I hope my very frustrating experience yesterday and my COMPLETELY different experience today might help some of you be prepared.
I called yesterday morning at exactly 7:00 am EST (6 for me) to make an ADR for May 31st. I got through to a live person very quickly and thought I was lucky! I had not read this thread prior to calling, so I did not know that only specially trained CMs could make the ADRs for AFTER May 26. There was also NO special announcement when I called saying push 1 for dining reservations for May 26 - June 11.
The CM said "oh, you cannot make any reservations until March 8 since your checkin date at AKL is June 6th". HUH. We are staying offsite from May 30 to June 6 and then onsite two days. She seems VERY flustered and VERY confused. So I said in my nicest most controlled voice..."that doesn't seem right. We are staying offsite for the first week of our stay and today is 90 days from the date I want the reservation. What if we were not staying at a Disney resort at all...are you saying that I could not make ANY ADRs if I am not staying at Disney?" So she put me on hold, then came back and said let me try this, let me try that....and then finally said "I am not getting anything to come up on the screen for that restaurant".
The poor frustrated woman again put me on hold forever, came back and said her supervisor agreed they were going to do me a "favor" since she knew that PSD could book up fast and was having her transfer me to a special guest services person called and Itinerary Planner that could make the reservation. At this point I had been on the call for about 35 minutes. [Now that I have read this thread, I am pretty dumbfounded that this CM had not been trained to at least know that if someone called for ADRs after May 26, she had to transfer the call].
So I get transferred. And held. And held. And held. I began to worry that since the CM was so totally clueless as to what was wrong and why that maybe she did not properly transfer the call. After 45 more minutes of holding I finally hung up and called back.
This time I got the same Disney Reservation prompts that I always got in the past. After 14 minutes a male CM answered. I told him what I wanted and he immediately said he could not help me and he was going to have to transfer me to "Itinerary Planning". He said, in a kind of irritated voice, we can't do anything for any dates past May 26th. I said "Oh I am so sorry, is there another number I am supposed to be calling??" He said, again in a kind of irritated voice, "If you would have listened to the prompts, it tells you to push a number to take you to reservationists for those dates." I said apologize, I did not hear that, it just asked me what I wanted and I said Dining Reservations and it took me to you. He said "well it IS kinda far down on the message prompts." So he transfers me. And I held. And held. Finally, after 46 minutes, I had to hang up to leave to take DD to school.
All day long yesterday, the thought that "hey, maybe this time we won't make any ADRs and just eat counter service" resonated through my brain. I was not about to go through all that again. So today I read this thread. Decided to give it another shot this evening.
When I called, there was indeed this time a prompt right off the bat after your say dining reservations saying "if you are calling to make advance dining reservations for after May 26th through June 11, press 1." I thought to myself "ahhh...this is what the male CM was talking about, BUT THAT WAS NOT there yesterday morning!!!!!" I got through to a live person after holding about five minutes. She did ask for my checkin date, and I told her we were staying offsite for that portion of our stay and not checking in til later in the week. She said no problem, I will just list it under your name rather than using your hotel reservation. She asked me what time I wanted for breakfast and I easily got the time I wanted. It was quick and easy and done in no time.
FOR A COMPANY LIKE DISNEY THAT IS USUALLY SO CUSTOMER SERVICE ORIENTED, I AM SHOCKED AND DISAPPOINTED AT THE LACK OF TRAINING THAT IS BEING RECEIVED BY THE CMs AND THE JUST PLAIN WRONG INFORMATION BEING GIVEN OUT BY SOME OF THEM ABOUT THE NEW ADR SYSTEM that I have read about on this thread that ends up wasting our time, as well as causing us stress and utter confusion. I also cannot understand why calling at different times on the same day gets you different computerized messages and different prompts. It seems that the system should be prepared for the day by 6:45 am.
I hope my experience will help some of you out there know what to expect. Have a Disney Day!
