How Late Is Too Late

[DiggleBelle]

We have a dinner reservation for 4:30pm at 1900 Park Fare on our arrival day.
Our flight has now been changed to arrive at 3pm. If everything goes perfectly we could go directly from the airport and make it.
If it is completely apparent we won't make it at reasonable time I will cancel it early in the day. How late do you think we could arrive and still expect to be seated?

 

[drew64]

There is honestly virtually no chance you will make it unless your flight arrives very early. 3PM is wheels down time. You still have to taxi to gate, deplane, get through airport, etc. before the drive.

Doubt you could successfully arrive more than 15 - 20 min late and epxect to be seated under the reservation. Later than that, you would be a walk-up and seated only if there is space.

 

[Mamu]

I also doubt you'll make it at 4:30. I would try to change the time.

I've never had to wait more then 10 minutes to be seated here. I assuming if you more then 15 late you will have lost your ADR.

 

[18sprint]

Agree with everyone else, don't believe you can make it. Touch down at 3:00 if all is well, another 15 mins to taxi, then you have to deplane, make your way to your transportation. ME may take 15-20mins itself before you pull away from the airport, then its a 20-25min drive to Disney. Call now, explain your flight time has been changed and I'll bet they'll do what they can to accomadate you.

 

[Nadjalu]

As others have said you aren't going to make this time frame. Sorry just being honest.

If 3pm is landing time, PP have already told you how long to get off the plane, make your way thru the airport, check in at ME (or whatever service you are taking from the airport).
Then unless you are paying OOP for the meal you can't go directly to the restaurant. If you are using the dining plan you have to check into your hotel first.
Depending on where you are staying this will add 15-20mins if you are staying at the GF.
If staying anywhere else you must add another 45min to get to from your resort to the GF.

Rule of thumb is if you are more than 15 mins late they won't seat you. But to be honest they don't have to seat you if you are late period. We had this happen at Ohana, 1/2 of our party was on time, the other half stuck in traffic. And they cancelled our adr.

So it depends on the restaurant, how busy they are, if people are waiting to be seated...etc.

Really you need to do as the PP said, call and see if they can adjust your adr.

 

[DiggleBelle]

Thanks everyone for the replies. Guess I just needed confirmation of what I already knew - it is just too tight. There is no reason to start a vacation with the extra stress of trying to make it when it isn't realistic. We will discuss and if we decide to cancel I will post on the December board.

 

[DISdreamin']

Personally, my first thought would be to contact the airline and see if you can do an earlier flight. Delta does this to us all the time, and if the change in flight time is more than one hour on either end they have always been very accomodating in putting us on another available flight to correct the issue. Thus far there have never been a change in fare as we've always just taken whatever better option is offered, not requested a certain flight. YMMV, of course.

Good luck, and hope you are able to get things straightened around so you can start your vacation off in a relxing way!

 

[DiggleBelle]

Personally, my first thought would be to contact the airline and see if you can do an earlier flight. Delta does this to us all the time, and if the change in flight time is more than one hour on either end they have always been very accomodating in putting us on another available flight to correct the issue. Thus far there have never been a change in fare as we've always just taken whatever better option is offered, not requested a certain flight. YMMV, of course.

Good luck, and hope you are able to get things straightened around so you can start your vacation off in a relxing way!

Thanks for sharing that idea. We are flying Delta. I will see if they can get us in earlier.

 

[DISdreamin']

Thanks for sharing that idea. We are flying Delta. I will see if they can get us in earlier.

Good luck, and hope they are able to work with you to find a solution! FWIW, when we flew to MCO two years ago, we had a return flight scheduled for about 9am which they switched to something like 7am. Um, what?!?!

I called Delta and was able to get a flight leaving at 6:30PM for the same fare. Originally, that flight probably would have cost me a hundred more between the four tickets (I bought the lowest fare for that day, a $175 RT fare and they went waaaay up from there). And did I mention an extra park day?! SCORE! Thanks for messing with my flights, Delta.

Oh, and for our upcoming trip, we've already have four - count them FOUR - flight changes on our four-flight itinerary. I really don't get why this happens so frequently with Delta.