New credit card guarantees. Restaurant list, policy & common questions in 1st post

[Mkrop]

Many people have said this & I've been meaning to ask...........how does anyone know that 3 hours is enough time for Disney? I'm not aware of how their system works.

Maybe it's only updated once or twice a day........say midnight & 12 noon or 6 a.m. in the morning or something. Everyone is assuming that as soon as an ADR is cancelled it's automatically in the system that the cancellation has been made & that table is now available.

If it is not updated immediately then that is a pretty lame system in this day and ageDoes anyone know with 100% certainty that this is the case?


I agree. Give this a chance before slamming it & playing the doom & gloom card with sick children, disabled guests, torrential downpours, etc.

People said that not having monorail transportation after parties would be a diaster before it happened...and guess what they were right. Huh imagine a big corporation like WDW making a mistakeI also agree. I think this will change dining habits of some, but I also believe those people that choose not to dine at certain restaurants will be replaced by someone else.


I'm sure what Disney will potentially lose from one family will be replaced by another.

That is a lousy way to run a business. You should never devalue your return customers, that is Business 101. Why would WDW ever make any changes then if the attitude was if Guest A doesnt like it then who cares, will just worry about Guest B. Why would other businesses offer loyalty rewards if they did not care about returning customers?

 

[Mkrop]

I think the number of people who will not do character meals because of the $10 fee is going to be very small compared to the number of people who will be thrilled they can book the meals and then keep their reservations.

Again, it is not like there are sick children all over the place at WDW. I know it happens but I think their number is being greatly exaggerated. By reading this thread you would think every time a family goes to WDW someone becomes sick. And that is highly unlikely.

And I think the exact opposite, this isnt a $10 fee per family, this is $10 fee per person!!!!! I think many families will rethink whether to book the meal or wait in line, there are plenty of threads that ask that exact question...is a character meal worth it?

And I also think there are plenty of sick kids and adults in WDW, it is basically a germfest, and people get runned down by the heat and the long hours etc. That place is a recipe for catching something. We have been several times and we have had asthma flare ups, bad enough to go back to the resort. We had one kid throw up bc dad gave him too much chocolate cake too late, but that morning we didnt know if he was sick or had eaten too much, luckily we didnt have an breakfast ADR bc we needed to be sure before we ventured out. One time my MIL bruised her rib badly in the pool and could not make dinner. My mom wound up quite sick several times on one trip, only to find out later she need a portion of her colon removed, but that wasnt discovered until months later, she just felt poorly and needed to rest but she didnt know how she was going to feel day to day.

And we are pretty healthy for the most part, so there are others that travel to WDW with many types of chronic aliments as another poster stated that could hamper how they go to the parks and/or dining.

I mean here is a honest question, can the scooters operate in the pouring rain? Or should they? I know others have said oh just throw on a poncho and go, but I ask if they run properly for that person to do that?

 

[Snurk71]

So far, 2 calls have been placed and they have different responses. Snurk was told that they could cancel by 11:59pm for the next day. The author of the articles when this first came out were told that they'd have to cancel Tuesday for Thursday.

The official policy is what's posted in the first post, coming from the internal Disney information system (aka The Hub).

The official policy says you must cancel at least a day prior - which can be interpreted in two days, one full day in between or the previous day. That's why I called and spoke with a CM and a supervisor with specific user cases (restaurants, days of the week, and meal times).

I went back and read the start of this thread and I don't see where Nala was told told the Tuesday-Thursday thing, though I only checked the first couple pages. As far as I've read, I'm the only one that's spoken with Disney. Please post link references to anyone else that has though to see if we can ferret the truth out.

 

[Cafeen]

The official policy says you must cancel at least a day prior - which can be interpreted in two days, one full day in between or the previous day. That's why I called and spoke with a CM and a supervisor with specific user cases (restaurants, days of the week, and meal times).

