Reservations in July

[caroli]

Hi

I'm making some reservations for our upcoming trip. We'll be staying in Orlando from the 16th. to 27th. I reserve every thing I wanted (with the exception of Crystal Palace for super early breakfast).
Last time we were in WDW (January 2011) I really had a hard time making ADRs.
So, I thought July was a busy month so I'm really surprised.
Has something change between my 2 trips? Are people reserving with less anticipation? O are they eating more often at CS?

 

[aubriee]

Now there are quite a few restaurants that are requiring a cc guarantee (all restaurants that have a character meal at them anytime during the day, all Signature restaurants, Fantasmic pkgs, and all dinner shows). This has cut down on people double booking. Unfortunately it is also affecting people who normally book alot of character meals and Signature restaurants. They are not booking as many due to that cc guarantee requirement.

I know I'm not. I just got back from WDW May 5th-12th, and will be going back Sept 1st-8th and Oct 27th-Nov 4th. I normally do a Signature restaurant just about every night, but am not willing to give a cc guarantee for that many restaurants, so purposely booked restaurants that don't require the cc guarantee. The Signature and character meal restaurants lost a regular customer (I go to WDW 4-6 times year). For our Oct/Nov trip my husband wanted Ohana and Cape May for dinner. Since both are character meals in the mornings, dinner also requires a cc guarantee. I did book those two for him, but wasn't happy about it. For my May trip and Sept trip, I didn't book a single ADR that required a cc guarantee. Normally I would have booked at least 7 Signature restaurants for each trip. I am not a fan of very many CS restaurants, so do mainly TS restaurants down there (early TS lunch then a later TS dinner). I now just choose to dine at restaurants that don't require the cc guarantee or will take my chances as a walk up at a Signature. I have the TiW card, which of course is accepted at the Swan/Dolpin restaurants. Since they do not accept the DDP, it is easy to get an ADR at those.