How long after your ADR were you seated?

[allthingsmickey]

We have varying ADR times for our stay. We're travelling with our 2 year old and am now wondering if we should have picked earlier times since I've read people sometimes have to wait a long time after their ADR to get seated.

What are the restaurants that have the best reputation for seating close to your ADR time? What restaurants have the worst reputation for having to wait past your ADR time?

What time does the backup usually begin? 6:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m or later? We're a party of 3.

 

[Cinderella94]

Crystal Palace (and Ohana's once this past January) is the only place we usually have to wait 10ish minutes for. Everywhere else, we're seated right away or within 5 minutes.

 

[Pakey]

We have varying ADR times for our stay. We're travelling with our 2 year old and am now wondering if we should have picked earlier times since I've read people sometimes have to wait a long time after their ADR to get seated.

What are the restaurants that have the best reputation for seating close to your ADR time? What restaurants have the worst reputation for having to wait past your ADR time?

What time does the backup usually begin? 6:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m or later? We're a party of 3.

After dozens of vacations there, I can say that I think most of the restaurants seat close to on time. There will always be occasions when any given place will be behind, you can't predict circumstances.

However, there are some that are ALWAYS behind. The ones that come immediately to mind for me are Sci Fi, Le Cellier and Coral Reef (Coral Reef is the worst). I have been to these multiple times and it's been consistently late for seating at these 3. These 3 places go from lunch to dinner so the backup can begin from the time they open for lunch at 11:30 .

 

[Cinderella94]

Oh, I forgot about Coral Reef! Yeah, we only ate there once and won't plan on going back (not because of the lateness), but we had to wait a bit for our ADR there too.

 

[graceesmom]

I'm interested in everyone's responses to this too. We are travelling with a 2 year old as well and I'm concerned about getting her to bed a decent hour and preventing melt downs!

 

[bigbabyblues]

We've had two experiences (out of 4 meals there) at 50's PTC where we've had to wait 15-20 minutes past our ADR time. I changed our ADR a few days before our most recent trip, and got a later time than we normally do, though. I think our ADR was 6:45 or so, and we had to wait at least 20 minutes.

 

[moparop]

Most everywhere we've eaten we were seated almost immediately. Our two exceptions were 50s PT (about 25 min) and Chef Mickey's (close to an hour). The 50s ADR was for 6:00 and the CM was for 6:45.

 

[CanadaMomto5]

I booked earlier ADR's (5-530) as my kids are fairly young and the youngest simply won't eat if she is "over" hungry.

Ohana was the best of them all. we waited maybe 10 mins for both breakfast and dinner. Tusker House was a good 30 minutes. And the place was half empty when we were seated. Then the buffet must have closed at 7, because we just got our meal in and we were one of the last in the restaurant. This with a 530 ADR. Food more than made up for it-one of the best meals we had.

Biergarten was a disaster. Checked in at 520 for our 530 reservation. DH checked back at 550,and was told 10 more minutes. I went back 15 minutes later and was told we had moved to the "paging system" and the pager would go off any minute. Both these timelines were verified on the computer at the check in desk. 10 minutes later, I march back up, feeling way less magical. And am told "oh. Seems your reservation was put on hold and never activated when you checked in". PARDON?? How were you checking times etc on the computer? "Ma'am,I didn't check you in. It's not MY fault". Sigh. She went in to check with the seating hostess, telling me it will be resolved shortly. I motioned to my family to come join me at the door. 5 more minutes ensue. A manager comes out and senses my displeasure. Poker face, not so much. She asks if everything is ok and I tell her our sad tale of woe. She then goes in to our grumpy check in hostess and the seating hostess and we are finally seated. There was a cursory apology from the mgr, but not the overwhelming customer service we had grown accustomed to at Disney. We were very disappointed. I booked this ADR as my DH is German and I thought he would enjoy the atmosphere and food. The whole experience tainted our enjoyment. They have you-no-one takes walk ups and who wants to waste a TS on QS? Adding to our angst was another restaurant with many empty tables. There was no need to keep us waiting once the problem was identified-we could have been seated immediately.

CRT (another disappointment, but for other reasons) was 20 minutes from check in to picture with Cindy.

 

[KatMark]

We have been seated within 10 minutes of every ADR we have had over the last three visits (and that includes LeCellier) with the exception of three places. We waited 30+ minutes at Whispering Canyon Cafe, Boatwright's and Hollywood & Vine. We will not go to those three places because of a combination of the service and the food.

 

[allthingsmickey]

The two I'm concerned about are Ohana at 6:50 and Park Fare at 8:10 p.m.
I'm most concerned about Park Fare. Even though I'm sure DD will be off schedule at Disney, I can't imagine her waiting until 8:45 or 9:00 p.m. to eat if there is a wait. I'll be sure to pack her some snacks. Park Fare will be our last night and we have an afternoon break built in that day, so here's hoping it works out.

