How does Disney handle 'No Shows' vs Walk-Ups?

[Pumba's Truth]

Just curious if anyone has ever noticed how Disney restaurants handle 'No Shows' when walk ups are ready to dine.

I am toying with the idea of just walking up to a couple of places that I am unable to reservations for but then again, if Disney just holds reservations beyond the reservation time it would suck. I mean I don't want to be turned away from a restaurant that is half empty because of a bunch of unused ADRs.

Now don't get me wrong, I know that there are some valid reasons for missing ADRs, but there are also probably those that just snatch up ADRs with the hopes that they might be going to Disney at that time and then end up not going, yet don't cancel their ADRs. At least I can see that occurring, and therefor those there miss out.

Thoughts?

 

[Tricia1972]

Disney accounts for no-shows by overbooking their restaurants by a certain percentage. So if Joe Smith doesn't show up for his dining reservation, it doesn't open up a table for someone walking up without a reservation because the restaurant is still fully booked for the night.

On the other side of this, when restaurants are running very far behind, it's often because some of the percentage that should be "no-shows" messed things up by showing up.

 

[Cafeen]

They also process the reservations in a "call ahead seating" style, that is, they won't even hold your place until you check in.

As explained by a former CM somewhere on these boards (it was awhile ago, so I'll be paraphrasing) it is basically two queues. Queue 1 is the Dining Reservation queue. When you check in you will be placed in this queue. Walk ups get placed in Queue 2. Diners are taken from Queue 2 and seated if either Queue 1 is empty or there are no available tables for the parties that have checked in (so, if there's 4 groups of 5+ with reservations, and a group of 2 walks up, chances are they'll get in).

If you're over 15 minutes late to your reservation, you get taken out of the queue, but your reservation does not go away. When you check in, you'll be placed at the end of Queue 1 (it's basically a method to allow for walk-ups if you're late... though not really sure what the point of it is, if you don't get queued until you check in... hm, we may have to revisit this!) Now, keep in mind I'm stretching my memory here, so there could be some bits that aren't quite right (maybe that hold you in a queue from 15 minutes before to 15 minutes after the reservation? that would make sense too), but that's the general idea that I got from the original post.

The overbooking makes it so that just because 1 party of 4 doesn't showup, doesn't mean that a walk-up party of 4 can be seated. And the queue system basically gives those walk-ups a potential seat if enough reserved people do not show up (which, at the ultra-popular places, isn't known to happen). It also explains why it's sometimes possible to get a walk-up right when the restaurant opens, as there's simply no one (or not enough) queued yet.

 

[MHSweb79]

I agree that Disney is well aware of no-shows and compensates for that with a fine-tuned formula for overbooking. They absolutely will not risk losing revenue on empty tables.

The best way to get in as a walk-up is to arrive shortly before the restaurant opens. Many people here have posted that they are very successful with this strategy, probably because there hasn't been time to build up a backlog of diners, and there may be a few empty tables that they're willing to fill until until the big crowd arrives.