Dinner Reservation Not At Park With Park Reservation

[olewnikpe]

We have APs, but some in our party have park hopper tickets, and our pre-covid daily plan has always been to go to one park in the morning, go back to our resort in early afternoon (swim, nap, etc.), then go to a different park for the evening. Usually, that evening plan includes dinner reservations.

We have made our plans for our upcoming May trip, but now I'm thinking we need to change things up to account for the new world, because I realized that there is a chance that the park where we have dinner reservations may reach capacity during the day, and we won't be able to make it to our dinner reservation, because its at a different park than our park reservation park that we visited in the morning. I'm considering changing our park reservations and not park-hop on those days, and chalk up spending the extra on the park hopper add-on as an "oh well'" purchase.

Is this a real concern, or am I being overly-cautious with my concern? If capacity is reached at our evening park, I assume we all get charged for no-show for dinner, right? Is the general thinking that with how we "do Disney", its best not to park hop?

 

[jen7233]

From what I read on here so far park hopping hasn't been an issue. I plan to during Spring Break. But, on a call to Disney Dining a week ago when I asked a similar question, they did mention that just because I have an ADR doesn't guarantee into the park of that ADR if I had a reservation for another park for the day and park hopping wasn't available at the ADR park later. Taking the chance would be a choice. I believe yes, would be charged as a no-show unless someone knows otherwise.

 

[fancymouse]

I have heard zero reports of someone not being able to park hop (even when the parks have been sold out). I would think if it was happening we’d see lots of frustrated posts. In order for this to be the case, I think they are not following their morning capacity levels in the afternoons. I’m sure they’ve done the math and know it all kind of evens itself out, but I think you’ll have a very good chance of being able to park hop.

 

[scrappinginontario]

As the others have shared, there has never been a case to date when park hopping has not been allowed. The past 3 days all 4 parks have been at reservation capacity yet park hopping has still been allowed. I have called the park hopper hotline each day to confirm this.

In your case, if it were me I would book my ADRs at whichever park I wanted to eat at, regardless of which park I have a reservation for.

 

[gharter]

I have only seen 1 report of someone being denied park hopping and that was a case where they didn't check into the park where they had a park reservation and just tried to hop to a different park in the afternoon.
Otherwise, all the reports seem to show no issues park hopping currently. With Spring Break currently happening, it will be interesting to see if this changes.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I have only seen 1 report of someone being denied park hopping and that was a case where they didn't check into the park where they had a park reservation and just tried to hop to a different park in the afternoon.
Otherwise, all the reports seem to show no issues park hopping currently. With Spring Break currently happening, it will be interesting to see if this changes.

Technically you cannot 'hop' to a new park if you don't have a park to hop from. Glad to know that portion is working though.

 

[gharter]

Technically you cannot 'hop' to a new park if you don't have a park to hop from. Glad to know that portion is working though.

From the report 1/2 their group went to the first park and 1/2 didn't. The second 1/2 caused their issues.

 

[Duck143]

I can't imagine that you would be charged a No Show fee for not showing up if you are not allowed into the park. A few years back we had an ADR at Via Napoli and the parking lot was so full (Food and Wine) that we just couldn't get into Epcot. I called the Dining phone number and she cancelled the ADR with no charge and offered to help me find a new place for dinner. Disney is not going to penalize you this way if you give them a call, so I would book the restaurants that you want.

 

[olewnikpe]

Thanks everyone for your comments, with some good points being made. I will keep my plans as is unless something changes between now and May where people aren't as freely park hopping as they seem to be today.

 

[seashoreCM]

Two years ago I read (don't recall where) that if you were denied entrance to a park you could forfeit your restaurant deposit, but that they have seated tardy guests not as standby or walkup if the reason was transportation (or parking) issues. But yes you should call the restaurant if you will be unexpectedly late.

 

[masupo]

I'm going easter week and I took a chance on making a dinner reservation at Epcot on our Animal kingdom day. I feel confident we'll be able to hop.

But if it turns out we can't hop, I won't just cancel the res outright. I'll modify the reservation to a future date, then cancel, which avoids the cancellation fee. I learned that trick here

 

[supersnoop]

Every park was "sold out" last week and I never had any trouble hopping.