Disney to launch online dining reservations

[mrsdrkwaver]

I know that there will be problems but i love the idea. I booked my trip online and would love to make my adrs that way too. I am a visual person i want to see my res. so i can see what i am doing and I want to be able to print them off to take with me. I am sure they will be like everyone else and that you will be able to do both. they need to allow you to call someone cause if there is a problem online booking or you have question you can not get answered online you need ot be bale to call. the only companies i have seen that are web ordering only are hte web only companies there are tooo many people in the world like my mother who do not look at and have no desire to learn how to use a computer. I wish disney luck in there task and look forward to the outcome for my futer trips.

 

[MadamMim]

I would feel sorry for the Dining agents if an online system was introduced and it meant cut-backs in employment for them. Plus, I with all the options that are available I wonder if people could make sense of them all. There are a lot of first-timers who go on the DDP and don't know what they're getting, when to book, which restaurant is which and so on. I know all us DISers have everything under control, but I think for most people it's important to talk to somebody who knows what's going on and can help them.

 

[stlouisdisneyguy]

I would love for online dining reservations to workout. First they need to upgrade their systems big time. Their website is very , very slow. I kind of like talking to someone though on the phone. To me that is just the start of your magical vacation and gets you all pumped up.

 

[B-Ride]

Great. I hope Disney plans to upgrade their servers to handle the slamming they're going to get on 180 day marks.

Every day will be 180 days out for someone.

 

[Tiffany]

JUst found this online at another web page!



Disney to launch online dining reservations

Disney have sent out an email to Travel Agents informing them that Travel Agents and guests will soon be able to book dining reservations online. Here is the quote from the email.

"In the future, Travel Agents and Guests will be able to make dining reservations online at disneyworld.com with this new reservation booking system. The launch date for this enhancement will be announced at a later date."

Nice to see them finally catching up to the 21st century. You can do this for Busch Gardens including tours and for the Swan/Dolphin it is the way to go.

 

[cdrn1]

Just like everything else, at first this will suck. Once the bugs are worked out, this will be a great system.

Totally agree!

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

I am happy to hear this news. I prefer booking things online. I agree, Disney's web site is the absolute pits. I have never understood why a company like theirs has such an awful, user unfriendly, web site. Their shopping site is much better than the travel portion of their site. I hope they can work this out so we can book dining online. I'd love it!

 

[Iggipolka]

I would love to be able to book my ADR's online! I hope that Disney does this soon!

 

[n2mm]

Bumping this back up because there seems to be some folks who were unaware that this was coming.

 

[aribelle]

Anyone know if this is actually confirmed as happening, or just speculation? I have only seen it discussed on boards, not any formal announcement from DIsney, did I miss it?

Also...IF it is happening, anyone know when? I want to tweak some of my ADRs and it would be nice if I could play around and see what's available myself....I sorta feel bad taking a lot of a CM's time asking "how about" questions while I figure out what might work best.

 

[hoffman1]

bmp

 

[Jubilee]

I was going to post something similar. I think we on the Dis are a lot more bothered by the double booking thing than the powers at WDW are. Believe me, those ADRs are not held as open tables forever. They have a window under which they told the tables (say 15-20 minutes) and that's it. They DO overbook things anticipating no-shows. They also know that in most cases, there will be walk-ups and a waiting list, so if there were enough cancellations, there would be people to fill in the tables if it suited them economically.
There can be several reasons for empty tables, and only one of those is because of double bookings. I also think that we hear a lot more about double bookings because Dis members are so planning happy! A lot of people go to WDW with no ADRs at all.. or just a couple. It's the group of us (ahem... slightly obsessed) with our Disney dining that tends to indulge in double booking. Personally, as obsessive as I get about my dining, and believe me.. I do, I've never double booked. I HAVE called on the same day and tried to switch a reservation, but I always cancel the one I'm not using.
Some of you guys have great ideas on how to try to avoid double bookings, but I don't think Disney is going to bother with something that elaborate! Just MOHO.

Just what I was thinkin'!

 

[Disney8704]

Heres an idea! Maybe Disney could come out with some sort of a ADR card. You login into your disneyworld.com account, fill out a form, and then they send you a card in the mail with a account # and your name on it. When you go to make your ADRs online, you HAVE to have that account #. AND people wont be able to get multiples, because Disney could make it to where its 1 card per household / address. And then when you go to checkin into your ADR at the restauraunt, if it shows you made the ADR online, you MUST present the ADR card and a photo ID.

For double-bookings, the system could ask you if you wanna cancel the other ADR before making a new one in place of it. If you click yes, it automatically deletes the ADR, if you click no, it keeps the ADR in place.

The ADR card could also be something they could start sending people who call and dont make their ADRs online.

