minute wait). Anyone else experienced a long wait for a seating with an ADR?

 

[IwannaseeMickey]

We were there at the same time, and the only place we really had to wait beyond our AR was Le Cellier. We waited about 30 min.

At Ohana's we actually got there and checked in right at 5 for a 5:20 AR and were the first people seated for dinner in the whole place. We also got seated early at WCC since we arrived early. But beyond that they were about on time.

 

[bicker]

It is hard to guess the nature of patrons you'll get on any night. You can get a feel for the average, but sometimes you get a lot of folks who like to sit and rest after dinner, and sometimes you get a lot of folks who eat and run. Sometimes you get a lot of early patrons arriving for their reservations early (or not showing up at all ), and sometimes many of the early patrons are running late (or showing up with more guests than originally planned ). When it doesn't even out, you get either a packed house, running behind, or empty space, and walk-ins get seated quickly. There are a few places that I've experienced longer waits than average, more often than average. Le Cellier is one of them. I'm not sure what is about that restaurant that makes the patrons less predictable.

 

[Belle5]

Le Cellier has been our longest wait beyond our PS (before ADR's kicked in). We waited over an hour beyond our PS time. We were a party of 7 at the time. We were so frustrated but I must say that it was one of our best WDW meals ever once we were finally seated.

Interestingly, our next worst wait was 'Ohana...

Oh, wait--Hollywood Brown Derby was a 50 minute wait. I will never forget that a group of business women came in well after us. We heard them say their PS time and it was later than ours. They were the same party size as us and were seated 20 minutes before us. Grrr...Thought I was going to have a stroke!

 

[MomofKatie]

We waited no time at all up to about 10 minutes for our ADRs this trip (10/1- 10/8). We checked in about 15 minutes early for each ADR, and never got seated at or after our ADR time. We were a party of 3, so maybe that was the reason- easy to find tables that accomadated our party size.

We ate at:
Marrakesh- no wait
Teppenyaki- 10 minutes
LTT (MNSSHP night)- 10 minutes
Big River Brewing Co.- no wait
Crystal Palace- 5 minutes
Chef Mickey's- 5 minutes
'Ohana- 5 minutes

 

[danny1649]

To us once at RFC at AK.We had 12:45 ADR and checked in at 12:30.Were told that waits were running a hour to hour and a half.No thank you we went to Flametree BBQ.

 

[LAWalz23]

This past trip we waited that long for breakfast at Cape May. We had a 10:00 ADR and did not get seated until almost 11am and the kicker was that the section we ate in was practically empty and looked as if it has been for some time. That is the longest wait we have had in 6 trips. We also waited nearly 20 min for every other ADR we had and again the restaurants were half empty when we got in especially PSB and CP.

 

[Rella Bella]

The longest wait we've had was at CP... with a party of 7. We waited at least an hour and 20 minutes -- really hard on the kids. It was later in the day and I guess the lag from all day long had caugh up with them. It was very frustrating.
The other was at Akershus. Our total wait was only about 45 minutes but when we arrived to check in 5 to 10 minutes before our PS there was a line about 20 feet long from the check in desk! And yes they all had PS too!
But in all fairness... these two experiences in 6 trips to Disney isn't bad. Usually we are seated within 10 minutes of our time... sometimes early. Pretty good considering the number of guests they have daily.

 

[speakupjc]

Ohana's has always had terrible waits even before the free dining.

 

[lenore1]

Just back form disney and if you did not have an ADR at a sit down restaurant, you were not having a sit down meal. If you had an ADR, you still waited a long time to sit down to eat at most restaurants. There were a lot of angry people at Disney last week. I was glad I made an ADR each day!

 

[pennst8r]

I think they say to be there 15-30 min early, and that you'll be seated at the first available table for your party size after that. It's really no better than PSs were--not truly a reservation, since they aren't holding a table for you. If diners before us are lingering, then we have to wait. I'm guessing the larger the party size, the longer the wait can be. We have 5, and have only had a few times last year where we waited a bit. Never that long, tho!

