Party of 3 or 4?

[DanceGirl914]

I don't understand, I can only find crappy times for dinner reservations for a party of 3 - times like 4:20 and then 7:30.
But for parties of 4 normal dinner times (well normal for us) - 5:30 - 6:00.

What will happen if I book for a party of 4 but only show up with 3.
My daughter is not going to like eating at 7:30, and 4 is way to early with my plans.

I don't want to break any rules, but this is tough!

 

[Order66]

Nothing. You'll be seated as a party of 3.

Last year I made all ADR's for 4 with the intention of my mother coming with me and my 2 kids. She was unable to come. When we arrived I gave our name and stated we were now 3. The only meal we were not seated at a table meant for 4 anyway, was O'hana....where they squeeze a 3rd chair at a table meant for 2 and we had no room for anything.

regards

 

[squirrel]

Just make sure you aren't booking a table for 4 at restaurants that charge for a no-show. They may charge you for that extra person.

 

[aubriee]

Just make sure you aren't booking a table for 4 at restaurants that charge for a no-show. They may charge you for that extra person.

No may about it. They will charge you for that extra person. We found that out the hard way at Akershus one year when I was sick that morning and sent the rest of the party on without me. I thought as long as our party showed, they wouldn't charge the no show fee, but they did charge us for the one missing person.

Otherwise showing up short shouldn't be a problem. In fact, when we were there last week almost all of our ADRs were for five people. We didn't find out until the evening before we left home that one of the couples weren't going to make it, so we were short two people for all of our ADRs (except two). When we checked in we just told them we were a party of three and two couldn't make it. It wasn't a problem anywhere.

 

[aloha517]

I was kinda wondering the same thing.. but I have 5 people and was thinking of trying my ADR's for 6 instead.. what do you think?

 

[Cafeen]

There has been an ongoing "issue" with the reservation system with regards to odd numbers of people. I've seen it personally for both 1 and 3 (three different trips), and heard of issues with 5 and 7 as well. At the recommendation of a phone CM (yeah, not always the best source, but this one worked ), I just book for 2 when I go solo and get better time slots. I think it just has to do with the system not always recognizing that a party of an odd number would take the same slot as a party of the next higher even number. (In most cases, a few extra tables along walls notwithstanding).

In regards to the no-show fee, some restaurants will charge the fee for a partial party. These seem to be the fixed price types of places (the aforementioned Akershus, and of course all the actual pre-paid ones as well, CRT and the dinner shows). Some (California Grill) may or may not, since the bill there isn't directly tied to the number of people in the party anyway.