 

[Tricia1972]

Originally Posted by Ginamarie
I was going to post something similar. I think we on the Dis are a lot more bothered by the double booking thing than the powers at WDW are. Believe me, those ADRs are not held as open tables forever. They have a window under which they told the tables (say 15-20 minutes) and that's it. They DO overbook things anticipating no-shows. They also know that in most cases, there will be walk-ups and a waiting list, so if there were enough cancellations, there would be people to fill in the tables if it suited them economically.
There can be several reasons for empty tables, and only one of those is because of double bookings. I also think that we hear a lot more about double bookings because Dis members are so planning happy! A lot of people go to WDW with no ADRs at all.. or just a couple. It's the group of us (ahem... slightly obsessed) with our Disney dining that tends to indulge in double booking. Personally, as obsessive as I get about my dining, and believe me.. I do, I've never double booked. I HAVE called on the same day and tried to switch a reservation, but I always cancel the one I'm not using.
Some of you guys have great ideas on how to try to avoid double bookings, but I don't think Disney is going to bother with something that elaborate! Just MOHO.

Just what I was thinkin'!

I agree completely.

 

[shellybaxter]

Heres an idea! Maybe Disney could come out with some sort of a ADR card. You login into your disneyworld.com account, fill out a form, and then they send you a card in the mail with a account # and your name on it. When you go to make your ADRs online, you HAVE to have that account #. AND people wont be able to get multiples, because Disney could make it to where its 1 card per household / address. And then when you go to checkin into your ADR at the restauraunt, if it shows you made the ADR online, you MUST present the ADR card and a photo ID.

For double-bookings, the system could ask you if you wanna cancel the other ADR before making a new one in place of it. If you click yes, it automatically deletes the ADR, if you click no, it keeps the ADR in place.

The ADR card could also be something they could start sending people who call and dont make their ADRs online.

What if mom and Susie want to go to CRT for breakfast while dad and Bobby go to breakie at Cape May? They can't both have the card in their possesion. What if I get my ADR card and then move but don't notify disney and the next people who live at my address try to get a card? And what about the huge cost to an adr card system? I, like others on this thread, don't really believe Disney cares near as much as people here care about double booking. One last thing, what if I wanted to double book under the ADR card system; couldn't I just get two cards, one at my address and one at a family member's address? of my work address? or a PO box for that matter

 

[Ginamarie]

What if mom and Susie want to go to CRT for breakfast while dad and Bobby go to breakie at Cape May? They can't both have the card in their possesion. What if I get my ADR card and then move but don't notify disney and the next people who live at my address try to get a card? And what about the huge cost to an adr card system? I, like others on this thread, don't really believe Disney cares near as much as people here care about double booking. One last thing, what if I wanted to double book under the ADR card system; couldn't I just get two cards, one at my address and one at a family member's address? of my work address? or a PO box for that matter

Exactly, there is always a way around the systems we propose, and if people want to get around the barrier, they will. More importantly, the cost of implementing a lot of these ideas is in excess of what WDW loses by having some empty tables.

 

[Disney8704]

Well they could make it to where they can give you cards as many as you need and have it both in yours and your spouses name. That way if you wanna go to CRT and you DH wants to go to CMC, they can. But IMHO, thats still classified as double booking.

As for the whole moving thing, Im sure they could find a way around that. Maybe have to verify your address each time you login into your account. And if it changes, you can change it then.

If Disney didnt care about the double booking, then they wouldnt say to some people that they have to cancel their original ADR before or after making a new one.

As for the whole different address...Disney can verify the address weither or not if its a home or business address. If they see it as a business address, they dont send it. Same thing for PO Boxes. Lots of companies wont send anything to PO Boxes and Disney wouldnt be any different.

Point is no matter what we all think, Im sure Disney doesnt like double bookings. Call any dining CM up and ask if double booking is allowed. Bet you any $ they will say no. IMHO, I hope they do start doing ADRs online. That way if Im trying to see if something is available at 2am I can without having to wait until 7am to call.

What if mom and Susie want to go to CRT for breakfast while dad and Bobby go to breakie at Cape May? They can't both have the card in their possesion. What if I get my ADR card and then move but don't notify disney and the next people who live at my address try to get a card? And what about the huge cost to an adr card system? I, like others on this thread, don't really believe Disney cares near as much as people here care about double booking. One last thing, what if I wanted to double book under the ADR card system; couldn't I just get two cards, one at my address and one at a family member's address? of my work address? or a PO box for that matter

 

[Ginamarie]

Well they could make it to where they can give you cards as many as you need and have it both in yours and your spouses name. That way if you wanna go to CRT and you DH wants to go to CMC, they can. But IMHO, thats still classified as double booking.

As for the whole moving thing, Im sure they could find a way around that. Maybe have to verify your address each time you login into your account. And if it changes, you can change it then.

