Dining ps tip for those who don't like to plan way ahead

[kalamazoo]

On our last trip to WDW I discovered the value of calling Disney Dining for a ps from the pay phone in the parks. It is a service that I had known about for years but never saw the huge advantage of it until...

We were in MK and wanted to take the kids waaaaay over to the Cape May Buffet for supper. I called Disney Dining right from a park phone (free call) to make sure we could get in at a reasonable time (ie as soon as we could make our way over there from MK). As it turned out the earliest ps available was for 8:30 pm (I think it was about 4:30 at the time) and so Cape May was out of the question. However, the CM was tremendously helpful and asked a few questions about what our dining priorities were and where were we at the moment and ... presto!... a ps for a character meal dinner at Cristal Palace scheduled for the time it would take to walk there from where we were in the park.

I hate making ps's in advance because, well, you just never know what you are going to want to eat or even where you are going to be at any given time but when you've got little kids with you, you've got to have some kind of game plan because they sure do get cranky once they get hungry. The Disney Dining service sure helped us - saved us a huge trek to Cape May which would have been in vain and got us into a great sit down place just when we needed it.

 

[OKSTATE99]

Are these pay phones or video phones? I know in Epcot they have the video phones, between future world and the world showcase. We usually use them once per trip. Do another parks have these video phones for making a PS?

 

[jimmybop]

I believe both payphone will do it, just look at the text sheet on the phone, it will tell you what to press (i believe its a number like # or * something)

 

[kalamazoo]

It's just the regular pay phone.

 

[jordgubben]

I think the number is like #88 or something. I asked a cast member and they knew. I called one morning while shortly after we got to Epcot and decided to eat lunch there. I made a PS for The Garden Grille in the Land with no problem. I was certainly good I did too because when we arrived at lunch time the wait time was 1.5 hours for those without PS. We only had to wait about 10 minutes.

 

[EthansMom]

Thanks for the advice! We'll be meeting the in-laws in Sept. and they can't plan anything in advance! Drives me nuts not to have plans -- okay, I'm a control freak, but at least I admit it. It's nice knowing that I can make PS's on the same day and satisfy my need to plan and the in-laws' need to be spontaneous.

EthansMom