I went back and read the start of this thread and I don't see where Nala was told told the Tuesday-Thursday thing, though I only checked the first couple pages. As far as I've read, I'm the only one that's spoken with Disney. Please post link references to anyone else that has though to see if we can ferret the truth out.

From the Orlando Sentinel story, which was linked to several times before the mods got a handle on getting all discussion down to 1 (well, 2 including the community board) thread.

A Disney Dining receptionist explained that a full day’s notice must be given to avoid the cancellation fee. She said that, for example, a reservation made for Oct. 30 must be canceled on Oct. 28 to avoid the fee. Guests will be required to provide a credit card with reservations made on or after Oct. 26.

Original Article

As of this (my) post, there are approx. 600+ posts and 15,000+ views. WDW receives 50 million people a year. 1% of 50m is 500,000 and only 600 people (most of whom are repeats) bothered to voice their opinion on this subject.

This may be a deal-breaker for many of you, but it's "about time" for 99.9% of everyone else. Either deal with it or eat at counter service. Nobody is forcing anyone to make ADRs, so your complaints have no relevance. This is no petition or "Occupy Main Street" to be organized. The policy is going to happen. You're screaming at the wind. Before we reach unnecessary post #1217, save your breath and stop screaming. Good luck.

This is where you're wrong. Only a handful of people have expressed their opinion on it IN THIS THREAD. There is a long thread over the community boards on here doing the same thing. I'm not following that one, but I'd estimate the ratio to be about the same. This forum is also a subset of the entire DISBoards, a subforum of which most people likely don't visit (I only visit about 4 of the parent forums regularly). So, we are a subset of a subset. Lastly, those on the DISBoards are only a fraction of the planning and such discussion boards out there. Again, I'd assume a roughly equivalent ratio on those boards. So you cannot take the responses on a single thread to show that the numbers of people discussing an issue are super low. If we did that, heck it looks like only 90 or so people had ADRs at 'Ohana in September, but we all know that is FAR from the truth.*

*Source: I held the big ADR list for September, and of those that responded there were 90 'Ohana reservations made. Yes, I kept track in an Excel sheet and wrote pretty charts from it. I was bored .

Now, what we can do is use a single thread to estimate a rough ratio of those for or against. Of course, due to differences in board styles and member make up, even this must have a large potential for error. To look at raw numbers, before the poll was closed, the numbers were 52 to 33 in favor of the change. That's a very far cry from 99.9%, in fact, it's about a 60/40 split. That's pretty close in most polling and I'm sure the margin for error is high enough to make up that difference.

As far as the end bit. In other words, shut up, bend over, and like it. Gotcha. Great philosophy to have.

 

[Mkrop]

As of this (my) post, there are approx. 600+ posts and 15,000+ views. WDW receives 50 million people a year. 1% of 50m is 500,000 and only 600 people (most of whom are repeats) bothered to voice their opinion on this subject.

This may be a deal-breaker for many of you, but it's "about time" for 99.9% of everyone else. Either deal with it or eat at counter service. Nobody is forcing anyone to make ADRs, so your complaints have no relevance. This is no petition or "Occupy Main Street" to be organized. The policy is going to happen. You're screaming at the wind. Before we reach unnecessary post #1217, save your breath and stop screaming. Good luck.

what a skewed view...and an obnoxious post. Every person's opinion is relevant!!!!!!!

the DIS doesnt even scratch the surface of people who visit WDW, let alone the people on this thread being a decent representation of any opinion on either side.

Plus I think this is one of those policies that people are going to be impacted with the first time they have to cancel for any reason, they are going to be like wait what...what do you mean you are going to charge me


This wont be the first nor will it be the last time that WDW makes a policy that doesnt work, they tweak ideas or scrap them all the time. Just look how they have modified the dining plan over the years. Look at the recent monorail issues after parties. WDW is in a constant state of change like any good businees should be, and if they dont listen to their customers on issues (not this particular one necessarily) then maybe I should sell my DVC now bc my grandkids wont get to go there.