If Disney didnt care about the double booking, then they wouldnt say to some people that they have to cancel their original ADR before or after making a new one.

As for the whole different address...Disney can verify the address weither or not if its a home or business address. If they see it as a business address, they dont send it. Same thing for PO Boxes. Lots of companies wont send anything to PO Boxes and Disney wouldnt be any different.

Point is no matter what we all think, Im sure Disney doesnt like double bookings. Call any dining CM up and ask if double booking is allowed. Bet you any $ they will say no. IMHO, I hope they do start doing ADRs online. That way if Im trying to see if something is available at 2am I can without having to wait until 7am to call.

Yes, Disney's policy is that you shouldn't double book, but right now there's nothing done to enforce that. I'm sure that the majority of people are not double booking-- we think it happens more often than it actually does, because Disboards members are a lot more likely to engage in that type of behavior than your average family anyway.

Disney is not going to start researching addresses and verifying who lives where, etc etc. It's a waste of time. There would still be ways to double book! They'd be throwing good money after bad. Not to mention, WDW doesn't want to be looked as being heavy handed in this process. They want the ADR booking process to be EASY, uncomlicated and unintimidating.

There are a lot of things that CM let the patrons get away with that are technically against the rules. Look at fastpasses-- the idea is that you're supposed to come back in that hour long window listed on the pass.. but the CMs didn't enforce it. They wanted patrons to be happy and if you were stuck in another line, no one was going to tell you that you couldn't ride Space Mountain on the fastpass line. So what happened.. people heard that you could you use fastpasses anytime after the start time.. and now we go around grabbing fastpasses with no intention of coming back within the FP window. Was that the purpose of the system? No.. the purpose was to monitor volume of the rides during all periods. To have people return when you asked them to return, but the CMs are lax. They have to be, because these patrons are paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for a Disney vacation. Disney doesn't want to be the bad guy, and they're not going to spend a lot of money on creating systems to avoid things like double booking when those systems are going to scare people away from booking ADRs in the first place.

 

[shellybaxter]

Well they could make it to where they can give you cards as many as you need and have it both in yours and your spouses name. That way if you wanna go to CRT and you DH wants to go to CMC, they can. But IMHO, thats still classified as double booking.

Huh? If a family of four wants to dine with two people in one restaurant and two people in another thats double booking???? You do realize that Disney is a place for fun and magic right?

As for the whole moving thing, Im sure they could find a way around that. Maybe have to verify your address each time you login into your account. And if it changes, you can change it then.

But what if I wasn't going to disney again anytime soon so I didn't log in? What if I never went to Disney again and just forgot about my ADR card? But the people who moved into my address really want to go to Disney? Doesn't really sound feasable.

If Disney didnt care about the double booking, then they wouldnt say to some people that they have to cancel their original ADR before or after making a new one.

I didn't say that Disney didn't care about double booking, I said they didn't care about it as much as many people on this thread seem to care about it. The system you are proposing is expensive - like solving at $3.00 problem with a $30,000 tool.

As for the whole different address...Disney can verify the address weither or not if its a home or business address. If they see it as a business address, they dont send it. Same thing for PO Boxes. Lots of companies wont send anything to PO Boxes and Disney wouldnt be any different.

And how is Disney going to verify all these addresses? My work address is at a community college, but we have residents who live in a dorm on campus. So it is a work and a residence address. And in that situation, where all of the dorm residents have the same address, how would they all get cards if they wanted to go?

I agree with you that some companies don't send to PO Boxes, but if you live in the country, like me, you would know that that leaves some people out. If you live in a rural area you often have ONLY a PO box. Most people I know have things shipped to their work address if the company doesn't allow PO Boxes but if they are checking for that - well - there's another problem.

Point is no matter what we all think, Im sure Disney doesnt like double bookings. Call any dining CM up and ask if double booking is allowed. Bet you any $ they will say no. IMHO, I hope they do start doing ADRs online. That way if Im trying to see if something is available at 2am I can without having to wait until 7am to call.

My point is - no matter what we all think - I'm sure Disney doesn't like double bookings, but not enough to put into place a convoluted system that will be super expensive and cause more trouble and grief for their guests.

 

[Tricia1972]

I think quite a few here feel it's less that Disney as a corporation cares, and it's more Disney CM's who personally feel that it's wrong. They're on the front lines. They take the calls and talk to disappointed guests. It has to get their goat that they KNOW that there are reservations available in their computer system that would be available if it weren't for double booking.

Disney, as a corporation, double books and has means for filling any potentially empty tables. Disney still gets their revenue.

Also, if Disney made it so everyone had to show for their reservation, they would have to change their availability system, and there would be fewer tables available at a restaurant in an evening. Elimination of double booking would not make dining reservations any easier to get.