Changing number of people in ADR

[deegack]

I am (trying) to plan a trip for my family and some of my in laws. They are not the most organized people in the world. After 3 months of reminding them, begging them, calling them etc they couldn't give me an idea of what ADRs to make so at 180 days, I made the ones I wanted to go to. I made them for the entire party of ten.
Knowing them the day before we leave I will be on the phone trying to cut some of the adrs from 10 to 3 people. Will this be difficult? Or is it easy to cut people from the adrs.
Thanks

 

[ktate82]

I am wondering this question as well. I made reservations for 4, but thinking we will be dropping them down to 3.

 

[loonertic]

Hey guys/ gals...

I had the same issue two years ago planning my family vaca. Couldn't get a solid number of attendees 180 days out... So when the number was finalized I called and asked about changing from 7 to 9 people .... And they insisted I rebook every ADR (citing fire code/capacity issues) resulting in losing desired rese times, which frankly stunk! When sitting to eat at each restaurant, being talkative me, I asked at each restaurant ... If we had a rese for 7 but showed up plus 2 would it be a problem. They said absolutely not! Oh man. I was to'd ... But having so much fun it wore off fast needless to say, lesson learned. And that was going from less to more. Going from more to less should be no problem at all. If you had to secure these reses with a credit card I would a call and ask though. But from my research they won't charge you for missing members of the party.

Good luck and happy dining!

 

[figment_jii]

Decreasing the number of people in your party is easier than increasing it. I've never dealt with the situation where more than half of the party didn't show up (i.e., going from 10 to 3), but I have done the "4 going to 3" conversion. That was never a problem.

The only issue at this point is for the "no show" credit card places. Most indications on the Disboard seems to say that you won't be charged if part of the group doesn't show up, but it's not written anywhere in the official policy.

 

[purple figment]

I called and asked about changing from 7 to 9 people .... And they insisted I rebook every ADR (citing fire code/capacity issues) resulting in losing desired rese times, which frankly stunk! When sitting to eat at each restaurant, being talkative me, I asked at each restaurant ... If we had a rese for 7 but showed up plus 2 would it be a problem. They said absolutely not! Oh man. I was to'd ... But having so much fun it wore off fast

It must have taken a lot of time and effort to change all of those reservations and in the end the restaurants said it wouldn't have been a problem. I'm glad you got over your initial anger and had a good time.

However, there's a good reason to have everyone included on the reservations. If you had been at some of the most popular restaurants during a busy time your 2 extra guests could have been turned away. We were at LeCellier one night when it was so busy they weren't accepting walk ups, extra people in groups (like your 2) weren't being seated and people late for their reservation were being turned away.

So in the end, just in case, I'd rather take the time to change the reservations when it means adding more people.