Dining Reservations: Having to Wait Past Reservation Time

[Ancient Purple]

I wanted to get a feel for what I see may be an ongoing problem regarding reservations. Namely, that people are waiting a significant amount of time past their reservation time. In several threads, I have seen waits of 15, 30, and 45 minutes past the reservation time.

So, I guess my question is if this par for the course for DLR or are these occasional but uncommon occurrences. If the former, I would think DLR would want to address that problem.

Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[Tiradan]

This past Monday, I had 11:50am reservations for Cafe Orleans. I got there at 11:45am and checked-in with the host. I waited 30 minutes until 12:15pm before they sat us. Had I been at a normal restaurant here in Hawaii, I would have left, but I really really had to try that Monte Cristo sandwich (which was delicious)

This past Saturday, I had 7:10pm reservations for Carthay Circle. We checked in at 7:00pm and were seated by 7:15pm.

 

[Ancient Purple]

Thank you, Tiradan.

 

[DisneyIsMagical]

The only time we've had to wait after our reservation was at Ariel's Grotto in June 2011 for the Workd of Color dining package. I believe we waited about 20 minutes past our reservation time. But, it was well worth it, the meal was fabulous!

 

[disneegrl4eva]

just to clear this matter up...this is really a "priority seating" over others..it is NOT a reservation meaning that you will be seated at the time given to you when you make the ADR...what it means (and they do say this)...the time you ask for is for the first available seating for your party size so in other words, they wait till your party is there to find a table to accomodate you..this is a common thing and I guess I never thought about it because its always something Ive known but I can totally see how people who arent accustomed to it would think what you do OP...

 

[Ancient Purple]

just to clear this matter up...this is really a "priority seating" over others..it is NOT a reservation meaning that you will be seated at the time given to you when you make the ADR...what it means (and they do say this)...the time you ask for is for the first available seating for your party size so in other words, they wait till your party is there to find a table to accomodate you..this is a common thing and I guess I never thought about it because its always something Ive known but I can totally see how people who arent accustomed to it would think what you do OP...

I appreciate you adding this.

 

[Malcon10t]

just to clear this matter up...this is really a "priority seating" over others..it is NOT a reservation meaning that you will be seated at the time given to you when you make the ADR...what it means (and they do say this)...the time you ask for is for the first available seating for your party size so in other words, they wait till your party is there to find a table to accomodate you..this is a common thing and I guess I never thought about it because its always something Ive known but I can totally see how people who arent accustomed to it would think what you do OP...

I usually refer to it as a dining fastpass.

 

[Davids-Coco]

We typically show up about 15 minutes before our time and get seated within 10 minutes (plus or minus) of our priority seating time. I think the longest we waited was 50 minutes past at Blue Bayou and had checked in 20 prior. It was a very hard 70 min...

 

[pixiewings71]

We show up 15-20 minutes early to check in and we are normally seated within 15 minutes of our reservation time. So we generally wait about 30 minutes total but 15 of that would be us being there early. The exception to this was our last trip in August, we ate at AG, checked in 20 minutes early and it took 30-40 minutes past our reservation to be seated. However, we did have a party of 11, including 3 children under 9 and my 2 (16 & 12). With a large party we did expect to wait longer to be seated.