Calling Disney Dinning

[rileyroosmom]

Why do they make this so difficult? I called today for our upcoming trip, 5/27-6/3. We are 2 families traveling together. 4 adults, 4 kids, 1 infant. Asked for Chef Mickey's, 10am 6/3, after a few minutes of searching, she comes up with 9:50 or 10:20, made me chuckle, and I took the 10:20am. Next, I asked for Crystal Palace on 5/28. It is almost booked! Unless I want an early lunch 11:30, they can't sit 9. I say, we aren't really 9, the baby will just be in a high chair, doesn't need a plate. No she says, table has to fit 9. After about 10 minutes, she says we can sit at 2 tables and hope they can put them together. Fine I say. Last ADR (she didn't know what this was when I told her I wanted to make a few ADRs) was Rain Forest Cafe in AK. She tells me the for party of 9 or more, (again, I think we are a party of 8) I have to call the restaurant directly?!? Has anyone heard of such a thing? After another 10 minutes, we make 2 separate reservations, hoping we can be near each other. I will call the restaurant tomorrow to see what I can do.
Also, by the end of the call, she realizes my ds12 is an adult, so she has to go back and change all the reservations! It was crazy. I think it took me 30 minutes to make 3 ADR.....let's not even talk about how many questions they ask you!

 

[brivers222]

I called dinning today to get my ressies for our 5/7-5/15 trip.... I had only a Party of 5 adults so it was much smoother

8am - Ohana
8am - 1900 Park Fair
7:30pm - Tony's Town Square

mine was painless, sorry you had such a hard time

 

[Avalanche]

The high chair replaces a chair at the table. It's a fire code thing. The aisle must remain clear.

 

[heymom]

This was a couple of years ago but, I called RF directly and had no problems seating 11 people at the same table. I was told then, that only by calling the restaurant directly could they guarantee seating for all of us together.

Hope this will help you.

 

[colonels cruisers]

We had a nightmare time with our adrs - party of 11. They would not give us a table together (yes we called exactly 180 days out knowing this would be tough). We were flexible with places, just not the time.

Our TA got invovled and she admitted she had to get 'tough' with them. By tough with them she had to remind them numerous times that we were a grand gathering in ourselves and part of an even larger grand gathering, staying at GF and most are conc. level.

I am not sure what is going on with Disney Dining. They are very polite but rather unhelpful. You might want to try to group the families together for a gathering.. that seems to get you more pull. I really don't like having to do things like that but.. you try to tell a GM/GF that she/he can not have dinner with her grandkids.

 

[jennifer293]

I called on Tuesday and the CM was very nice and I got every single thing I asked for at 6:30 every night exactly what I wanted. I know there are some CM's that are not as "seasoned" as the others which can make things difficult. She also noted on all of our dinners that it is DD's 6th b-day because she said that the different restaurants do certain things and she didn't want DD to miss out on the attention. We will be doing her b-day night at Whispering Canyon so from what I hear the attention factor will be taken care of that night..

Sorry you had such a rough time!!!

 

[married@wdw]

Did those of you with large parties call group dining or the regular dining line? I don't have the group dining number with me, but I'm sure Disney's information line could put you through -- 407-824-4321. I planned a trip for 11 using group dining for most of our ressies (GFC, WCC, Boma, Cape May Cafe, Narcoosee's, O'hana and Wolfgang Puck's) and had no problems at all getting all the ADRs we wanted -- no separate tables or anything.

And separate tables rarely mean you'll actually be separated. Part of the problem is that the restaurants don't technically have tables for larger parties. So when they say you're at two tables, you will most likely be together, but you'll have two tables (or more) pushed together. We go several times a year, frequently with large groups (10 or more dining together) because we have a lot of family in the Disney area. The only time we were seated separately was Mother's Day last year -- it was extremely busy at Grand Floridian Cafe and we were a party of 24, but they still had the separate tables close together!

I hate the thought of a travel agent "getting tough" with the Disney dining operators!

 

[ameraumi]

I called the first week of January for our ADR's (we will be in WDW 4/2-4/7). There will be 6 of us and I had no problems getting the places and times we wanted. I talked to great CM when I made the original ADR's and when I called back to swap dates!

 

[srfrgrl07]

Why do they make this so difficult? I called today for our upcoming trip, 5/27-6/3. We are 2 families traveling together. 4 adults, 4 kids, 1 infant. Asked for Chef Mickey's, 10am 6/3, after a few minutes of searching, she comes up with 9:50 or 10:20, made me chuckle, and I took the 10:20am. Next, I asked for Crystal Palace on 5/28. It is almost booked! Unless I want an early lunch 11:30, they can't sit 9. I say, we aren't really 9, the baby will just be in a high chair, doesn't need a plate. No she says, table has to fit 9. After about 10 minutes, she says we can sit at 2 tables and hope they can put them together. Fine I say. Last ADR (she didn't know what this was when I told her I wanted to make a few ADRs) was Rain Forest Cafe in AK. She tells me the for party of 9 or more, (again, I think we are a party of 8) I have to call the restaurant directly?!? Has anyone heard of such a thing? After another 10 minutes, we make 2 separate reservations, hoping we can be near each other. I will call the restaurant tomorrow to see what I can do.
Also, by the end of the call, she realizes my ds12 is an adult, so she has to go back and change all the reservations! It was crazy. I think it took me 30 minutes to make 3 ADR.....let's not even talk about how many questions they ask you!

As mentioned above, you are considered 9 because the high chair takes up space at the table.

Remember, ADR's is an acronym used here on the DIS board but not necessarily all dining cast members are aware of that. I'm sure they just call it a dining reservation. Am I understanding that right where you said that the CM didn't know what you meant?

Finally, Rainforest Cafe is not owned by Disney so I think that is why they advised you to call them directly based on the size of your party. I know I've called and been able to book most restaurants when there are 8 of us, but I had to be transferred to group dining for dinner shows because of the table configurations.

And regardless of what anyone says, getting "tough" with a CM is not always going to get you what you want. In fact, if I were the CM I'd be less inclined to go out of my way if someone decided to be less than polite.

 

[srfrgrl07]

We had a nightmare time with our adrs - party of 11. They would not give us a table together (yes we called exactly 180 days out knowing this would be tough). We were flexible with places, just not the time.

Our TA got invovled and she admitted she had to get 'tough' with them. By tough with them she had to remind them numerous times that we were a grand gathering in ourselves and part of an even larger grand gathering, staying at GF and most are conc. level.

I am not sure what is going on with Disney Dining. They are very polite but rather unhelpful. You might want to try to group the families together for a gathering.. that seems to get you more pull. I really don't like having to do things like that but.. you try to tell a GM/GF that she/he can not have dinner with her grandkids.

I think your challenge has to do with the odd number of people...usually the tables are set up for 2,4,6,8, etc. I'm sure they could book multiple tables on one reservation, but as mentioned they don't always guarantee they will be together.

Honestly, it doesn't matter if you're a Grand Gathering, if you have 2 people or 20 people or if you're staying at the Grand Floridian or Pop Century. I'm not sure what restaurants or times you were booking, but it's possible that if they were popular locations and popular times, then the people who were able to book at 180+10 booked what you wanted days before you even called...also very likely since you have a larger party and the larger tables are not as plentiful and also sometimes only sat once per hour instead of every 10-15 minutes like the smaller tables.

 

[heymom]

I called the regular phone number for the rainforest, not the group. They did put three tables together for us before we got there. We were a group of 11 ranging in ages 5 to 68.
It was DDs 16th birthday, and our server went out of her way to make it very special. We all enjoyed this meal, both food and atmosphere.