Grabbing a hot reservation when you have another booked?

[TexasJedi]

Background:
I'm hoping to grab an 'Ohana dinner reservation for my family's trip that's less than two weeks away and have signed up for a few notification sites. I have a backup booked at Skipper Canteen at 4:40 p.m. for the day we'd like to go to 'Ohana. If we can't get 'Ohana, we'll gladly keep the Skipper Canteen reservation as a consolation.

Questions:

• What's the best way to make sure I can grab a reservation for 'Ohana if/when I get a notification?
  • Should I have my wife remove her name from the Skipper Canteen reservation and then plan to use her account to try to grab 'Ohana? Would we encounter any trouble later on if we kept the Skipper Canteen reservation?
    
• What's the earliest time that I would be able to grab the reservation on my account since I have the 4:40 Skipper Canteen reservation under my account? I've seen 60, 65, 90 minutes listed in different places.
  
  
• Any other tips/tricks/suggestions on how to navigate a reservation swap for something popular like 'Ohana besides jumping on it as soon as the notification comes through?

 

[AquaDame]

When you go to book Ohana it will point out the other reservation and warn you that it will be dropped if you continue. Since you want Ohana, agree.

 

[TexasJedi]

Ah, that's great! I was worried I would have to drop the first one to secure the new one and would run the risk of losing them both. Thank you!

 

[kstruchen]

Lately, MDE is letting you overlap reservations and not prompting you to cancel the first one. At least that's been my observation. So unless they fix the problem, it should be easy to book Ohana regardless of what time it's for.

 

[vcb]

Same. It makes me wonder how many people are holding reservations until the last second before deciding what they want to do.

 

[CarolynFH]

Same. It makes me wonder how many people are holding reservations until the last second before deciding what they want to do.

Probably the same number (or more) as booked multiple ADRs and then just didn’t show up for the ones they didn’t want, before Disney implemented the no-show fee. The fee doesn’t prevent hoarding ADRs, it just encourages people to drop them a day or two before.