Can I complain for a sec?

[JCandKT]

Man...

JC and I talked about making this next trip for a long while...but financially, we just didn't think it was going to happen. Well, after a long series of events, we were able to book, but not as far out as I would have liked. (I think we put our deposit down in May for our September trip.)

Now -- we usually stay at the All Stars -- but decided, since it's been a hellacious year, that we were going to splurge and stay at the Beach Club. And then we were blessed with Free Dining! And I'm excited about it since we're dropping a chunk on the package itself that we'll save some money with Free DDP.

Well now I'm running into "sorry can't get you a reservation here" "or here" "or there" "or even there". Everything's booked solid.

Or is it really? I can't get a reservation nearly anywhere...or maybe I'm not doing it right. I'm working with Dreams to help with reservations.

We always go in September and it's not usually crazy busy ------ is this free dining thing going to completely alter our usual trip?

Any insight will be helpful even if it's OH KATIE JUST CHILL OUT.

 

[ADP]

Ok...I'll give you what I would do. But, please, please don't let me have it for suggesting this. I consider this to be fair advice and not considered wrong at all.

When making your ADRs sometimes a table for 2 may not be available. Some restaurants have very few tables for 2 to begin with.

If a table for 2 is not available ask for a reservation or table for 3. This will open up all 3 and 4 table settings. It will give you a much better shot at getting an ADR at your restaurant (You may have tried this already).

Hope this helps and understand I don't consider this an unfair practice. As others have mentioned before me Disney's dining reservation system is flawed and this is one way to get around it.

Good luck fellow Hoosier.

 

[MODisFan]

Hi Katie. We are going to WDW in September during free dining as well. We got reservations to all but one of the places we wanted to. Our secret? We do a lot of dining in the resorts while most people (it seems) stay in the parks to dine. Cape May Cafe (at the Beach club) has great dinner buffet. The Kona Cafe (at the poly) is good for dinner. We are going to the yahtsman this trip. What about some off the beaten path places like the Biergarten in Germany? It's set up were several families sit at one table. Surprisingly, the food was good and there is a dinner show. Animal Kingdom's Boma is really good too. Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[wdwowner]

Ok...I'll give you what I would do. But, please, please don't let me have it for suggesting this. I consider this to be fair advice and not considered wrong at all.

When making your ADRs sometimes a table for 2 may not be available. Some restaurants have very few tables for 2 to begin with.

If a table for 2 is not available ask for a reservation or table for 3. This will open up all 3 and 4 table settings. It will give you a much better shot at getting an ADR at your restaurant (You may have tried this already).

Hope this helps and understand I don't consider this an unfair practice. As others have mentioned before me Disney's dining reservation system is flawed and this is one way to get around it.

Good luck fellow Hoosier.

You Rebel You! Where did you ever get THAT idea from?

 

[DVCsince02]

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

Are you just now trying to make your ADRs? So many people were anticipating free DDP that they made their ADRs at the 180 day mark -- so there's a good chance that many restaurants were booked to capacity before the promo was even available. I think it's crazy that on-site dining has gotten so ridiculous.

I've said all along that I think only a portion of seating should be available for 180 day advance bookings and a room reservation # should be required. The rest should be reserved for same-day booking to allow locals, off-site guests, and on-site guests that didn't know any better, to still be able to have a decent selection of restaurants to choose from. This would also keep people from calling as soon as the window opens up and reserving multiple locations at the same time by using a bunch of different names/phone numbers to get all the popular dining spots.

So hang in there and keep trying...be as flexible as you can about dining times (most places have the same menu for lunch/dinner) and don't be afraid to try something new -- who knows, it could turn into your favorite restaurant!

Good Luck.

 

[abish19]

Another idea: You could try making reservations for off-times, like, 2pm or something. Sometimes lunch reservations are open when dinners aren't. Try places at the resorts (as has already been mentioned) or even at Downtown Disney.

Make sure you tell your Dreams agent that you want to book a table for 3 - once they have your "permission" to do that you may have some success.

Good luck! We haven't started doing ADRs for our January trip, but then, there's no free dining either.

 

[Disney/Universal Fan]

I booked our ADR's this afternoon for our upcoming Septmeber trip.I booked 8 ADR's and was able to get every restaurant I requested. There are two of us and I didn't try to beat the system to get them. Sometimes the exact times I wanted were not available and I had to adjust a little. Also, instead of eating dinner at Le Cellier, we are eating lunch. No big problem. I think the big thing is that you have to be flexible, and be able to adjust when the exact time you want is not available. Also, it may be a great time to try restaurants that you would have never thought of before.

 

[JCandKT]

thanks for all the suggestions... i will try them.

i wish i could've booked sooner, thus making adr's earlier...but it just couldn't happen this trip.

on to try some things ---

 

[DSNY4ever]

I honeymooned in Sept of 2005 (which it looks like you were a Sept bride too!), but we had a terrible time getting ADRs. I didn't know about the 2 people vs. 3 people reservation trick. I worked really hard and wasn't able to get all of our reservations, so we tried to risk it and try to walk up to some of the restaurants when we got there...we ended up eating more hotdogs than we wanted to on our honeymoon A lot of people that we talked to in line said that their kids were on "fall break," so apparently this is becoming an easier time to travel, and now with free dining it is probably much more crowded than it used to be.

I hope you have better luck than we did! Enjoy your trip.

 

[JCandKT]

I honeymooned in Sept of 2005 (which it looks like you were a Sept bride too!), but we had a terrible time getting ADRs. I didn't know about the 2 people vs. 3 people reservation trick. I worked really hard and wasn't able to get all of our reservations, so we tried to risk it and try to walk up to some of the restaurants when we got there...we ended up eating more hotdogs than we wanted to on our honeymoon A lot of people that we talked to in line said that their kids were on "fall break," so apparently this is becoming an easier time to travel, and now with free dining it is probably much more crowded than it used to be.

I hope you have better luck than we did! Enjoy your trip.

Yeah...when we went for our honeymoon, it was right after September 11th. The park was soooooo empty... of course, I wish it was under different circumstances that we owned the park that week.

I have a picture of JC in front of Mickey's sorcerer hat at Hollywood Studios... I'm far enough back from him that I have most of the hat in the picture and there is not one other soul in the whole pic. Strangest thing. I'll try to scan it in to show everyone.

I've been able to get a couple more ADR's for our trip...and I'll keep trying every freakin day until something works out!!