Businesses dont last if they ignore their customers.

 

[mom2rtk]

As of this (my) post, there are approx. 600+ posts and 15,000+ views. WDW receives 50 million people a year. 1% of 50m is 500,000 and only 600 people (most of whom are repeats) bothered to voice their opinion on this subject.

This may be a deal-breaker for many of you, but it's "about time" for 99.9% of everyone else. Either deal with it or eat at counter service. Nobody is forcing anyone to make ADRs, so your complaints have no relevance. This is no petition or "Occupy Main Street" to be organized. The policy is going to happen. You're screaming at the wind. Before we reach unnecessary post #1217, save your breath and stop screaming. Good luck.

Wow. What a lovely post.

You know........ the threads on the early monorail closure during hard ticketed parties were just as opinionated as this. They were full of people complaining and people telling them to suck it up..... if they didn't like it don't go..... there's someone else who would take their place..... Disney would never notice.

Last I heard that had been changed and the monorail is not running until 12:30 on party nights.

Ever heard of "New Coke"?

Sometimes it requires a uproar, but companies listen, change, fine-tune, adjust......

 

[Lewisc]

Hmmm. I wonder if Disney should consider maybe making an extra short cancellation window part of the deluxe plan?? A perk, if you will.

I'd hope not. I suspect DDP (regular and deluxe) might be part of the problem. People who have all their meals pre-paid, and are told to make ADRs are likely to book all their meals in advance--some on spec. I suspect many guests not on a plan only book meals they plan on using. Leave some meals open. I make a lot more ADRs when I'm using a meal plan.

I don't. Because if it does crash and burn, and Disney continues to lose money having empty tables, they will just add another fee in somewhere or raise prices again. A company can't continue to do something that loses them money. And letting people make ADRs and not holding them to keeping them loses Disney money.

I don't recall anything that suggested Disney is losing money on their restaurants. Empty tables suggests Disney isn't able to adequately project no-shows. I wonder if there is a pattern? Higher no-shows shortly after driving thunderstorms.?

JMO but high no shows suggests the problem is with Disney and not the guests. The system of pushing guests into making ADRs, up to 6 months in advance, for many meals inherently leads to last minute changes. The notion of planning most of your meals on a vacation like Disney probably isn't realistic.

I think the number of people who will not do character meals because of the $10 fee is going to be very small compared to the number of people who will be thrilled they can book the meals and then keep their reservations.

Again, it is not like there are sick children all over the place at WDW. I know it happens but I think their number is being greatly exaggerated. By reading this thread you would think every time a family goes to WDW someone becomes sick. And that is highly unlikely.

Disney isn't asking us to cancel Wednesday's ADR on Tuesday. Disney is asking us to cancel Wednesday's ADRs before the dining system shuts down Monday night.

I don't think it's reasonable to book more ADRs then you could possible use. The same meal at two different restaurants. Two (or three) character meals the same day if you only plan on using one of them. But I can think of many reasons why a family would change their plans the same day, or even the day before. Weather. Soaking wet. Sweaty. Smelly. Health Heat related. Stomach ache.....Vacation related Tired. Took longer then expected to tour a park. Decided to spend another day at DHS and not go to the AK.

JMO but I think a significant percentage of guests, dining plan guests who book at least one meal a day, will have at least one of those things happen to them.

I'm back...

I just wanted to encourage everyone that does not like the new day prior (it is not 24 hour - I want to keep pointing that out for folks that may have missed it) cancellation policy to voice your concerns to Disney. Despite some that say it's Disney's policy and they know best, good companies listen to their customers and react accordingly.

.

Thanks for the information. The policy gives Disney at least a full calendar day to rebook the ADR. The policy helps Disney but is even more guest unfriendly then we first thought.

Instead of grabbing money from guests who need/want to change their dining plans Disney needs to come up with a way to let guests in the park know there are dining "slots" available.

