Dining without a reservation

[dahwolf]

Hello all,
Looking for some advice. Just booked a last minute trip for mid-February. Dining reservations are limited. (As I expected.). Does anyone know if you are able to walk up and get into places like Via Napoli? We have done that in the past. Just curious if they are only excepting people with dining reservations due to Covid? Any Restaurants that might be allowing a walk up? Not QS. Thank you in advance!

 

[BillPA]

You can try at any, but will have to be very lucky to get a table.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Because of the capacity limits, I would be very surprised if you get seated without reservations.

 

[dahwolf]

That is what I was figuring. We are checking everyday to see if any new reservations become available. We also figure once we are there some people may cancel some reservations the day before. Keeping our fingers crossed.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Lucky for you the Festival of the Arts might still be ongoing at Epcot. You can eat at the outdoor kitchens instead of dining in restaurants. Or keep watching to see if any reservations open up. People change their mind all the time.

 

[lovin'fl]

Well, we check in on Monday and have been watching availability for the past like 6 weeks. And there has been a bunch of stuff open up recently. Guessing from folks who cancelled their trip. In fact, I had been searching for a Sanaa dinner for some time. Had a lunch booked but wanted dinner. Today, I had several dinner options.

 

[CarolynFH]

Some restaurants offer a Walk-Up Waitlist via MDE. We used it for Nomad Lounge last trip, but it's not just the lounges that offer it. Pull up a restaurant on MDE and you will see an icon for Join Walk-Up List. Click that and it will tell you how long the wait is, then you can choose to be added to the list or not. I just pulled up Via Napoli, and it didn't offer it, but then again I'm several thousand miles away from WDW, and MDE knows it.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Lucky for you the Festival of the Arts might still be ongoing at Epcot. You can eat at the outdoor kitchens instead of dining in restaurants. Or keep watching to see if any reservations open up. People change their mind all the time.

We just booked a last minute stay for February, and the kiosks look inviting!

 

[dahwolf]

Less than 3 weeks and getting very excited. Thank you for the information.

 

[disney_kings]

Once you arrive, try checking for openings every day first thing in AM or during the day. Many folks grab a bunch of reservations without their plans fully decided upon and then cancel right before the 24 hour cancellation window. Its usually not too hard to find stuff within a couple days. We did a last minute trip last Aug right after things reopened and were able to snag reservations at hard to find places like Topolino Terrace breakfast (only character dining at that point) just by checking periodically while there.

 

[gmflash88]

On the Festival of the Arts angle... We were there last night (side note...I’m done with Epcot oat night on the weekends. The amount of drunks is beyond obnoxious to me) and most of the kiosks had fairly long lines. We had hopped over there around 3pm from MK and stayed until park close. We managed to make a loop around the World Showcase and stopped at several of the food booths for our “dinner”. The longest lines were the booths near Mexico, US, and France.
For what it’s worth, the blue corn pupusa was the winner of all the things we ate and it wasn’t even close. I could’ve had 7 of those things.

 

[JWG]

The walk up waitlist option in MDE is the way to go. Without the dining plan, that seems to be helping offset the decreased capacity.

 

[sethschroeder]

Was seeing lots of people getting walk ups at various restaurants. It may be outdoor side seating though instead of the normal seated areas.

 

[gillep]

Hello all,
Looking for some advice. Just booked a last minute trip for mid-February. Dining reservations are limited. (As I expected.). Does anyone know if you are able to walk up and get into places like Via Napoli? We have done that in the past. Just curious if they are only excepting people with dining reservations due to Covid? Any Restaurants that might be allowing a walk up? Not QS. Thank you in advance!

Just a reminder that if you are interested in Disney Springs restaurants to make sure that you check out availability on OpenTable.

 

[dahwolf]

Thank you all for the advice. We are definitely going to make note of the above ideas. I will share my thoughts after we return on Feb. 20th.

 

[gmflash88]

Just a reminder that if you are interested in Disney Springs restaurants to make sure that you check out availability on OpenTable.

So on Sunday we were in DS and wanted to dine at Chef Art Smiths but there were no reservations on MDE or Open Table. When we got there, we walked up and asked about wait times for walk up requests...20min. We had a great late lunch/early dinner.

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

On the Festival of the Arts angle... We were there last night (side note...I’m done with Epcot oat night on the weekends. The amount of drunks is beyond obnoxious to me) and most of the kiosks had fairly long lines. We had hopped over there around 3pm from MK and stayed until park close. We managed to make a loop around the World Showcase and stopped at several of the food booths for our “dinner”. The longest lines were the booths near Mexico, US, and France.
For what it’s worth, the blue corn pupusa was the winner of all the things we ate and it wasn’t even close. I could’ve had 7 of those things.

Wow, it was full of drunks this time of year? Then it will probably be really bad end of July when I am there.

 

[gmflash88]

Wow, it was full of drunks this time of year? Then it will probably be really bad end of July when I am there.

January, June, December...I'm done with Epcot on the weekends. Now, we were just two adults and were simply annoyed. My kids are teens and it would've still been an annoyance. If my kids were still little, I'd have had some choice words for many of them. Shouting expletives, spilling drinks, walking in to people while they were taking their stupid Instagram pictures...just obnoxious.

 

[Yinn]

Hello all,
Looking for some advice. Just booked a last minute trip for mid-February. Dining reservations are limited. (As I expected.). Does anyone know if you are able to walk up and get into places like Via Napoli? We have done that in the past. Just curious if they are only excepting people with dining reservations due to Covid? Any Restaurants that might be allowing a walk up? Not QS. Thank you in advance!

When I was there a month ago, there were a lot of people who walked up. Most if not all were turned away. Just keep checking the mobile app though, reservations pop up there last minute.