Recently Back - Got all the reservations we wanted ...

Easto

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 21, 2011
Messages
390
I have seen a bunch of threads about reservations, lack of reservations, etc.

I was one of those people frustrated, confused, curious how the heck is there no where good to eat.

This is what I found:

1. Reservations for Dining can be made 180 days out from your trip. If you want a high demand ADR book it at the 180 day mark. We confirmed out trip around the 150 day out mark and wanted:

- 'Ohana Dinner
- Crystal Palace 8:00am pre-park ADR
- Akershus 8:00 am pre-park ADR
- Be Our Guest pre-park ADR

We were unable to get any of them 150 days out.

2. If you don't cancel a dining reservation 24 hours in advance, you are charged $10/seat

3. You can book as many reservations as you want as long as they don't overlap. For example you can't have 4 different reservations for Monday at 6:00pm because you don't know which one you want, so you are holding them all.

4. Using my example as the example I was 150 days out and couldn't get what I wanted. Time went by and even 60 days or 30 days out, still nothing .... BE PATIENT and remember #2.

5. Go to Touring Plans, sign up for FREE

6. Under Walt Disney World -> Dining - Reservation Finder, you will be able to search for 2 dining reservations. Pick your restaurant, date, meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner), or time you want to dine. If you pick the time it will search 1 hour before and 1 hour after.

7. When the program finds a reservation you can receive a notice by Text Message or Email or both. When you get the notice, log onto My Disney Experience and go pick up that reservation ASAP, changes are someone else wants that same reservation and the race is on.

8. Within a couple days of your wanted reservation, manually search on My Disney Experience any time you think about it. Touring Plans runs searches every so often, it's not a non-stop search. Some may become available before Touring Plans finds it.

9. By doing the above we ended up finding Pre-park ADR at every park we went to and scored dinner at 'Ohana's twice (6:50 pm, not one of the 3:45pm pr late 9:20pm ones)

10. The closer you get to the date the more likely someone will cancel and a reservation will open up. 100+ days out no one is going to cancel. They are going to wait until it's closer to the date because they don't want to $10/person charge.

11. Especially in the last week and days before check frequently, you'll find what you're looking for (unless you have a real large group , but 2-6 people is no problem)
 
Thank you for your post. It will probably help newbies like yourself.
But it is all well known information here
Glad you got what you wished for
 
I don't see where I can join Touring Plans for free. Can you provide more info?
 

10. The closer you get to the date the more likely someone will cancel and a reservation will open up. 100+ days out no one is going to cancel. They are going to wait until it's closer to the date because they don't want to $10/person charge.

11. Especially in the last week and days before check frequently, you'll find what you're looking for (unless you have a real large group , but 2-6 people is no problem)

I feel like this is very good advice and not as present as the rest of your post in other places. Just keep looking! Just keep looking! Just keep looking! :magnify:
 
I have touring plans and had no idea it can do that for you! Thanks for the tip!
 
I just booked two Ohana ADRs (breakfast and dinner) using that website. It took about a month to get both of them but it did work! :)
 
Some people are iffy on the Touring Plans Reservation Fider. Some like it and some are so-so about it.

I used it to snag two dinner reservations at 6:50 for Ohana the week of the trip.

I could have had the same success if I search manually, but I was at Disney, having fun, and didn't want to check My Disney Experience every 20 minutes to see if it's available. Instead, my phone beeped and I had a text message that a reservation was found. I logged in to MDE and grabbed the reservation, pretty easy.

For the greatest success you can check on MDE all day long, but that would make me go crazy. The reservation finder was simple to set up and it searches for you.
 
Thank you for your post. It will probably help newbies like yourself.
But it is all well known information here
Glad you got what you wished for

I found the OP's information to be informative, with detailed instructions. I'm sure many other posters appreciate the information, and not because we are newbies.
 


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