A couple of questions regarding reservations

[MouseDetective]

Is it better to make dining reservations over the phone, or online? Are the CM's seeing the same information over the phone as you are when booking online on the Disney website? If the info the CM's are seeing isn't any different, then it is kind of pointless to book over the phone. Right? Or am I way off? Lastly, when making reservations over the phone, is your phone charged a fee? I couldn't find anything about this, but maybe I was not looking in the right place. Thank you in advance! I'll get the hang of this thing sooner or later.

 

[purple figment]

1. Is it better to make dining reservations over the phone, or online?

2. Are the CM's seeing the same information over the phone as you are when booking online on the Disney website?

3. If the info the CM's are seeing isn't any different, then it is kind of pointless to book over the phone. Right? Or am I way off?

4. Lastly, when making reservations over the phone, is your phone charged a fee? I couldn't find anything about this, but maybe I was not looking in the right place. Thank you in advance! I'll get the hang of this thing sooner or later.

1. Online starts at 6 AM Eastern time and Phone starts at 7 AM Eastern time so we usually start online since it's available an hour before the phone. Then we call for the reservations we can't make online.

2. Mostly the same info online and on the phone.

3. The online system has lots of glitches right now so then you have to phone to get the reservations. If you're able to make all your reservations online you won't need to call.

4. Not sure what you mean by your phone being charged a fee other than there isn't a toll free number to call to make reservations.

Or are you asking about the credit card guarantee for table service reservations? For all TS reservations you have to give your credit card info. If you fail to cancel before the deadline and/or no one on the reservation shows up at the restaurant your card will be charged $10 per person. CRT and the dinner shows are a full pre-payment at the time you make the reservation unless you are using dining plan credits, but if you don't cancel/show up they charge the full amount as the penalty. I believe V&A's penalty is $25 per person.

 

[MouseDetective]

Wow, thank you very much. This was super helpful!

 

[Mambo Junkie]

If you have reservations to stay in a Disney resort, I highly recommend you put your reservation info in My Disney Experience. That way you can enter your credit card info and it'll streamline things and help the reservation process go much faster, since you won't have to give your credit card info every reservation. I am one of those who the online didn't work for. For an hour (6 am to 7 am) we tried in vain to get anything to work,,,we clicked on the reservations and it kept taking us to the home page. So, at 7 am sharp, I was dialing wdwdine (I had it speed dialed into my cell phone), waited around 15 minutes and got everything we wanted, including BOG and CRT. I didn't even try for BOG first. A bit of advice I got that was very helpful is when booking the hard to get restaurants, start later in your vacation. For instance, my vacation is Nov. 28 - Dec, 5 and I started booking CRT on the 2nd (the Mickey's Christmas Party day) and BOG the 3rd. I came back later and filled in the earlier dates with easier to get reservations. If you want an early breakfast, I would try for the last day there. As someone said to me, let that be one of the last memories you and your family have.
Also, since we had planned on getting our dining reservations online at 6 am, we were going to call in the reservations we wanted that you had to call for. (Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, Pirates League); well that flew out the window when the internet booking didn't work. So, I had my son on one phone making those reservations while I was on another making the dining ones.