Average Wait Time for ADR?

[LibrarianBecky]

Our first WDW trip is rapidly approaching!

How long is the 'average' wait time before being seated for your ADR? I know you are supposed to arrive 15 minutes early. I also know that it isn't really a reservation of a table...more like a reservation of the next available table. I've read tons of reviews on here, and so many of them say things like "we waited 45 minutes...an hour...an hour and a half...past our ADR time." That isn't common, right?

I mean, I understand that some wait time will happen....but I"m not going to be waiting in a restaurant lobby with a hungry preschooler and a grumpy husband for an hour waiting on our "reservations" every night, right?

If it matters, we are going in September, during a free dining promotion time.

Thanks!

 

[debrapagliasotti]

We went a few years ago in early Aug and the longest wait we had for a TS was about 15 min with ADR. That was at 1900 Park Faire. Think we waited about 5 min for Cape May character bkst. Got to Hollywood & Vine character bkst before our ADR and we let in right away.

 

[Paging Mr. Morrow]

honestly, the longest I have ever waited when having an ADR is 5 minutes. Not sure if I have just been lucky or what - but I have never waited

 

[Hootch]

to ask about average wait time for specific restaurants. In my experience it varies by location. In most places it's usually 5 -10 minutes. Checking in at Mama Melrose this past trip everyone was told at check in they would be seated 20 minutes after their ADR times. We were fortunate to be seated after 10 but apparently others waited the full 20.

 

[Cafeen]

It totally depends on the restaurants, some just chronically run late. It'll also depend on your party size (the smaller, usually, the better).

In 2009, the only excessive waits were at Crystal Palace dinner (~30-45 minutes past ADR) and Le Cellier lunch (~30minutes past time). This was as a party of 3. 1900 PF, CRT, Maya Grill, Chef Mickey's, Akershus, and Hollywood & Vine were all within 15 minutes of ADR time max.

Last year, as a party of 2 for half and 1 for the other half, I barely waited any time at all. I won't list out all these places, as there were about 20 of them . We waited longer to get to check-in time on a couple than we waited after check in.

Beyond CP and LC (which are 2 chronic offenders), I also hear that Coral Reef and Ohana (dinner) are typically pretty bad about it. It's generally recommended to book earlier in the sitting for these places, as there's much less chance of them getting backed up.

(Edit: Note, both of these trips were in late September, the first was the 3rd week while the 2nd was half of the 3rd and all of the last).

 

[TisBit]

Those experiences are very uncommon for most ADR's. Generally I would expect to wait about 15 minutes after checking in for your ADR. This means if you get there 15 minutes early, you will likely be seated right around your ADR time, if you get there right on time, wait about 15 minutes after your time. Keep in mind, I am saying from when you check in...not when you show up. Usually it takes several minutes to get to the podium to check in and if you are at a place like Ohana's and have an ADR for opening time, it can take quite some time to get to the podium and the wait is a little longer because they needed to stagger a servers tables.

 

[danceintherain]

We've only had to wait a crazy amount of time once. For dinner one night at 1900 Park Fare. It was a 7pm ADR, and from looking on the time stamps on the photos I took last night it looks like we checked in around 6:40. It might only have been 10-15 mins past our ADR time, but I remember being amazed at the wait, as it was towards the end of our 10 day trip, and nowhere else was as bad.. It took quite a while for the characters to come around, and we didn't leave there until after 8PM. I remember, because we went to evening EMH at the Magic Kingdom that night. To be fair, it was the best character interaction of our whole trip, and we got there waaay early. I was concerned about the amount of time it was going to take to get from AKL where we were staying, and transfer at a park, then to the GF.

Everywhere else we've waited maybe 10-15 minutes at most. Most of the time we've been seated right at our ADR time if we check in before. Though at a couple places we tried to check in "too early" so they told us to come back closer to our ADR time. I think those were Le Cellier & Sci Fi, probably 20-30 mins early or something.

 

[Nadjalu]

I will be honest, we have never been sat "late" for an adr.

We always arrive early, anywhere from 15-30mins early for our adr. And we have never waited more than 15mins to be seated...and that was just once.

