Possible issue with ADR when attending with employee?

[Teloria]

Hi everyone! I for the life of me cannot find the correct set of search terms to find where someone else asked a question similar enough to this, so if it's common and I'm just not describing it well, please bear with me.

My family (2 adults & 1 child) are planning our first trip to WDW. We have selected our resort (split stay at Poly / AK Lodge in February 2022) and we are getting close to that all important time to book dining reservations & experiences. I've learned a lot by reading here, but our plans are complicated by two people who are not part of our resort reservation:

Adult relative #1, who is an employee and has passes, but cannot make theme park reservations far enough in advance for us to use them to book advance dining with her in our party;
Adult relative #2, who is a Florida resident, and who plans to acquire a Sorcerer Pass before our Advance dining reservations open (but has not yet, and has never had an annual pass).

So, my problem with Adult Relative #1 is, how do I make dining reservations for parks that she cannot reserve but CAN enter on any day except old Silver Pass blackout days? Do we need to buy her a ticket just to make the reservation, or is there something I'm missing? She's a newer employee and employed for a subsidiary of sorts, so she's not super familiar with her benefits in terms of park attendance.

Since I'm on the topic, are there any "gotchas" for Adult Relative #2 that I'm not seeing, based on the above scenario?


Thanks so much for everyone's helpful information that I've read so far - I wouldn't have gotten this far without the board!

 

[GBRforWDW]

Hi everyone! I for the life of me cannot find the correct set of search terms to find where someone else asked a question similar enough to this, so if it's common and I'm just not describing it well, please bear with me.

My family (2 adults & 1 child) are planning our first trip to WDW. We have selected our resort (split stay at Poly / AK Lodge in February 2022) and we are getting close to that all important time to book dining reservations & experiences. I've learned a lot by reading here, but our plans are complicated by two people who are not part of our resort reservation:

Adult relative #1, who is an employee and has passes, but cannot make theme park reservations far enough in advance for us to use them to book advance dining with her in our party;
Adult relative #2, who is a Florida resident, and who plans to acquire a Sorcerer Pass before our Advance dining reservations open (but has not yet, and has never had an annual pass).

So, my problem with Adult Relative #1 is, how do I make dining reservations for parks that she cannot reserve but CAN enter on any day except old Silver Pass blackout days? Do we need to buy her a ticket just to make the reservation, or is there something I'm missing? She's a newer employee and employed for a subsidiary of sorts, so she's not super familiar with her benefits in terms of park attendance.

Since I'm on the topic, are there any "gotchas" for Adult Relative #2 that I'm not seeing, based on the above scenario?


Thanks so much for everyone's helpful information that I've read so far - I wouldn't have gotten this far without the board!

ADRs are not tied to park reservations in any way, but rather resort stay. Since you have a resort stay, you can book at your 60+ day for however many people you want. Just find reservations for a group of 5 or 6, sometimes the system doesn't like odd groups.

Your other problem will be having a split stay. You will have two 60+ booking days, as again tied to hotel stay. Each one you can book through the end of the day on your checkout day starting at 60 days before your check-in day.

Good luck getting all your ADRs and enjoy your trip!

 

[Teloria]

Thank goodness I asked. I somewhere got confused along the way, and thought that I had to have a valid park reservation on the day I wanted to book the experience or dining reservation, for each party member who would be dining with us. So that is not the case?

 

[GBRforWDW]

Thank goodness I asked. I somewhere got confused along the way, and thought that I had to have a valid park reservation on the day I wanted to book the experience or dining reservation, for each party member who would be dining with us. So that is not the case?

That's correct. It's definitely confusing lol. I actually have several ADRs for Christmas week without having tickets or park reservations. We just started planning this week, so after the 60 day window opened, but wanted to figure out a few dining plans before getting tickets.

 

[Teloria]

Oh, so the risk I run, is managing to book dining on a day where park reservations fill up before my entire party can actually make a park reservation. That is probably where I made the mixup in my head and convinced myself that I needed to lock in park passes first.

Thanks again, I have been holding onto this bad information in my head for WEEKS and have been spinning my wheels due to it!

 

[GBRforWDW]

Yes, that would be the biggest issue. If you're going before Presidents weekend, probably won't be an issue. That weekend or later has a mixture of busy days, but should have plenty of time before days start selling out of park passes.

 

[Teloria]

Yeah we're going the week of the 12th, so I'm mostly only worried about Valentine's day weekend impacting things, and that will probably impact Epcot more than the other parks if I had to GUESS.