Is it getting harder to book 180 days out?

[ChvGator]

I'm worried about our party size. We have 5 for the first three nights and about 10 over the weekend. My 180 day is tomorrow, and I'm prepped to get up before six to log on and get ressies, but fear that I won't get my two most coveted ones (California Grill and BOG). But, I'll make what I can (I have backup plans) and see if I can snag one of those hard to get places at the 90 day mark if tomorrow doesn't work out.

My 180+5 was this morning. We've previously gone during free dining, but I found this one more challenging than last. I got most of what I wanted, but not necessarily the days and times I sought. CRT was tough. Couldn't find much, but snagged something by continuing to check throughout the day.

I wasn't looking for akershus, but that seems like a difficult one to get. Perhaps they are holding some back for candlelight processional packages or something else?

There were a lot of options for Cali grill. I was shut out of BOG. The last day of my trip is the second. Earlier in the day there was availability for lunch on the third. So start toward the end of your trip if you are aiming for that.

 

[Hikergirl]

I booked way past 180 days during a free dining period and got what I wanted.

 

[hollygolitely93]

js...your choices sound wonderful and I'm sure you will have great luck!

For getting ready I was signed into the website; had the dining page up; date and time selected. hit the search button to test it out a few times and keep refreshed. Had my clock set to the military time Disney sets there's too and hit SEARCH at 5:59 and at 6:00 I saw my first set of choices for MK...no BOG for dinner but had CRT open at the time I shared so I could secure that.

Meanwhile as I was securing CRT I had the app going on my iPhone searching for BOG dinner another day and then ended up getting the BOG breakfast.

I don't see anything terribly concerning on your list so I am confident you'll be great!

 

[rosiebean]

My 180+5 was this morning. We've previously gone during free dining, but I found this one more challenging than last. I got most of what I wanted, but not necessarily the days and times I sought. CRT was tough. Couldn't find much, but snagged something by continuing to check throughout the day.

I wasn't looking for akershus, but that seems like a difficult one to get. Perhaps they are holding some back for candlelight processional packages or something else?

There were a lot of options for Cali grill. I was shut out of BOG. The last day of my trip is the second. Earlier in the day there was availability for lunch on the third. So start toward the end of your trip if you are aiming for that.

Thanks! I was hoping for BOG dinner the second night of our stay (we'd rather do dinner, and there are three MVMCPs during our trip, which makes that difficult). I have a whole word doc color coded (LOL) and have added an end of stay option for a BOG dinner just in case. The hardest part is the size of our party, but we are prepared with other options in case it doesn't work out! Plus, I'm prepared to keep watching for openings. It helps that we're somewhat flexible with days and very flexible about times...we've had late late LATE reservations at places before, but snagged them because we really really REALLY wanted them .

Here's hoping this isn't me tomorrow morning and this one is me instead .

 

[DisneyHardin]

My 180 mark was yesterday. I was able to get three of the ones I really wanted; Grand Floridian Café, Yak & Yeti (never ate here) and The Boathouse (never ate here). I wanted Rose & Crown but settled for Biergarten. I'm going to keep trying for Be Our Guest. I've been trying here for years; since it opened. Someone told me to be patient and try closer to our trip as there will be cancellations.

Keep checking for Rose and Crown. I had the exact same experience as you last year. I thought it was so weird that there were no R&C ADRs for our entire trip. For some reason, they hadn't opened at the 180. About 4 days later, there were tons of ADRs available for it.

 

[WeluvthePeterPanRide]

My family of 6 are staying at the Swan during Free Dining, the last week of November. So far, I can not get any of the most desired restaurants during standard meal times. There is availability at Crystal Palace at say 2:30 pm or Chef Mickey at 9:20 pm. I really only wanted two sit down meals one at Grarden Grill and the other Tusker House (but not at off hours). I'm not sure I can get them. Darn Free Dining and 180 day + 10! Sucks to be off site during this time. I booked my trip before free dining was offered and I was so hoping it wouldn't be offered for this reason....

 

[SouthernBuckeye]

I booked for free dining this week and got everything I wanted, some later times than I preferred. So I agree it's still not too hard.

