ADR cancellation question

[alicia080979]

I am helping a first timer plan her September free dining trip and wanted some input. They have two kids, 5 & 8. One is a night owl & one is a morning person but with having never been to Disney, she doesn't know if they will just be too excited and up early (kinda like they are on Christmas, bdays, etc.).

She wanted to make a couple 8am breakfast reservations but I wasn't sure how to advise her. She was thinking that if her son was having a bad morning they could just cancel that breakfast until I told her they have a cancellation policy that requires a full day notice. Does anyone know if anything can be done the day of if for some reason they got up and their son was just having a meltdown morning and they needed to cancel? I know Disney says you have to give a full day notice and she obviously doesn't want to nor is planning to miss any of their meals but I would also think that Disney has some sort of policy for that type of situation since kids can be so unpredictable.

Planning ahead 6 months as to how your kids may or may not be feeling that particular day makes it sort of difficult but I totally understand policy and see the need for it. I was just hoping that since the policy has been in place for a few months now maybe someone could give some insight on how it has been working with those situations that you sometimes can't predict. Please don't take this as trying to "work" the system or be dishonest. I just want them to be prepared bc we have never travelled with children since the new policy has been in place.

Thank you!

 

[TDC Nala]

There's no way to know that, but from the feedback that is currently coming out, it is a complete toss up as to whether "my kid just didn't feel like going to breakfast today" is going to be accepted as a reason for late cancellation that would get them out of paying the fee. My guess will be that it will not be accepted. I would advise them in the other direction.

If she thinks her child will not want to go to breakfast, she might decide to book restaurants for breakfast with no credit card guarantee. There are plenty of them, as only nineteen restaurants require the hold (plus the four prepaid restaurants - CRT and the dinner shows). Unfortunately, that would let out all character meals, but she can plan character meals later in the day if she would like.

 

[tinkerpea]

Wow are all character meals now CC committed? I think we also will find this incredibly difficult since we have an autistic child that although 80% of the time manages anything we plan there is the other times where he may just be too tired or just not feeling the plan!! And yet we can't miss character meals as we have 6 yr old twins who they are must do's ( even the 10 yr old son with autism loves them) god this will make out free DDp planning way more difficult when doing our ADRs next wk

 

[alicia080979]

When I was on the phone talking to the CM making dining reservations Sat. morning I asked her about cancelling on shorter notice due to uncooperative kids. Now, that isn't the same as your situation but kids are kids and sometimes regardless of your best efforts, they just aren't having some things. She told me that the best thing to do is keep the cancellation number with you and if something happens to just call as soon as you can and that Disney is really good about working with people. She said they understand that children can be unpredictable but you need to call as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, with all things Disney, you have to take what any one CM says with a grain of salt bc they are never consistent. We went ahead and made the reservations and figure if something comes up we will take the chance and just try taking it up with Disney at the time. Since your son has Autism, I would hope that falls within Disney's exceptions for cancelling with short notice without penalty. The real key I would think is to make sure you call to cancel should you have to miss something rather than just being a no show.

Oh and yes, now all character meals as well as a few other popular meals require a CC to hold them (nothing is held on your card though) and you are charged $10 pp for not cancelling within a full business day.

 

[aubriee]

When I was on the phone talking to the CM making dining reservations Sat. morning I asked her about cancelling on shorter notice due to uncooperative kids. Now, that isn't the same as your situation but kids are kids and sometimes regardless of your best efforts, they just aren't having some things. She told me that the best thing to do is keep the cancellation number with you and if something happens to just call as soon as you can and that Disney is really good about working with people. She said they understand that children can be unpredictable but you need to call as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, with all things Disney, you have to take what any one CM says with a grain of salt bc they are never consistent. We went ahead and made the reservations and figure if something comes up we will take the chance and just try taking it up with Disney at the time. Since your son has Autism, I would hope that falls within Disney's exceptions for cancelling with short notice without penalty. The real key I would think is to make sure you call to cancel should you have to miss something rather than just being a no show.

Oh and yes, now all character meals as well as a few other popular meals require a CC to hold them (nothing is held on your card though) and you are charged $10 pp for not cancelling within a full business day.

My husband and I took our 3 y/o grandson to WDW Feb 4th-11th. Midweek we were really tired and decided to cancel our Ohana breakfast for the next morning and just sleep in. I called about 5:00pm the day before to cancel and told the CM that we had a 3 y/o who was having trouble getting up that early and we were tired of his meltdowns and fighting him all the way to our breakfast ADRs, so was canceling. The first thing the CM said was that we would be charged $30.00 for not canceling within the required business day window. I told her no, because I had made all our ADRs prior to the Oct 26th deadline when the change went into effect. She said OK, we wouldn't be charged then, but if I had made the ADR after that Oct 26th deadline, we would have been charged and Disney couldn't afford to make any exceptions because people would use any loophole to try to get out of paying the cancellation fee. She said a 3 y/o's melt down was not an excuse and if they accepted that, then everyone with kids would use it to get out of paying the cancellation fee and where would they draw the line.

Due to American Airlines moving our return flight up, we also had to cancel our Crystal Palace lunch ADR. We called the day before on that one too. Again the CM said we would be charged the $30.00 no show fee and again I told him no, that we had made the ADR prior to the Oct 26th cut off. He too said we would have been charged if we had made the ADR after Oct 26th, even though we had proof of the flight change.

Right after the change went into effect, a lady posted that they were charged the no show fee, when they had to take her husband to emergency care. Disney knew it was true, because they had to call for the transport. It still wasn't accepted as an excuse.

Not the same thing, but a few years ago we were on the DDP, I woke up ill, and sent the rest of my party onto Akershus, thinking we wouldn't be charged if the rest of our party showed up. When I got back I noticed my cc had been charged at Akershus. More out of curiosity than anything, I called to see why and the CM was immediately able to tell me it was because we had showed up one person short at Akeshus.