ADR 'ethics' question

[Philly81]

I was just on the phone with Disney Dining (big surprise there--only my 5th call today ) and the cast member I spoke with said that they randomly screen for double bookings and cancel them...I heard someone mention this before and don't know how true it is but when I was making an ADR she said, "I see you have Chef Mickey's booked that night, are you sure you want me to cancel it?"

I do believe this is being done now. Probably due to "overbooking". I made a A.R. for LTT for one night and then changed our schedule and wanted to change it to the next night instead. I called Disney dining and wanted to make sure we could get an AR for the new night I wanted before I cancelled the existing reservation and when I was giving my info the CM said, "But you have an A.R. for LTT for the night before." I explained and he said he had to cancel that one first before he could make my new one since they are going through and cancelling some AR's that are considered (in his terms) overbooking. I really didn't have any intention of keeping 2 AR's but it surprised me - he could read off to me all my "reservations."

 

[jann1033]

i guess i don't really see all the fuss about park hours...if you really want to change something to see fireworks ect, that is probably one or two changes you have to make.other than that you can pretty much guess what hrs will be by looking at past hrs for the same time frame or same season frame. as far as emh i don't think they are dependable enough to factor in if i really want to eat someplace,

 

[NeverlandClub23]

We pick what TS place we want to eat at for the day (lunch and dinner), not what park we're going to be at that day. Of course, one of the main reasons we go to WDW is the TS meals. On our upcoming trip, we will go to different parks throughout the day depending upon where we want to eat. I agree that people who make several ADR's for the same meal should be penalized for not cancelling them. We have always stuck to our ADR's (and PS's ) as we all like the places we're going and work our schedule around when and where we are eating, and if a park has EMH nights then we can go to that park when we're done eating. Just my little ol' 2 cents.

 

[LoveWDW]

I do believe this is being done now. Probably due to "overbooking". I made a A.R. for LTT for one night and then changed our schedule and wanted to change it to the next night instead. I called Disney dining and wanted to make sure we could get an AR for the new night I wanted before I cancelled the existing reservation and when I was giving my info the CM said, "But you have an A.R. for LTT for the night before." I explained and he said he had to cancel that one first before he could make my new one since they are going through and cancelling some AR's that are considered (in his terms) overbooking. I really didn't have any intention of keeping 2 AR's but it surprised me - he could read off to me all my "reservations."

But- what if you had wanted to eat at the same place two nights in a row?

 

[Mom of Sleepy Bashful and BabyDoc]

I think it's rude. Too many "no shows" leads either to other guests not being able to get an ADR or excessive overbooking which may lead to long waits for guests with ADR.

Disney is starting to take a credit card guarantee for CG. I'd hate to think guests overbooking will cause Disney to follow that policy for more restaurants.

I think I'm with LewisC on this one (and others on this thread).

I mean, it doesn't make me MAD, but I do think it is rude.

I know why people do it. They make a reservation for a rest. in MK, but also one in Epcot, not knowing which park they might be in that day and they want to be assured to "get in" to that restaurant.

I get it. But I say to make the best plans you can but only make one ADR. This way it lets others get into THEIR favorite restaurants also.

 

[Nancyg56]

Counter service.....not for us. Part of the delight of a WDW vacation for our family is leisurely meals together.

Linking ARs to a CC wouldn't bother me as we do keep our reservation or cancel if necessary. But a penalty if you don't cancel withinn 7 days, 2 days, etc.. would not fly I don't think. WDW is too large and too many things can go wrong especially for novices in actually getting to restaurants on time. I even think 24 hours can be tough for some families. When our family was young, we rarely had to change reservations although I would occasionally stay with our middle child for dinner in the room when he became too tired. Our family is all grown now. For our last trip, we were sometimes 5 when our eldest was in town, 4 when our DIL who is a Disney employee could join us, and only 3 when work precluded her from dining with us. When I made our ARs, I took my best stab at how many there would be. But she had meetings that went later than she expected, etc.. so my guesses weren't always accurate.

If they start charging $10 for that type of no show, our dining dollars which are significant will go elsewhere. And not to counter service.

The only problem that I see is if a hold is placed on the CC for each ADR. There are times when an amount is reserved on the available credit. I do not know if Disney has this practice, but it could be a problem for people how do not have a large credit line. I also think that a reasonable amount of time should be given in order to cancel without a penalty. There are too many variables to insist on a cancelation too far in advance.

 

[dismom03]

I have double booked a few times for our upcoming trip and I think I have a valid reason. My husband was out of town when I made them. He is working at a conference when we first get there and I didn't know which restaurant he wanted to eat at or what time he could join us. I made a few ADR's for a couple of times and cancelled when I found out his itinerary.

Now, he has found that the schedule is again changing....and we need to get back the one I cancelled. Alas, I can't get it back because they've now filled up.

What do you do when you FINALLY get a ressie for CRT for dinner to find out that DH wants breakfast and you keep calling and can't get it???? HA! Keep it of course and hope a breakfast opens up!

I've called the dining number so many times, my phone bill's going to be enormous!!!

Another thought about the ADR's is those that have never been to WDW might not realize they are creating a problem by holding more than 1 ADR in the same time slot.

 

[eam]

we do however go during value season and rarely really "need" adrs. at peak season i would cancel as soon as i know i 'm not going no matter when

We went this past value season and anyone who did not have ADRs was turned away. I think with the new dining plan this is going to be the norm -- even if the dining plan is not free.