But another thing that is making finding reservations more difficult is that people are reserving lots of extra reservations in case they need to rearrange their plans because final park hours/show times aren't released yet. I've seen many people post they've booked O'hana or Be Our Guest multiple times so that they have options. It's hard to make plans 180 out without this information.
I didn't do that, but I did book some extra meals that I think we might want and I might not be able to get later. The good news is that many things should open up as people get closer to their travel dates.

 

[revdon64]

In booking ADRs for our last trip I found that in order to get the harder to book ressies like BoG I had to book them in the last few days of our ten day itinerary. The tough ones were unavailable at the beginning of our trip as others whose booking windows opened in the previous ten days had already grabbed them up. So if you're trying for the tougher ones like CRT, BoG, Ohana then look at the last few days of your trip. Also makes those a nice treat in your last few days too.

 

[Parker Clan]

We've never once had an issue, we always get the ADR's we want but we go in August. From what I'm reading the issues happen during free dining and more popular times.
The only issue we had is not being able to book online, we had to call. And even then, the Disney Dining site crashed and we had to call back to rebook a few hours later. Still we got all the times/restaurants we wanted.

 

[AFwifelife]

I've never booked 180 days out because we don't have the luxury to make plans that far in advance (DH is in the military). I've been able to get pretty much everything at one time or another. I've actually been able to get most of our ADRs just a few weeks out when people really start finalizing plans and realizing they don't want the ADRs anymore. It is toughest during free dining though. Our next trip is for the Fourth of July and I'm blown away by the availability right now.

 

[Tink loves Olaf 64]

We made reservations at the 180 mark (for a trip late Aug/early Sept) and were able to get decent times for Ohanas, Teppan Edo, Sci Fi and Grand Floridian Cafe for dinners as well as Tusker House and Whispering Canyons for breakfasts. We also were able to get a lunch reservation at BOG no problem. We made the dining reservations prior to booking a vacation package as we were waiting for the free dining promotion. Once free dining was announced, we booked and linked the dining reservation and all is set.

 

[Masonmj84]

In booking ADRs for our last trip I found that in order to get the harder to book ressies like BoG I had to book them in the last few days of our ten day itinerary. The tough ones were unavailable at the beginning of our trip as others whose booking windows opened in the previous ten days had already grabbed them up. So if you're trying for the tougher ones like CRT, BoG, Ohana then look at the last few days of your trip. Also makes those a nice treat in your last few days too.

This is good advice if you're only planning on doing a few hard to get ADRs and are flexible enough to wait to do them until the end of your stay.

But what if you're on a DxDP type of trip where you're planning on a lot of hard to get reservations throughout your trip?

To complicate things even more, imagine you're planning a split stay trip with DxDP style dining where you're planning to spend the first 4 nights at a MK resort and the next 4 nights at an EP resort. To minimize travel, you'd like to have all of your MK area ADRs in the first half of your trip and all of your EP area ADRs on the second half of your trip. Disney will only let you make ADRs for each leg of the trip when you hit the 180 mark for each resort. Under this scenario, you might be locked out of some popular ADRs for both legs of the trip (especially during a free dining period).

One solution would posibly be to intially book the first leg of your trip to extend over the entire trip for the sake of making ADRs, then once you've made them, cancel/shorten the first reservation and then add the second reservation. But then you run the risk of not getting your desired resort (or room type) for the second leg (for example, certain resorts are sometimes completely booked six months out). And you still might not get all of your ADRs for the first leg.

Of course, you can always resign yourself to the fact that you might just not get all of your desired ADRs at your 180 day mark(s). But I personally hate having to check the site every day hoping for cancellations. Too stressful and time consuming.

I can think of a couple of ways to possibly get around this problem but they're somewhat complicated and I'm not 100% certain they will work (that being said, I do think they potentially save more time and stress than continually having to watch for cancellations, they just require more upfront expense and planning).

 

[Crystal824]

I've never had issues booking 180 days and getting what I wanted until this trip. For our November trip, we were unable to get 'Ohana on our second day for the time we wanted (which was basically any reasonable dinner time). There was a reservation available for 9:30 p.m. While I would be ok with that, it would not be ok for my kids. We were able to get 'Ohana later in the trip, but, of course, we had to do some rearranging of the schedule to make it work. We got everything else we wanted basically around the time we wanted.