Normally we are seated within 10mins. Even for the 2 adrs we showed up an hour early to. One of those ressies was LeCellier as well!

So when you hear "we waited an hour...." take it with a grain of salt. I think it is more uncommon than it seems.

At least this has been our experience.

 

[ZehnJahren]

It seems like a lot of people are nice and early for their ADRs; on our last trip, we would just barely make our ADR time (sometimes being a few minutes late) and would be seated pretty much right away. Our longest wait was Liberty Tree Tavern; it was jammed full of people and we got there right at the time of our ADR, and we were seated within 10 minutes.

 

[Uncleromulus]

An hour wait isn't common, but depending on which restaurant, what time, and what day--it can happen. In fact, at California Grill we waited for an hour or more on at least 3 seperate occasions. But that was on Saturday nights, at 8:00. In fact, the wait was well over an hour, as we arrived about 20 minutes ahead of our reservation time.

But many times there is no wait whatsoever, or a very brief wait.

 

[3pletprincesses]

this past May we waited anywhere between 5 minutes to 30 minutes. I think it depend so nteh time of day and the restaurant. The 30 minutes was at Narcosses

 

[yenlee]

Most of the time it seems to be 5-15 minutes, but there is definitely a lot of variation. Time of day and how well the restaurant is run can have a big impact. I definitely waited over 45 minutes once, so I know that it can happen. I think that the best way to completely avoid waiting is to show up near opening or closing. Of course, that means eating at odd hours. Actually, I think that this strategy might work well for when you don't have an ADR, but I've only tried it once (and it's a pretty risky strategy to use at closing time).

 

[madalex]

This issue comes up a lot on the boards and, as a result, I've been paying fairly close attention to this issue over the last couple years. My experience has been as follows:

Since Oct 2009, I've made 6 trips to WDW, for a total of 35 - 40 nights at WDW. I do a TS dinner every night, with occasional TS lunches as well. I don't do character meals, rarely do TS restaurants in the parks and generally eat at the signature restaurants at the various resorts (with some non-signature TS meals thrown in here and there). I almost always arrive at least 10 minutes prior to my ADR time.

Over those last six trips, I was almost always seated very quickly (within 5 minutes of checking in) and remember only one occasion where I had to wait a significant amount of time to be seated (lunch at Chefs de France in Feb 2010 during President's Week, where the wait was about 30 minutes past the ADR time).

 

[chloelovesdisney]

My wait time has been 0 minutes to 2 hours past our adr time. Most of the time it's within 15 minutes of check in but I've also had a handful of long wait times. All of my long waits have been during free dining though and I think it's from overbooking or allowing walk ins when they really shouldn't have.

 

[tndisneyfan]

I agree with most of the other posters, usually 10 minutes or less. Sometimes I just get the pager and get back to the family and it starts buzzing. I've also had to wait 30-45 minutes several times at different places, but I don't consider that normal.

 

[Happy Mom2]

We went during free dining last year. The only time we ever had to wait was at O'Hana and it was because the computers kept going down. Hope you have a great trip!!

 

[bluejasmine]

It has varied so much for us.. In Sept 08 we waited over 2 hours for an ADR at San Angel.

Waited about 45 min for an ADR for CP in Sept 09 and a little ove 30 min for an ADR at CM last month.

Other than that I dont believe our waits over the years have been more than 10 to 15 mind..

 

[ton80]

During our recent trip we waited 1/2 after ADR at the Prime Time.
Le Cellier we were seated immediatley when we walked in the door.


DVC Member 2005
BWV 6/11
AKV ? 6/12

 

[crystaldawn]

We've generally been seated within 15ish minutes of our ADR.

One trip (I believe it was 0ct 09) We waited 20 minutes in line JUST to check in at CP... then another half an hour waiting for our table. It was a bit discouraging but then again it was so nice to finally sit in the a/c that we stayed extra long, which may have resulted in other families having to wait after us.

 

[H20DogsNDisney]

I think the longest we waited was 1/2 after are ADRs that was crystal palace. It was really crazy.