Be careful when making your dining ADR's

[tiger4me2]

I have made all three of my ADR's for my upcoming trips making sure they had my right phone number even repeated it back at the end along with them (their suggestions) going back over them. All okay. Until last night when for some strange reason I had this funny feeling about my ADR's for all my trips. So I called they didn't have any of them by my phone number so I suggested let go by the number they gave me better still let me speak to a guest supervisor which the girl did. We went over all of them & they had the right ressie # but wrong phone number how I don't know. She said the phone number I gave them was all messed up. She said there is no reason since I gave them the right number & she had no idea how this happens. Funny part I am staying club level on each trip & they told me all was okay. It is taken care of now but I am rather disbtrub about this as I speak very clearly & repeat my number just in case. At least when we went by the ressie # they gave me it matched with my name. Oh they made sure they had the correct number this time around. Oh the joy of dealing with Disney

 

[moosebug]

It has taken me awhile to get back on the Disney boards because I have been very upset with Disney since I got back in May of this year. When we bought our Princess and Party tickets I had to change some dinner and breakfast meals around so we would be in Magic Kingdom that night and still be able o do the restaurants that we wanted to in this trip. When we checked in we got a print-out of our ressies and everything was correct. We went a few days later to Cinderella's meal and they did not have our ressie. I know there are some out there that will roll their eyes when I say this but if I didn't get that ressie I would have changed the days of my trip. It is so far in advance and it wouldn't make or beak it but it was something I wanted my daughter to experience at the age when she still believes that is REALLY Jasmine, Belle etc. We get there and they did not have our reservation and were pretty rude about it. Low and behold after and hour of telling them I wasn't leaving my card has been charged and calling the bank I got in. It left a bitter taste in my mouth and I for one everytime I went to give my name at a podium was very nervous about my name not being there. I would get a list at check-in and make a copy to carry with you every day. Also, I did have my ADR # and it showed it had ben cancelled. But I am over it now and we decided just this morning to plan a 2009 trip!!!!T

 

[disneyin2008]

Hopefully part of the upgrade they're doing to their reservation system is the long rumored online booking for restaurants. If so, it would seem obvious that we'd also be able to then print out some kind of confirmation or a listing of all reservations made.

My bad experience was that I got most of the dates/times I wanted, but not all of them, so I kept calling back. One call I decided for unknown reasons to verify my confirmation numbers....turned out that ALL of the reservations I'd worked soooo hard getting were in October....but we don't arrive until NOVEMBER! And of course by then many of the good times were gone....I've still got 4 ADRs that aren't really going to work for us. I haven't cancelled as we really want to go there, I'm just not sure that after a full day in the park that I'm interested in a 8 or 9 pm dinner! We eat at 5-6 at home, 7pm is a late dinner so I can't imagine how we'll do later than that!

And now I find when I call in to check if there is any better time for the 4 bad ones, I'm checking a couple of ADRs that I already have set just to be sure they're still there in the right month!

I feel for the CMs doing this.....if "I" can hear the other CMs in the background than can you imagine how much noise there is for them? And they're trying to keep all these numbers in their head while they're searching this and that and the other thing, so I can see where they would mix up 10th month and 11th month or whatever......but it can be a disaster when I arrive and it's soooo wrong! I've asked several CMs (because you know you can always get a different answer, lol), if there wasn't some way that they could email me my ADRs, or even just print it and jam it in an envelope for me, but I ahve yet to find one able/willing to do that. I realize if Disney did that for everyone it would be outrageously expensive in postage, but frankly to me those ADRs are just as important as the room reservations and they send that whole big folder thing each time I change my room ressies. So stick a copy of my ADRs in there too for gosh's sake.

 

[Cookie Princess]

I am REALLY looking forward to the on-line reservation system. Being a control freak...this will remove some of the stress. We have had our last name spelled incorrectly and our phone number wrong on many an ADR. The CM's do try hard, but they take a ton of calls each day...errors are bound to happen.

 

[leebee]

The online dining ADR makes me nervous. If CM's who are specifically trained to do this can get it wrong so easily, can you imagine what will happen when the general public jumps into the system? Does anyone know how they will be doing this, by the way? Will only resort guests be able to make their own ADR's and offsite have to go through a CM? How will they know if people are making multiple, overlapping adr's? I wish I understood more about it.

BTW, we had no trouble with any of our ADR's last week, except for the last night, the only really important one, at Boma. We were simply not in the system! They got us in with about a 30min wait, but I was trying very hard not to be upset while we were waiting, but with free dining having just started I was worried. (We weren't on free dining, I was hoping that as we were actually paying cash that we might get some consideration ) Boma is our favorite restaurant, and as soon as I knew we would be at WDW I called and made a Monday night ADR, before I'd planned anything, because it would be our last night, and because we know that it's "monday and thursday for peanut rice", which is DD's favorite dish on earth!!

 

[MissionMouse]

The online dining ADR makes me nervous. If CM's who are specifically trained to do this can get it wrong so easily, can you imagine what will happen when the general public jumps into the system? Does anyone know how they will be doing this, by the way? Will only resort guests be able to make their own ADR's and offsite have to go through a CM? How will they know if people are making multiple, overlapping adr's? I wish I understood more about it....

This will clearly be a different application that will bridge or may even have a direct connection to the database retaining the restaurant reservations.

The concern will be how much effort did they put into the development of the application and how it processes your request. Will it respond only to the time you provide or will it provide a listings of time that are available if your time is not available? It could be very cumbersome to use if it only processes your date and time request...you will be left playing a 'hang-man' process with the application until you can find the opening.

 

[mickeyfan1226]

Ok you all have me very worried. I have never made any ADR's before and now I am the one doing it ALL. I have a year until our trip so maybe things will be worked out?? Any suggetions for a newbie from you verterans??
TIA,
michelle

 

[disneyin2008]

Ok you all have me very worried. I have never made any ADR's before and now I am the one doing it ALL. I have a year until our trip so maybe things will be worked out?? Any suggetions for a newbie from you verterans??
TIA,
michelle

Well, since you're not going for a year, and you can't make ADRs until 180 days (6 months basically) before you go, you are going to be using whatever their new system is......if it's the online one that I'm hoping for, then if it's working properly it should be much easier to verify that it was done correctly. Right now it's only verifiable after you've checked in at the resort and of course by then it's pretty much too late.

So...you may find you have it a lot better than us. (Of course, you could also have it worse if the system is crappy).

My suggestion for the way it is now....where the only way to make them, or ask about them is by phone is to call back shortly after making a batch and ask someone to verify the information.....give them your Confirmation # and ask them to tell you the date, time and location of the ADR. This at least gives you a fighting chance to make changes.

 

[DisneyDine]

Don't mean to throw a monkey wrench into the works but as of right now online reservations are nothing more than a rumor. We have received a lot of information about the new dine system but never a mention of online reservations.