I think Disney should be holding back a % for walk ups. This would accommodate some guests who don't want to plan 180 days in advance. More importantly it should result in a pool of "standby" diners.

Maxiesmom suggests letting DlxDDP make a last minute cancellation. I'd reverse it. Consider letting those guests make a last minute reservation, possibly out of the walk up pool.

I wouldn't mind a fine tune to the plan, but for a while it has been obvious that Disney needs to do something. I have been in restaurants where I have struggled to get an ADR, only to have empty tables all over the place. The Crystal Palace being the first one that pops to mind. So they do need to do something. They can't continue to rely on guest's honor when so many don't understand the concept.

A guest who doesn't show up for an ADR isn't dishonorable. A parent who wakes up and finds his kids are so tired the want to skip rope drop, and breakfast at CP, doesn't lack "honor". Sounds like Disney is having problem projecting the number of "no-shows" and/or finding diners to fill those "slots". That's the problem. Not the guests.

 

[maxiesmom]

Wow. What a lovely post.

You know........ the threads on the early monorail closure during hard ticketed parties were just as opinionated as this. They were full of people complaining and people telling them to suck it up..... if they didn't like it don't go..... there's someone else who would take their place..... Disney would never notice.

Last I heard that had been changed and the monorail is not running until 12:30 on party nights.

Ever heard of "New Coke"?

Sometimes it requires a uproar, but companies listen, change, fine-tune, adjust......

But as of yet we don't know if uproar on the Dis will turn into an uproar in real life. As this is a policy that was already partially in place I don't think the impact will be as noticable. But we will all see.

I wouldn't mind a fine tune to the plan, but for a while it has been obvious that Disney needs to do something. I have been in restaurants where I have struggled to get an ADR, only to have empty tables all over the place. The Crystal Palace being the first one that pops to mind. So they do need to do something. They can't continue to rely on guest's honor when so many don't understand the concept.

 

[mom2rtk]

But as of yet we don't know if uproar on the Dis will turn into an uproar in real life. As this is a policy that was already partially in place I don't think the impact will be as noticable. But we will all see.

I wouldn't mind a fine tune to the plan, but for a while it has been obvious that Disney needs to do something. I have been in restaurants where I have struggled to get an ADR, only to have empty tables all over the place. The Crystal Palace being the first one that pops to mind. So they do need to do something. They can't continue to rely on guest's honor when so many don't understand the concept.

Sure. But not knowing if it will make any difference is no reason to stifle discussion and just shut up and take it (as the prior poster proposed). I'm pretty sure Coke fans didn't know if their uproar would make a difference either. And that product was already IN STORES.

FWIW..... I think it had to come to this. (And for the same reason, Disney will probably eventually move to no photography at all on rides because of the bad apple flashers.) But it really DOES need some tweaking.

The bottom line though is that Disney wants MORE people in the parks, not less. And so there will be even more people chasing a finite number of ADR's. Sure, they are adding one more TS option in the Fantasyland expansion, but my understanding is that it will only be a TS option one meal per day. So not a huge help.

The marketing folks at Disney won't be happy until the parks are near capacity year-round. It's already vastly different (crowd-wise) than it was even 2 or 3 years ago. So bottom line is that while this change was probably necessary (although needs tweaking) it won't solve the problem, only mildly mitigate it.

 

[mommyof3princess27]

I am sorry but when I went last October, CM was completely booked! I tried to get an additional ADR-and couldnt. When we got there is was more than half empty. THat being said, there are alot of ppl who book 2 or 3 ADR's just for the sake of "I dont know where we wanna eat in 6 months" and to me thats not fair for the ppl that do know what ADR they want and cant get it so yes the $10pp fee does sound fair but in a case like mine where Im gonna make a ressier for 15 ppl and 14 ppl will show up with ot w/o the 15th still charging $10 for the elderly grandmother that may not be able to make it after going in the MK all day? No thats not fair. But what can you do. Yes every persons opinion does mean something but the question is-will anything change? Probably not because Disney knows ppl cancel all the time and the bottom line (just like the lack of PIN codes) is the all mighty dollar.

