Should Disney change ADR’s to 90 days?

[skis2]

I’m posting this question in the strategies forum because making ADR’s is often the first step in locking down your touring plan, determining which parks to visit each day.
It seems to me that in the past year or so, Disney has been trying to reduce the lead time of announcing park hours, events, fireworks and parties, often to within the 180 day mark. I’m sure there are advantages to this. The longer Disney waits to make an announcement, the more data they have from reservations, ticketing and other sources, which reduces decision making risks. It also allows them to be more flexible, to adapt and react to changes in the market and explore other revenue generating opportunities.
As a result, I’ve seen numerous posts where people are making multiple reservations for the same, most sought after, restaurants/times and holding those reservations until the schedule is sorted out. This leaves others wanting to enjoy the same experience scrambling for a reservation. Another result has been changes to third party advance planning tools. While this doesn’t affect Disney, I miss having reliable crowd calendars to help when making plans. Finally, there are issues like when Disney cancelled CRT reservations in order to host a ticked dining event in the castle. Obviously, this dinner was an idea/opportunity that Disney didn’t want to wait 6 months to implement, but that’s an issue with accepting reservations 180 days in advance.
I understand the benefit to Disney for having ADR’s 6 months in advance. What business, especially a restaurant, wouldn’t love that kind of lead time when it comes to ordering and staffing? Plus, making reservations, even if there’s no penalty to cancel, probably has an effect on stopping people from continuing to look at other vacation options.
I’m willing to plan where and when I’m going to eat 6 months before my trip. This is unlike most other vacations we take, but it’s part of the fun of booking a Disney trip. It’s just that a little help from Disney’s side would be greatly appreciated.
Disney, if you expect people to know 180 days in advance where and when they want to eat, and make a credit card guaranteed reservation, you should be releasing park hours (firm if not finalized) and event schedules prior to that date. Otherwise, open up ADR’s at 90 days, or even 60 days, and give yourself more time to make those operations decisions and make it a little easier on your customers.

 

[Spork24]

Competing for the top dining spots is already hecktic at 180 days, top spots would fill up even faster at 90 days. You can still get good reservations at 90 days out now, if you can be flexible and aren't worried about getting 1 of the 3 or 4 super tough reservations.

 

[ErinsMommy]

I would love to see ADRS open at 60 days, and FP+ at 30 days. But as we know, Disney will still change park hours a week prior, and in some cases on an shorter time span than that, so 60 days and 30 days wouldn't help much there anyway.

 

[brockash]

I’m posting this question in the strategies forum because making ADR’s is often the first step in locking down your touring plan, determining which parks to visit each day.
It seems to me that in the past year or so, Disney has been trying to reduce the lead time of announcing park hours, events, fireworks and parties, often to within the 180 day mark. I’m sure there are advantages to this. The longer Disney waits to make an announcement, the more data they have from reservations, ticketing and other sources, which reduces decision making risks. It also allows them to be more flexible, to adapt and react to changes in the market and explore other revenue generating opportunities.
As a result, I’ve seen numerous posts where people are making multiple reservations for the same, most sought after, restaurants/times and holding those reservations until the schedule is sorted out. This leaves others wanting to enjoy the same experience scrambling for a reservation. Another result has been changes to third party advance planning tools. While this doesn’t affect Disney, I miss having reliable crowd calendars to help when making plans. Finally, there are issues like when Disney cancelled CRT reservations in order to host a ticked dining event in the castle. Obviously, this dinner was an idea/opportunity that Disney didn’t want to wait 6 months to implement, but that’s an issue with accepting reservations 180 days in advance.
I understand the benefit to Disney for having ADR’s 6 months in advance. What business, especially a restaurant, wouldn’t love that kind of lead time when it comes to ordering and staffing? Plus, making reservations, even if there’s no penalty to cancel, probably has an effect on stopping people from continuing to look at other vacation options.
I’m willing to plan where and when I’m going to eat 6 months before my trip. This is unlike most other vacations we take, but it’s part of the fun of booking a Disney trip. It’s just that a little help from Disney’s side would be greatly appreciated.
Disney, if you expect people to know 180 days in advance where and when they want to eat, and make a credit card guaranteed reservation, you should be releasing park hours (firm if not finalized) and event schedules prior to that date. Otherwise, open up ADR’s at 90 days, or even 60 days, and give yourself more time to make those operations decisions and make it a little easier on your customers.

I just wish they would get their schedule done at like 190 days or something...at this point I'd take 180, but it'd be nice to have a few days to plan.

 

[Missyrose]

No chance Disney shortens the ADR window to 90 days. It wouldn't even solve the problem you're talking about, Disney hasn't been updating the hours/events until a month out, often less.

Plus, shortening the ADR window would make it much too easy for folks to add a few days at Universal. Having your resort reservation/tickets/dining reservations locked down at six months out makes it less tempting to book a night or two at Universal, unless you were planning to do that from the start of your planning.