 

[jann1033]

We went this past value season and anyone who did not have ADRs was turned away. I think with the new dining plan this is going to be the norm -- even if the dining plan is not free.

just wondering if this was still during free dining or not? if not at free dining time, all the restaurants or only a few( ie even in Jan people pre dining plan got turned away from Ohana)? we usually go in Jan so it is really dead but things might change if more use the dining plan now than used to. i was planning on keeping my ears open about that for the coming winter.

 

[loveswdw]

We just returned on Sunday from WDW. We had ARs for several meals. The only one with a CC required was Mama Melrose for the Fantasmic package. The CA Grill didn't require a CC (maybe this has changed in the last 90 days? I booked this AR 90 days out). We ended up cancelling our CA Grill AR only about an hour prior. Why? Because my DS would NOT take a nap that day.

I was really looking forward to this meal and was really disappointed we would not be able to go. I was afraid my DS would be cranky and ruin the meal for us as well as other diners. If I had had to reserve our spots with a CC then we would've gone regardless. Instead, we went down to Guest Services and cancelled CA Grill and opted for the Rose and Crown (a good choice for us that night). I thought maybe by chance someone else could use our reservation even on short notice.

If WDW started requiring a CC for most meals, we certainly would be eating CS meals a lot more often. We just can't plan everything out and then get penalized if we need to cancel.

Hopefully someone got to take advantage of our CA Grill AR and I hope they had a fantastic dinner.

 

[eam]

just wondering if this was still during free dining or not? if not at free dining time, all the restaurants or only a few( ie even in Jan people pre dining plan got turned away from Ohana)? we usually go in Jan so it is really dead but things might change if more use the dining plan now than used to. i was planning on keeping my ears open about that for the coming winter.

I would make ADRs for sure!!

 

[Luv4Disney]

yes, walk-ups get turned away if there are "enough" (or too many!) adrs booked in advance... we saw LOTS of walk-ups get turned away in many restaurants when we were there late august/early september... and those w/adrs often did not get to "cut" the line but still had to wait a decent amount of time (some of our restaurant waits -with adrs- were longer than most of our ride waits! LOL!)

Yes. We saw this happen many times in May. Mostly at the TS restaurants in Epcot. They say, "Sorry, we don't have any tables available for tonight, but I can tell you which restaurants are accepting walk-in's." It makes me feel bad for those people.

I personally wouldn't make more than one ADR for the same time. I would feel like I'm taking away an ADR from someone else.

 

[Hopefully]

When we were there last week we saw folks being turned away as walk ups, over and over throughout the World.
I feel it is selfish and rude to make more than one ADR per seating. Everyone has the same planning challenges, waiting for hours to be released, wanting flexibility etc. Booking multiple AR's for the same meal IS preventing someone else from having that opportunity. JMHO!

 

[jann1033]

i have always only made one and canceled if i changed it but i see from this thread many can not get adrs( not like in the "old days" evidently) so yeah i would say it's very rude to make a string of them "just in case" the fireworks are later or what ever...and evidently they never cancel them either. since this was not a problem in Jan of 04 when we ate at mostly empty places, were all the restaurants really full or did it look like there were a lot of no shows?( don't mean during free dining, asking about after free dining was over)

 

[Epcotgal]

Any time I have had to cancel an ASR (or p.s. as we used to say) I've called to cancel. What has always amazed me is the CM's who act like I'm wasting their time cancelling. I've actually had one act totally dumbounded why I called since "it would just get taken by someone else if we just failed to show up." I told her that there may be someone else who WANTS that reservation and I didn't think it was fair for me to hold it when I knew we had changed plans. It was like the first time she even thought of that - she said, "OH, well that is nice of you." I don't think I was going out of my way - just doing what I consider to be courteous.

 

[BCV23]

The only problem that I see is if a hold is placed on the CC for each ADR. There are times when an amount is reserved on the available credit. I do not know if Disney has this practice, but it could be a problem for people how do not have a large credit line. I also think that a reasonable amount of time should be given in order to cancel without a penalty. There are too many variables to insist on a cancelation too far in advance.

Very good points, Nancy.

I think we're all pretty much in agreement that it is not good practice to make more than one AR/per meal with the exception of the anniversary example at the Luau which does get cancelled in bad weather or of course other scenarios that are similar. Otherwise as Hopefully said, we all have planning challenges and must just work around them without booking duplicate ARs.

Epcotgirl, too bad about your experiences with cancelling. I've always had very helpful CMs when I need to do that. I do find it helpful for both parties if I do the changes first and cancellations second as it is apparently different screens.

 

[GoofyDad869]

Bump (shameless, ain't I...)

 

[mickeyfan2]

I only make the ones I am actually going to use. No need to lock somebody else out of getting an ADR.

 

[my4kids]

I wished I had a second or "backup" ADR several times when we were there.
So many times my kids didn't want to leave what ever park we were in to hurry to a resort rest. for dinner. They always enjoyed the dinner once we were there, but I wish I had a back-up at a rest. inside the parks. I think as long as you cancel it is fine. i honestly don't see even having 3 or 4 ADR's as an abuse because if it was, they wouldn't let you do it.

 

[smfnj]

The CM told me that they originally switched from "Priority Seating" to "Advance Dining Reservation," but after a couple of weeks they switched to "Advance Reservation"

Actually, they were originally just dining reservations, then came priority seating................
steve