Reducing # people on an ADR

[Old Man Goofy Runner]

Because we had to make ADR's so far in advance to get anything reasonable during the week between Xmas and NYE we made certain assumptions about who among the family would be available. Things change so we have too many people on a couple of them. Can we just show up with fewer people, does that impact our wait time? What if we have an extra person at another ADR, I assume we wind up waiting as if we were just walking up without an adR?

Thanks
Mike

 

[krc99080]

Because we had to make ADR's so far in advance to get anything reasonable during the week between Xmas and NYE we made certain assumptions about who among the family would be available. Things change so we have too many people on a couple of them. Can we just show up with fewer people, does that impact our wait time? What if we have an extra person at another ADR, I assume we wind up waiting as if we were just walking up without an adR?

Thanks
Mike

While I can't answer the second question I do know that it's no problem to arrive with fewer people than your reservation says. I had this happen last year and they didn't say anything about someone missing from the reservation, just put us on the list to be seated. I think this was at Ohana and we had a bit of a wait, but I don't believe that's unusual for Ohana at all.

 

[Micca]

We have had something similar happen with our group, it was not a problem.

 

[MichelleB]

Adding a person will be very unlikely during that time of year. I was in the same boat and called....they said less people is fine but they obviously prefer to know ahead of time so they can possibly add in another reservation for the lost seats.

 

[Alesia]

As long as it's not a pre-paid reservation, you're fine.

 

[Polydweller]

The real limitation for restaurants is the maximum occupancy rating and that is set by the fire codes. Restaurants will not exceed that number because the consequences are high if they do.

That's why it's easier to reduce the number of your guests. You show up with fewer and the restaurant has no concerns that they will go over maximum occupancy. The opposite is true if you show up with an extra.

The extra may push them over the maximum and then they will turn the extra person away. There are numerous reports of that happening at Disney where many restaurants operate at or near capacity regularly. This will be especially true between Christmas and New Years. It is likely that the extra person will be turned away at that time of year. The best strategy is to finalize numbers for each ADR and then adjust your ADRs accordingly.