When booking CRT (or any of the Dinner Shows), the full payment is required at the time of booking. If you have an applicable dining plan associated with your resort reservation, this will cover that charge and only a hold will be applied. If you don't show up, your CC will be charged for the full amount of the meal.
Now, there are a couple of issues with the online system and these prepay meals, most notably that sometimes the system does not "pick up" that you have a dining plan associated with your account and will require the payment up front. If this happens, you have two options:
- If you're ok with having the money/credit tied up until you dine, you can go ahead and book. You will tell the server to charge your DDP and your CC will be refunded.
- Stop there and call the Disney Dining line to book that reservation. Their system is not susceptible to this bug and your CC will only have a "hold" placed on it.
Now, there have been a few reports of success with getting refunded before dining and after booking, but most of them are actually cancelling the original reservation and rebooking it. Sometimes (very rarely) they are able to actually process the refund without having to cancel, I wouldn't count on this though.
As far as the hold, there will be no money taken out/charged at that time (You may see a $1 one pop up for a few days though, this is to validate the card). If you don't show up, they will then charge that card the full amount of the meal. If only some of your party shows up, they will also usually charge the full amount of the meal for those who did not show.
