Reservations harder to come by

[DavidNYC]

Just tried to make a few dining reservations for either Boma, Crystal Palace, or California Grill for December 14-16. No availability throughout the evening. Are reservations getting harder to come by? A few years ago I was getting wide open reservations (at off peak season) usually a few weeks before a trip. Now it seems things are booked so much further in advance . . .

Has anyone tried just showing up and seeing if restaurants are able to accomodate you? Since we're doing a short trip - if we can't get what we want, we'll just do some counter service restaurants so wehave more time for the parks but for those that have tried it, how successful are you at showing up and getting seated?

 

[VAN]

Oh boy, I can see you haven't been following along .... yes, reservations are harder to come by. Free dining has been offered this fall into December and many of the people going have been online and/or on the phone at exactly 90 days out. The time period will be going back to 180 days soon.

Yes, if you have a specific restaurant you want to go to, such as Le Cellier, you may be out of luck this trip ... just be flexible and keep trying. I'd book ANYTHING at this point and then keep trying to adjust if something becomes available.

By everything I've read, you will not have any luck walking up to a sold-out restaurant and asking to be seated. They will just turn you away.

Get on the phone now and book SOMETHING!!

 

[DavidNYC]

LOL - one of these days I'm going to have the luxury of actually planning a trip more than 90 days out and I'm going to grab everything I can!!!!

Since we only get a 2 day trip this time - I think we'll give a shot at walking up and if not, just do counter service and snacks. Since we're there a short time, we're not going to waste time sitting in a restaurant unless it's one we really want to do!

Next year we might do a trip with our newborn twins for a whole week so we'll be looking for a lot more opportunities to sit down and take it slow unlike the trips we've taken the last 10 years where we've been Disney commandos!

 

[IMGONNABE40!]

Cal Grill charges a cancellation fee, so you may have some success if you keep trying for that one. I have found that things open up a bit about 45 days prior to travel when people who have booked packages have to pay up or cancel. I think this is especially true for the places that charge a penalty for no shows.

Good luck.

 

[RMulieri]

With the popularity of the dining plan in general, ADRS at the 90 day mark,The 4/3 and the Free Dining promotion.December DIning is pretty booked. I had an awful time at my 90 day mark which was Sept 13th..

 

[MickeyNicki]

The last three trips we took were very last minute ones and everything was always booked but we did alot of walk ups and were never turned away....but we are just 2 people so we might have been squeezed in.

We cancelled our trip from Dec 14-17 to Nov 18-22...I will say there are a ton of restaurant openings for the Nov dates so maybe DH messing me up was a blessing, less crowds?