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

It wasn't always 180 days, it's been 90 days at least one or two times.
I'd like to see them bring all these scheduling related things in line with each other.
It makes little sense to have 6 months for dining, 1-2 months for fastpasses, 15-30 days for park calendars. It makes planning more difficult.
If everything were based on a 30-60 day schedule it would be a lot easier to plan, including for people who like to make relatively last minute trips.

 

[Alesia]

They changed it to 90 days for a while back in 2008 or 2009 and it was a disaster. It was nearly impossible to get ADRs. You would call right at 7:00, wait on hold for an hour or so, and still not get what you wanted.

 

[skis2]

They changed it to 90 days for a while back in 2008 or 2009 and it was a disaster. It was nearly impossible to get ADRs. You would call right at 7:00, wait on hold for an hour or so, and still not get what you wanted.

I assumed that this had been tried in the past but couldn't find any information on it. I guess there are a lot more people with vacations booked at 90 days than 180 days. Or at least a lot more people thinking about dining reservations.

 

[LilyWDW]

Yea, they tried to move it back and it was a mess. You think things go fast now? They went like crazy at the 90 day mark and caused a lot of phone and computer issues. More people are willing and able to book ADRs at the 90 day mark then at 180... and we already know how many seem to book at 180.

 

[Confederate Scott]

I personally like the 180 days and would not like it to be lessened to 90 days. As others have commented it would be even more chaotic than it is at the 180 day mark. I would like to see Disney have the park hours set a lot earlier than they do now but we all know that won't happen. This might lessen people making multiple reservations at the same restaurant on differing nights waiting for the park hours, party days, etc.

 

[Hopefully]

I too like 180 days and do not want to see it changed back to 90 days

 

[Cinderella94]

I would hate that! I love getting to cross dining reservations off our list so early and know that we have what we want.

 

[10CJ]

Have they ever tried anything in between? Say 120 or 150 days?

I have not experienced trying to book at 90 days but I can see how that would be too close. I definitely like a little buffer between booking ADRs and FP so I can tweak things.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

I would prefer 90 days also. Not everyone can plan a week of vacation that far in advance.

I have a PAP and would love to shoot down more often but trying to get dining reservations that are not bottom of the barrel is very difficult making a trip unattractive.

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

Have they ever tried anything in between? Say 120 or 150 days?

I have not experienced trying to book at 90 days but I can see how that would be too close. I definitely like a little buffer between booking ADRs and FP so I can tweak things.

I don't think so. I think it was 90 then 180 then 90 then 180.
It doesn't follow logic that it would be harder to book at the 90 day mark than at 180. Everyone has the same advantage of booking time, regardless of the window. And as we are seeing very, very frequently on the boards, many reservations for multiple restaurants are not even loaded by the 180 window, so WDW isn't even making everything available at the opening of the booking period.

 

[BobaScott]

To be honest, as other posters have said, the planning is a big part of the fun for me. Just yesterday I was on the computer at 6am EST for the 180 day bookings, and while I did get every pretty much everything we were looking for there are definitely some less than optimal times for 1-2 reservations. I really like the hunt of checking back and finding something that fits better and grabbing it up... it's like a game for me. Last year we started planning at 84 days out and I still managed to get all the ADRs we wanted (like dinners at CRT, BoG, Ohana...) through persistence.

What I definitely agree with is the park scheduling. At least the park and extra magic hours can be checked 190 days out.. but for things like MNSSHP would be nice to know... again you can kind of figure things like this out by looking at what days the MK closes at 7pm instead of 9.

From what I have seen, you can even start planning earlier than 190 days out by just looking at the repeating trend of park/EM hours which seem to remain consistent for a few weeks at a time. The big exception here is the weeks as the seasons change, you can go from a 9pm to 7pm closing within one week (i.e. the end of Sept. to Oct.).

 

[squirrel]

I think 120 days would be perfect. I think 180 was really early when I booked years ago. Now it's even worse as the hours and stuff don't seem to be posted as far out as they use to be.

 

[10CJ]

I don't think so. I think it was 90 then 180 then 90 then 180.
It doesn't follow logic that it would be harder to book at the 90 day mark than at 180. Everyone has the same advantage of booking time, regardless of the window. And as we are seeing very, very frequently on the boards, many reservations for multiple restaurants are not even loaded by the 180 window, so WDW isn't even making everything available at the opening of the booking period.

I think you are just competing with more people at 90 days so that would make it harder. More people have trips planned at that point. I know our last trip was planned after the 180 mark. I was able to get everything I wanted so it was not a big deal for us on that trip.

 

[Nancyg56]

They changed it to 90 days for a while back in 2008 or 2009 and it was a disaster. It was nearly impossible to get ADRs. You would call right at 7:00, wait on hold for an hour or so, and still not get what you wanted.

When I first started visiting the time frame for ADR's was 90 days. I ended up booking CL in order to be sure I would be able to secure the restaurants we wanted for what had been intended to be an once and done trip.

I like 180 days. I remember the change several years back and hated it/

 

[TwoMisfits]

If they would ever change them, they should change them to industry standard which is somewhere between 14-28 days...