 

[Mkrop]

I am sorry but when I went last October, CM was completely booked! I tried to get an additional ADR-and couldnt. When we got there is was more than half empty. THat being said, there are alot of ppl who book 2 or 3 ADR's just for the sake of "I dont know where we wanna eat in 6 months" and to me thats not fair for the ppl that do know what ADR they want and cant get it so yes the $10pp fee does sound fair but in a case like mine where Im gonna make a ressier for 15 ppl and 14 ppl will show up with ot w/o the 15th still charging $10 for the elderly grandmother that may not be able to make it after going in the MK all day? No thats not fair. But what can you do. Yes every persons opinion does mean something but the question is-will anything change? Probably not because Disney knows ppl cancel all the time and the bottom line (just like the lack of PIN codes) is the all mighty dollar.

Lack of pin codes would happen because WDW can fill those rooms with other means.




I really think the lack of technology at play here is sad. In this day and age, if WDW charged for true no shows only fine, if they allow cancellations even up to dining time, they could certainly get the word out via Dining boards throughout the park, Twitter, or Facebook. You could give your favorite restaurant your number and they could text you (like they do when your room is ready) to see if you would like that walkup or a time later in the day.


Also to the poster who said we should never complain, what about poor Mousekeeping, should we just suck that up too and never say anything to the resort or WDW management, should we just live with the dust and dirty bathrooms.

 

[mom2rtk]

Also to the poster who said we should never complain, what about poor Mousekeeping, should we just suck that up too and never say anything to the resort or WDW management, should we just live with the dust and dirty bathrooms.

That's correct! Apparently you shouldn't complain...... because if you aren't staying in that dirty room, there would be a ton of other people just waiting to take your place.........

 

[Colleen27]

That is a lousy way to run a business. You should never devalue your return customers, that is Business 101. Why would WDW ever make any changes then if the attitude was if Guest A doesnt like it then who cares, will just worry about Guest B. Why would other businesses offer loyalty rewards if they did not care about returning customers?

They key word there being OTHER businesses. Disney has done several things at Disney World that seem to offer a glimpse of a business philosophy based on the idea that going to WDW is such a rite of passage for American childhood that there will be an endless supply of first-timers more than happy to replace any repeat guests alienated by things like declining service, rapidly increasing prices, shoddy merchandise, etc. I'd put this policy squarely in that category as well - if Disney truly intends to fine a family $40+ for a kid being too sick or tired to make it to a dinner reservation they're obviously banking on not needing those families' repeat business.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

I am sorry but when I went last October, CM was completely booked! I tried to get an additional ADR-and couldnt. When we got there is was more than half empty.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that on our last visit, we waited over an hour past our ADR time twice.

The worst offense was when we waited over an hour past our ADR. It was supposed to be around 7pm and ended up being after 8pm. Eight is pretty late. WE were very patient. We had a large party, and I understand that they only have so many tables. We had checked in early, made one inquiry half an hour past our ADR time - and at that time stated we'd be fine with being split up.

THEN we saw a party the same size as our, that we KNEW had arrived after us - getting seated. There was simply NO EXCUSE for that. That's when we said, "Hey, that's not right!" We were polite, but firm.

Finally they squeezed us into a table two seats too small! We were SURROUNDED by empty tables, many of which were big enought for our party, or bigger, and there were several spots where two side by side tables empty.

The explanation we got was that we had been slated to sit at a PARTICULAR table, and those guests had not vacated.

But what I still can't get past is how mucked up their system is.

 

[mom2rtk]

You know, there's no way to know that empty tables are always because of no shows. It is ENTIRELY possible it's a staffing issue. This IS a company that has gone through huge layoffs in recent years.