I figured we might be okay since we'd likely start eating right after we're seated. The posts here are making me feel a little better. DD is used to eating around 7:00 p.m.

 

[muscarello4]

Granted it was New Year's Eve at Marakesh. We had ADRs they were PACKED. The manager said, "Well, we can't deny people wanting a table a meal".....meaning that they were taking WALK-UPS. I was ticked. I had an ADR and waited 90 minutes because they were allowing walk-ups. It was an awful experience.

We are going back to Marakesh next week and am hoping to not have a repeat performance. We'll see!

 

[adventure_woman]

The two I'm concerned about are Ohana at 6:50 and Park Fare at 8:10 p.m.
I'm most concerned about Park Fare. Even though I'm sure DD will be off schedule at Disney, I can't imagine her waiting until 8:45 or 9:00 p.m. to eat if there is a wait. I'll be sure to pack her some snacks. Park Fare will be our last night and we have an afternoon break built in that day, so here's hoping it works out.

I figured we might be okay since we'd likely start eating right after we're seated. The posts here are making me feel a little better. DD is used to eating around 7:00 p.m.

We had our Park Fare reservations for 6:00. I would say we had to wait about 30 minutes. I would try to check in early, and maybe that will help eliminate the possible wait there?

 

[MissionMouse]

We found it best to dine early when our girls were around 2yo. I wish every TS restaurant was consistent, but honestly they all have issues in maintaining ADR times. One persons experience does not translate to your possbile experience. Most popular start to have issues especially if they have gimmicks or views of Wishes, Illuminations, etc.

In essence it depends on the other guest already dining to leave the restaurant within an estimated time which is the foundation of your ADR time. This is why it is best to dine around opening times since getting you to your table is just a matter of checking-in and waiting on the hostess to escort you to your table.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

Most times, we've had minimal waiting everywhere we go when we've had ADRs. Some exceptions I can think of:

Half hour wait 1x each at Sci-Fi, Mama Melrose, and Chef Mickey's
25 minute wait 1x each at Chef Mickey's and Chefs de France
50 minute wait 1x at Chefs de France. This was in 2006, I believe. I never waited that long for that place without an ADR before that night!

Otherwise, we've usually been seated in 5-15 minutes.

 

[RMulieri]

45 mins past adr time at LTT, and 10 mins past adr time at Le Cellier

 

[summermac]

This is a good post. My family will probably eat earlier if necessary over later. My kids don't do well when they're hungry.

 

[a1tinkfans]

We have varying ADR times for our stay. We're travelling with our 2 year old and am now wondering if we should have picked earlier times since I've read people sometimes have to wait a long time after their ADR to get seated.

What are the restaurants that have the best reputation for seating close to your ADR time? What restaurants have the worst reputation for having to wait past your ADR time?

What time does the backup usually begin? 6:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m or later? We're a party of 3.

Honestly, we have only waited once more than 10-15 minutes and that was over 40 minutes While at AKL, we LEFT and were very frustrated but the wait was nuts and not worth it to us (the food court was not good choices either, but we were stuck at that point)
We havent stayed their since.
OOPs,. wanted to say that we usually make reservations at 5-5:30 so we are eating by 6, our home routine! Usually before the RUSH! Good Luck All~!

 

[catne]

we always eat dinner "early" -- between 5:00 & 6:00 p.m. as a rule. We check in at least 10 minutes before our ADRs and the longest we've ever waited was 15 minutes. With our ADRs closer to 5, seems like we rarely wait more than 5 minutes...closer to 6, and the waits are about 10 min.

Definitely the later your ADR the more backed-up the ADR waiting will be.

My favorite time is 5:30 or 5:35 at a restaurant which opens at 5:30. Usually no wait, and service is good because staff is not backed up yet either!

 

[MickeyNicki]

That really depends...usually we are seated within 10 minutes of checking in but at 1900 PF this past January it was an hour past our ADR time...Ohana (April) was 45 minutes past our ADR time, Sci Fi (last week) was 15 minutes past check in but right at our ADR time (because I complained and they never did check us in, all the other walk ins were getting seated before us!)

I guess it depends on the place and the time of year you are going. If you do the first seating you will be sat right away

 

[madalex]

I have taken three trips over the past year for a total of 21 days. Two of these trips were during very busy periods - Easter 2008 and President's Week 2009. I did TS dinner every night of these trips. Dining time was usually in the 6:30 - 7:00 range. Primarily dined at signature dining places and there were no character meals. I always arrived between 5 - 10 minuites prior to the ADR time (sometimes even earlier). At all of those meals, I was seated at or prior to the actual ADR time.