 

[DisneyMim]

We ALWAYS had a long wait at Crystal Palace with Pooh. We haven't been in years, but I can always remember a really long wait there. Ohana was another place that usually has a wait. Sometimes it's just crowded and there are just too many ressies. Also larger parties usually have longer waits. We seem to wait longer when we are with another family than when we are just the four of us.

 

[SRUAlmn]

On this past trip, we have only had to wait twice. We usually show up about 10-15 minutes before our ADR like you're supposed to, so I don't count it as 'waiting' until it's past the time of our ADR. We waited at Sci Fi for about 20 minutes, and we waited at CRT for 45 minutes!! I was really annoyed about CRT because we had a 1:00 ADR so we didn't really eat anything that morning in anticipation of a big meal. We got to the castle around 12:50 and checked in and we weren't seated until about 1:45. We were starving!! It seemed like they had too many people who all had ADRs at the same time.

We also had ADRs at Le Cellier and RFC in AK and had no wait time at either place.

 

[jann1033]

our longest wait was a tie between Ohana and sci fi( both with adrs, both about 45 mins++) Ohana was supposed to be "longer than normal" since we asked for a table to see the fireworks but didn't get one so not sure what the real reason was as most with out adrs and with adrs were waiting the same length...also they said around the fireworks time the tables there do not turn over as people keep them till post fireworks so maybe that helps explain long waits there..sci fi is just poorly managed( or at least the day they were) as the place was literally over 1/2 empty

this was in Jan also, off season

 

[skuttle]

We've had a decent wait with PS both at Ohana and Le Cellier. I think those are the only two.

 

[Okiemom]

We are doing LeCellier too, so I hate to hear about the waiting times with the ADR. Could you tell me, the ones of you that had the long waits, were you there for lunch or dinner? We are going for lunch, so curious? I have 6 in my party, so I hope that does not make it worse.

 

[kath1210]

We just got back from a week at WDW with a Grand Gathering. We ate in groups of 15-20 people, and never waited more than 15 minutes at any of our first 7 ADRs. We ate at Ohana, CRT, CP, 1900 Park Fare, Chef Mickey's, Sci-Fi and WCC.

Ironically, the only place we had a wait was at Olivia's on Saturday night. We stayed on for a day after everyone else left, and decided to try Olivia's for dinner. When we called, they had openings every 10 minutes from 7 p.m. to 8:30 pm. We made an ADR for 7:30 p.m., but when we showed up, they said the wait was 1 1/2 hours - with an ADR!!! Needless to say, we left and went to the POFQ food court. It was not busy at all there and the food was great!

 

[Kycha]

We had minimal wait times(5 - 10 minutes) at most of the TS Restaurants we frequented for dinner the week(9/23- 10/1) we were there. This includes Boatwrights, Cinderella's Royal Table, Jiko, Kona Cafe, and Whispering Canyon Cafe. The exceptions were Le Cellier and Crystal Palace. Both restaurants had us waiting 20 minutes beyond our ADR time. Even so, Le Cellier made up for this by bringing our food out quickly. I will not go to Crystal Palace again, however. We could see into the restaurant very clearly and there were plenty of empty tables for the time we were waiting. And since it was just my DH and me, I just don't understand why they made us wait. Oh well.

 

[crisi]

50 minutes Ohana character breakfast (showed up early for the ADR, too).

30 minutes Boma - seating was supposed to be at 5:30 - they opened at 5:00 and were already running 30 minutes late.

 

[GC&S]

We were at our ADR's about 15 -25 minutes early and always got seated before our ADR itme. The only place we didn't get seated right away was PSB at Norway as they had us already checked in but never called our name. We waited about 25 minutes after our ADR time. We made an ADR for Cape May the day we wanted to eat there. It was for 7:30 but we got there at 6:45 and explained we were really early but they took us within 5 minutes. And the place was really busy. We ate at Park Fare, CP, PSB, CRT, Boma's, Cape May.