Dinning reservation vent

[NJlauren]

I really don’t love the online dining reservation system.

I had to change my dates and I’m having trouble making sure I canceled the correct meals and kept the correct ones.

I am sure someone will chime in and let me know it’s not Disney, but even a non Disney trip I use open table or resy and can see the meals in those apps, so it’s not just a Disney problem.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I use the feature to add the reservations to my iPhone calendar and manage them from there. There’s a link to open the email from the calendar to make changes. If I were using the individual apps, then yes, I’d probably hate it too. But my life is in my calendar so the ressies fit right into my mindset and I don’t have to open another app.

 

[NJlauren]

I use the feature to add the reservations to my iPhone calendar and manage them from there. There’s a link to open the email from the calendar to make changes. If I were using the individual apps, then yes, I’d probably hate it too. But my life is in my calendar so the ressies fit right into my mindset and I don’t have to open another app.

They are all in my calendar, they automatically add. but then when I cancel it doesn’t automatically remove. So then I’m worried about if I canceled.

Totally a first world, not real problem, but yesterday it was driving me crazy trying to make sure I didn’t keep a reservation at a popular place someone else may be able to use.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

They are all in my calendar, they automatically add. but then when I cancel it doesn’t automatically remove. So then I’m worried about if I canceled.

Totally a first world, not real problem, but yesterday it was driving me crazy trying to make sure I didn’t keep a reservation at a popular place someone else may be able to use.

Okay. That makes sense. I have the ability to decline the reservation in my calendar and I can ignore for the ones that pull in from my email if that helps at all.

 

[Magical2017]

I would love for the Universal app to hold hotel and dining reservations. I was recently sent a survey that had questions about this as well as other features. I wonder if they will update their app before Epic opens?

So far I have just kept the text confirmations from when I booked dining reservations.

 

[denman007]

I have to keep the email versions of my package because I don't know where else to see it and the details.

How far out can you book the City Walk restaurants?

 

[saskdw]

We've never really needed dining reservations at Universal.

Pretty sure you can get one the day before if it's a busy time.

At least that's how it was in the past. I'm not sure how covid has effected crowds and operations.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

We've never really needed dining reservations at Universal.

Pretty sure you can get one the day before if it's a busy time.

At least that's how it was in the past. I'm not sure how covid has effected crowds and operations.

It depends a lot on your party size and when you go. We’re a party of 5 and go the weekend before Thanksgiving and we’ve always needed reservations. The 3 or 4 times we’ve tried to go without it’s been 1-1.5 hours wait.

 

[cschaaf]

We've never really needed dining reservations at Universal.

Pretty sure you can get one the day before if it's a busy time.

At least that's how it was in the past. I'm not sure how covid has effected crowds and operations.

Pre COVID, family of 5 that tends to go at busy times, I think we made 1 reservation in all the times we went. And that was day of. That was only because someone in the party really wanted to go to a specific place. Otherwise, we're usually flexible enough that if the place we tried was too busy, we'd just go somewhere else.

In COVID times, we're down to only the 2 of us going and we ran into some long waits when we didn't reserve. Day of was usually fine, but day before was better. We still had a few times where we tried Toothsome, Vivo, and Cowfish and all had 1 hour+ waits, then we walked to NBC Grill or Red Oven and walked directly to a table. Party size, dates, timing, flexibility, weather, specific restaurant, and luck all play a role.

You can remove all of those variables by reserving a few days ahead, but then you're stuck eating at a certain place and time which means planning any park activities around that "Do we have time for one more ride, or should we just head over there now?"

The flip side is, you can avoid the potential of a long wait to eat. That 60-90 minutes you are waiting is 60-90 minutes you aren't riding a ride. That 60-90 minute wait could impact you twice - once while you wait, then it pushes your 'done with dinner' time out that same amount. That may impact your after dinner plans "If we wait 90 minutes, we're going to miss the Hogwarts show..."

Our next trip will be with 8 people the week between Christmas and New Years... I'm not looking forward to planning out those reservations.

 

[Amyshubby]

I'm assuming a party of two won't have a problem with walking into Mythos and Three Broomsticks?

If it helps, we usually eat during off hours (about 4pm).

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Three Broomsticks doesn't take reservations, it's kinda modified quick service (you order, then they bring it to your table).

For Mythos you might be okay, but you might hit waits if they're busy. You can also make the reservation for "around" when you want to go - we showed up 30min early for ours and were seated within 5min. You can usually make a reservation earlier in the day or the day before. Also, Mythos closes earlier than you might expect, so looking at the reservation availability might help you confirm hours.

 

[kmedina]

I went through this recently after modifying a reservation. If you saved the original email verification from the reservation, you can click on it. When you do, you will see the what the reservation modification with the new date/time. This will show you whether or not it accepted your new request and deleted your old one. Of course, this does not help if you canceled your reservation and booked a new one. That said, if you click on the email from the original reservation and nothing comes up or you get an error, odds are it was canceled and you would just use the link for the new reservation to confirm you have what you want.