An observation of the restaurants from a current guest...

[jlk806]

I am currently at WDW, have been since Sat 8/27 and am leaving Monday. I was on the deluxe dining plan for 4 days, now the regular. I come at least once every year so have plenty of experience with many different restaurants. One observation Im noticing this year, is upon arriving and checking in at the restaurants, the wait to be seated is MUCH LESS than it usually is at most of the restaurants.

Coral Reef - arrived about 15 minutes early for noon ressie, seated within 5 minutes (waited much longer last year)

Chef Mickeys - arrive 20 minutes early for 6:20Pm ressie and were seated like 2 minutes later - VERY RARE!

Ohana - arrived 15 minutes early for 6:30PM ressie and were seated about 2 minutes later - also VERY RARE!

Crystal Palace - seated in about 5 minutes also!

There were others as well but these ones stick out at the moment. I dont know if they are taking less ressies or what, but the check in and amount of people waiting for their tables seems to be MUCH less than usual, particularily at Ohana and Chef Mickeys. I have never before walked up to an empty check in podium at either of these restaurants and eat there every year. I know the ressies were full for both because I scouted around a few days earlier to see what was still available. Seems very odd to me!

 

[DRDISNEYMD]

I agree, we barely had any wait with one exception being Mama Melrose. I thought we would never get seated. And it took forever to get through this meal. Everything was fresh and very good. But it's not on our list for next year as it is not worth the wait.

 

[disneyholic family]

it's not that they're taking fewer reservations - they're having a lot more no-shows...i asked when we were there last week....

 

[luvdisney00]

I noticed the same thing (we were there 8/24-8/30). The only place we waited for a while was Tony's on 8/24 but we were with another family for that ADR and were a party of 8 so we needed a big table. Every other ADR we were seated almost as soon as we checked in.

I noticed that the hostesses were keeping a list of "no shows" and "walk ins" on the podium at most of the places we went.

 

[RDP]

Great News, I have all my ADRs booked, hope we don't have to wait, the wait forms part of what i call the 'golden hour' of good behaviour we tend to get out of the children when going to a restaurant! the longer we wait the less time we tend to get to enjoy the meal!

 

[bcrook]

it's not that they're taking fewer reservations - they're having a lot more no-shows...i asked when we were there last week....

And apparently a lot less walk-ups.

 

[jlk806]

I have now been on the dining plan for 9 days LOL Im full. We are leaving tomorrow. Pretty much every restaurant we were seated very quickly, much moreso than in previous trips. I guess people must be grabbing reservations just to have them and not using them. That is another reason it is so difficult for the people who want them to get them! Maybe Disney is leaning towards requiring a credit card hold for the more popular restaurants to pevent this.

 

[disneyholic family]

I have now been on the dining plan for 9 days LOL Im full. We are leaving tomorrow. Pretty much every restaurant we were seated very quickly, much moreso than in previous trips. I guess people must be grabbing reservations just to have them and not using them. That is another reason it is so difficult for the people who want them to get them! Maybe Disney is leaning towards requiring a credit card hold for the more popular restaurants to pevent this.

that is definitely the case...
when we were checking in at tusker house, the CM said to the man next to me, "sir, i found two reservations in your name, one for lunch and one for dinner".....he responded that he hadn't known when they would make it so he'd made two reservations......in other words, one of them was a throw away....meaning that some other family was unable to make a reservation because of him...

when we were at 1900 park fare, we had to wait 90 minutes to be seated (after waiting 30 minutes in line to check in)....and that was with an ADR...
after an hour i went up to complain...
the CM said that they always over-book 1900 park fare because of the no-show problem....she said that on average, they have 50% no shows every night....but that on our night they had 0 no-shows....so as a result they were running incredibly behind...
our reservation was for 7:20 - we were seated at 9:30.
we saw the very last round of characters.....we were one of the very last tables to be seated....

they had already run out of some of the desserts by the time we sat down to eat.....really not fair considering the amount of money they take for those dinner buffets...

 

[DjdBrit]

I was at Mama Melsore on 8/23 and waited 1/1/2 hours past my ADR to be seated. We were not the only ones either, every single person I spoke to waiting had a similar wait. I was told 20 minutes when I checked in and was not happy at all. It was SO late infact that because we booked the Fantasmic package I inisted on getting my "ticket" to that for another day As we would hve had to rush out of the meal to make it.

All my other ADR's on the trip had an average wit time.... 10 -20 minutes

 

[bcrook]

I have now been on the dining plan for 9 days LOL Im full. We are leaving tomorrow. Pretty much every restaurant we were seated very quickly, much moreso than in previous trips. I guess people must be grabbing reservations just to have them and not using them. That is another reason it is so difficult for the people who want them to get them! Maybe Disney is leaning towards requiring a credit card hold for the more popular restaurants to pevent this.

I am more optimistic, maybe this is the beginning of people cutting back on the restaurants because they are too expensive, and Disney will have to move the prices back to something that is more affordable. That is what everyone says, "if you don't like the prices don't eat at the restaurants. Disney will continue to raise prices until people stop paying." Next summer with no free dining, peak upcharge, and yet another increase in prices (including DDP prices) there should be even less in the restaurants.

 

[lizabu]

I just think people are going bananas with the ADRs and making reservations at every restaurant they might possibly want to go to and just going to which ever one they feel like that day and wasting the other ones. This is only going to drive Disney to take a credit card number and charge for no shows like they do for dinner shows etc

 

[bcrook]

I just think people are going bananas with the ADRs and making reservations at every restaurant they might possibly want to go to and just going to which ever one they feel like that day and wasting the other ones. This is only going to drive Disney to take a credit card number and charge for no shows like they do for dinner shows etc

This could account for some of it. But there are tens of thousands of visitors a day who don't even know what ADRs are, and would go to the restaurants as walk ups if the prices were more reasonable. My last four trips have all been with people who wanted to go to WDW and they had no idea about fastpasses, ADRS, Toy Story Mania, Rope Drop, EMH, etc. There are lots of people in the parks looking for good and reasonably priced food.

 

[Chernadan]

Great to know that its easy to walk up and have a sit down service. Maybe its a bit sad that people just "no show", they could at least have class enough to cancel. Ah well, better for us.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I have now been on the dining plan for 9 days LOL Im full. We are leaving tomorrow. Pretty much every restaurant we were seated very quickly, much moreso than in previous trips. I guess people must be grabbing reservations just to have them and not using them. That is another reason it is so difficult for the people who want them to get them! Maybe Disney is leaning towards requiring a credit card hold for the more popular restaurants to pevent this.

They have recently changed the policy and the on-line ADR system will not let you book 2 ADRs for the same time at two different places. So at least you won't be able to book up multiple dinners for one night, picking the place you want to eat and abandoning the other ADRs

... although this is annoying for people planning trips that are unsure how many people would be coming and try to make 1 ADR for 4 people and one for 7 (or whatever) and then cancel the one the ultimately wind up not needed

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Great to know that its easy to walk up and have a sit down service. Maybe its a bit sad that people just "no show", they could at least have class enough to cancel. Ah well, better for us.

I wonder if they were at least able to track "no-shows" and at some point not let chronic no-showers make ADRs in the future or require them to put a credit card # to hold it or something