 

[maxiesmom]

You know, there's no way to know that empty tables are always because of no shows. It is ENTIRELY possible it's a staffing issue. This IS a company that has gone through huge layoffs in recent years.

Yeah, but they are not totally stupid. When they decide they don't want to pay people to be in costume, they just stop doing character meals. The Liberty Tree Tavern and lunch in the Land pavillion being examples of that. They wouldn't just limit the number of guests they want to serve. Having to pay one or two more servers is a pittance compared to what they make filling the tables. They already have everyone still there--hostess, characters, bus people. Cutting just a couple of people off of wait staff wouldn't save them much at all.

 

[mom2rtk]

Yeah, but they are not totally stupid. When they decide they don't want to pay people to be in costume, they just stop doing character meals. The Liberty Tree Tavern and lunch in the Land pavillion being examples of that. They wouldn't just limit the number of guests they want to serve. Having to pay one or two more servers is a pittance compared to what they make filling the tables. They already have everyone still there--hostess, characters, bus people. Cutting just a couple of people off of wait staff wouldn't save them much at all.

Yes, and it was a dumb idea to start hard ticketed party season expecting to close the parks with no monorail. Even big smart companies do dumb things.

Maybe they tried to get by with the minimum possible staff and got caught with their pants down. Maybe there was a stomach flu going around the staff and a bunch of people were sick with no backups. Lots of possible maybes.

 

[Snurk71]

From the Orlando Sentinel story, which was linked to several times before the mods got a handle on getting all discussion down to 1 (well, 2 including the community board) thread.



Original Article

Thanks for the link. I read the story and wasn't impressed with the loose/general terminology thrown around compared to the very exact and precise cases I called Dining with. So I continued my experiment this morning with more calls to Dining...

First CM I spoke with was adamant that "day before" meant 24 hours. I asked if she was sure about that - that I thought it had changed. She wasn't really interested in punching in any exact/precise situations and didn't look anything up. So my takeaway was that was that CM's belief/understanding.

So I dial back for another CM and go through both the one day and two day cancellation policies. This CM actually takes the time to look up the actual policy, as well as punch in different situations for me. This CM comes back with my previous finding that a one day cancellation restaurant (all these new ones) will receive a cancelation fee if they are cancelled the same day as the reservation, but will not have a fee if canceled any time before that day. We plugged in CRT (it is currently a one day cancellation restaurant) and the CM confirmed that if I had an 8:00 AM ADR on Wednesday that I could call and cancel that ADR at 9:00 PM Tuesday and not receive a penalty (less than 24 hours).

We went through an example with a 2 day policy restaurant too - you will receive the fee if canceled either the day of or the day prior to the ADR (not 48 hours).

I'll continue my CM experiment as the day goes along to see who will actually look things up or ask a supervisor for clarification. With my experience/knowledge of the dining system and the CMs, I'm still leaning towards that the cancellation policy is not 24 or 48 hours - but determined by the calendar day instead. Not that Disney's systems are great, but think about the logistics of determining fees based on 24 hours instead of calendar days. Yes it can be programatically done, but it would be wrought with potential problems (measuring all of the times on the 5 minute increment - way easier administratively to do it by the calendar day).

 

[NLD]

FWIW..... I think it had to come to this. (And for the same reason, Disney will probably eventually move to no photography at all on rides because of the bad apple flashers.)

Bite your tongue! ! ! !

If they ban all photography on all rides PLUS I have this fee-worry for all character and signature meals, it will have reached a tipping point for me.

 

[mcd2745]

You know, there's no way to know that empty tables are always because of no shows. It is ENTIRELY possible it's a staffing issue. This IS a company that has gone through huge layoffs in recent years.

I have a real hard time believing empty tables are a result of staffing issues. They know months in advanced that a restaurant is (over)booked to capacity. Why would they not have enough CMs scheduled to be working? I believe 100% it has to do with no-shows.