 

[WRLeGrand]

We booked this past Sunday morning and were able to get everything we wanted, included BoG. My wife did a good job of planning it all out and she did put some of the harder to obtain ones towards the end. With that said, we did get Ohana on our 3rd night for dinner, during the Christmas party night.

It does seem like it has been really difficult with the crowds, free dining, and the system issues that have been popping up...

 

[celina14]

My 180 day was Monday and is the start of FD and I had no trouble. I wasn't able to get BOG dinner on the night I wanted (would have been Day 4) but got it later in the week. I was able to get PPO BOG, PPO Akershus, CRT, Ohana Bfast and Dinner, H&V Fantasmic (slightly earlier than I'd hoped), BOG dinner, Coral Reef (although slightly earlier than I had hoped). All of our dinners are normal dinner times (between 5-6:30) for the most part. I was happy with what I could get.

 

[mkla2015]

We usually go in March and I've never had problems getting what we wanted (even during spring break)... this year I was changing ADRs and moving things around right up until our trip- we decided to try Morimoto at the last minute- like 2 weeks before our trip and could not get a reservation through Disney (but did get one through open table) but no problems getting any others including BOG, CRT, prepark CP, and Tusker House.

 

[srauseo]

My 180 day was Monday and I was able to get almost everything. Could not get Chef Mickey's on arrival night. Could not get a table for seven for dinner at CRT so opted for a table for five at 4:20pm. This will probably be fine. We have a PPO breakfast that day and the toddler probably wouldn't like the fancy dinner anyway. Was able to book PPO breakfast at BOG and Akershus. Also, Boma, Sci-Fi, T-Rex, Beaches & Cream, and Biergarten. Booked a breakfast at Chef Mickey's on our departure day. Will probably cancel it if I can wrangle a dinner arrival night. Will post on the November cancellation thread if so.

 

[Orangeman98]

My family of 6 are staying at the Swan during Free Dining, the last week of November. So far, I can not get any of the most desired restaurants during standard meal times. There is availability at Crystal Palace at say 2:30 pm or Chef Mickey at 9:20 pm. I really only wanted two sit down meals one at Grarden Grill and the other Tusker House (but not at off hours). I'm not sure I can get them. Darn Free Dining and 180 day + 10! Sucks to be off site during this time. I booked my trip before free dining was offered and I was so hoping it wouldn't be offered for this reason....

I'm in the same boat: we are staying the week after Thanksgiving (well, 4-5 days), and I had little luck with my ADRs. Free Dinning ends Nov.28 and doesn't start again until Dec. 10, so I was surprised that on my 180 day mark at 6AM, I couldn't land an early Crystal Palace or Ohana dinner 2 days after the last day for November Free Dinning). I'm now having to resort to plan B and C to obtain those hard to get ressies.

 

[addiln]

The last few trips we have made I have not had any issues booking at the 180 day point. I guess it really depends on what you are looking for and how many are in your party.

 

[Masonmj84]

Our next planned trip is not until late March, and while we're not planning to do BOG, we are planning on several very popular ADRs.

The ones I'm most worried about are:

CRT pre-park opening breakfast
Crystal Palace pre-park opening breakfast
'Ohana early dinner (preferably between 5 and 6 pm)
Chef Mickey's breakfast (we're flexible about the time on this one)
Tusker House pre-park opening breakfast
Cape May pre-park opening breakfast

On past trips (including during fall free dining), I've had no problems getting any of these at my desired times for dates early in our trip, and usually still see a lot of availability at the 180 day mark (i.e., we would have been able to book most of them without staying on property and having 180+10 privileges).

For the past several days, however, I've been checking the site out of curiosity's sake and am seeing virtually no availability for any of these restaurants at any of the above times.

Even though there will likely not be free dining offered for late March, it's the middle of spring break season. So I'm not super optimistic that I'm just going to be able to log on at my 180 day mark and get everything I want at the times I want, as I have done in the past.