Should Disney get rid of Reservations or find ways to improve them?

[ChasingLeslie]

Disney should start charging a deposit per reservation, not just using a credit card to hold the reservation. That would vastly reduce the multiple reservations that people make for one time frame.

No, No, NOOOOO!

Many people make and change reservations as their plans change (especially when FPs are booked). It would be very unfair of Disney to collect a fee every time someone moved their ADRs around!

 

[Art 1]

What do you think? Should they go back to first come and then serve or improve the system or try out call ahead.

Go back to first come first serve and get rid of fast pass.

 

[nilla]

No, No, NOOOOO!

Many people make and change reservations as their plans change (especially when FPs are booked). It would be very unfair of Disney to collect a fee every time someone moved their ADRs around!

Agreed! A kitchen fire pushed our Raglan Road ADRs back several hours in June. We decided to drop them, which left us with an extra DDP credit. We used to that change 1900 Park Fare to Narcoossee's. I would have hated to be charged because of a fire.

 

[Ginya]

I booked at the 180 day mark. From my original booking then for our entire trip I only have two of those ADRs still and they are for Christmas day. I was able to get almost everything we wanted by checking a few times a day. There were only two restaurants I wanted that I did not get and those were Ohana and CRT. I did see openings for them however, just not at the times I wanted. I also had wanted LTT for Christmas but it is still closed and in all honesty, I like what I have now anyways. I have the "popular" places like Chef Mickeys and 1900 Park fare and the Minnie Holiday dine and a handful of Signatures tossed in as well. Honestly, for all the hype and worry I got from these boards looking over it all, I did well and am happy with what we have and I was booking for 6 people. We are here Christmas week the busiest time of the year too. We have Deluxe plan so I was booking two TS a day. We don't do Breakfast TS as too hard to know when everyone is going to be ready to go each morning. My opinion is, that with patience you can get what you want for the most part from the 180 days to when you are actually there. (We have done walk up at Teppan Edo before.) I think people are just getting over stressed with the whole if my kid doesn't get to eat in the castle our entire magical trip will be ruined. I think the system works.

 

[wdw4rfam]

I agree. I know that it is not perfect but it works. If I had to scramble for meals during a vacation, I would not go.

Agree. I put my time in from home and know when I leave next month that we are going to eat everywhere we want to. There is no way that I would pay as much as I just did for this trip, not knowing if we would be able to eat where we wanted or spend all my vacation time waiting for a table, not knowing if I would actually get it. as much as I hate all this pre- planning, as crowded as the parks are getting, I would not go back if they got rid of them.

 

[wdw4rfam]

Shorten the 6 month booking time. Way too much time is wasted checking for reservations over a 6 month period. more importantly, Disney should start charging a deposit per reservation, not just using a credit card to hold the reservation. That would vastly reduce the multiple reservations that people make for one time frame.

I don't agree with shortening the time frame, it would make the system crash worse than now, because more people would be on right when it opened up. But I like the deposit thing. You have to tip,anyways even if you are on the dining plan. So the deposit can go toward your tip or bill.

 

[bumbershoot]

180 is so hard because you are making plans based on an opperating schedule that may change.

The operating schedule might change on the day you're entering the park though.

 

[Ava]

The way it works now, you can't make two ADRs within 2 hours of each other. So, you want to extend that window?

Did they recently change it? When I was booking in August, it was 1 hour.

 

[wilkeliza]

The operating schedule might change on the day you're entering the park though.

That's true but day of changes aren't usually that drastic. They usually are adding if it is day of not subtracting or switching EMH etc.

 

[DebbieB]

Can you imagine first come, first served at a place like Be Our Guest? You would have hundreds in line at opening and waits of 2 or 3 hours.

 

[jlwhitney]

60 days makes way more sense to me since that is when FP are made for resort guests. 6 months out is just plain crazy and no need. With the amount of cancellations that pop up as you get closer to your dates shows that many just hold them.

 

[Dean1953]

No, No, NOOOOO!

Many people make and change reservations as their plans change (especially when FPs are booked). It would be very unfair of Disney to collect a fee every time someone moved their ADRs around!

It wouldn't be a non refundable fee. If you used the reservation, the fee would go to the bill. If you canceled within the rules, the fee would be refunded. Most people would not want a sizable chunk of money tied up in restaurant reservations and would be less inclined to make multiple reservations for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Those that have duplicate MDE accounts (to make multiple FP reservations) can use the account to make multiple resturant reservations. Personally, I'm not a big "foodie" and got character reservations that I wanted for Thanksgiving at Chef Mickeys, TH, CH, 1900, Minnie's dinner and the one at Epcot in Norway. I'll see what comes up the week or days before my trip.

 

[SouthJersey]

Making all locations first-come-first-serve would be blatantly absurd lol.
Say hello to 10:00am check-ins for 1:00 lunch

 

[DaniMoon]

I like the current system. We are extremely flexible. I made 10 ADRs at 180 days, the only one that has changed was when the Minnie Holiday dinner became available and I booked that one and dropped Garden Grill. FP planning was easy enough to plan around our ADRs. Flexibility is definitely a plus. We are excited for our plans, but I know from our last trip that keep checking. I had a hard time with Chef Mickey our 2013, two weeks before our trip I got it at the perfect time. Some days I checked several times a day, and then there would be days on end I didn't check at all.

The last two times we've visited has been during FD which people tend to say it so much harder to secure ADRs, but I have not found that to be the case, maybe because we tend to do early lunches/early dinners we aren't trying to get the most popular times?

 

[GPC0321]

I personally like that the ADR window is significantly earlier than the FP+ window. They're like the foundation upon which I'm building the rest of the vacation. If I can't get the FP+s I want for certain times/days, I can figure out other ways to do those things (early, late, during fireworks/parades). But I don't like leaving where I'm going to eat up to chance. I like the certainty of a nice sit-down meal reservation every day.

 

[Madame]

It wouldn't be a non refundable fee. If you used the reservation, the fee would go to the bill. If you canceled within the rules, the fee would be refunded. Most people would not want a sizable chunk of money tied up in restaurant reservations and would be less inclined to make multiple reservations for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Those that have duplicate MDE accounts (to make multiple FP reservations) can use the account to make multiple resturant reservations. Personally, I'm not a big "foodie" and got character reservations that I wanted for Thanksgiving at Chef Mickeys, TH, CH, 1900, Minnie's dinner and the one at Epcot in Norway. I'll see what comes up the week or days before my trip.

Right now the Canadian dollar is in the toilet. So we pay $1.35 currently for USD. However, when USD gets refunded to a CC in Canadian funds the CC company reimburses us at a rate of say $1.27. So we'd be penalized for every ADR holding fee!!

We were also double-charged for a meal in Epcot this Aug. They said there was an error on the CC machine & used my band to charge to the room. Surprise surprise both room *and* CC were charged. 2 international phone calls later, assured the card had been refunded. Not so much. My DH works for the bank our CC is with & we ended up having to dispute the charge.

I don't trust Disney to refund us all properly. Could you imagine!?! What a PITA! I also don't want to give them $ that will not be fully refunded to me when I'm already coping with a craptastic exchange rate.

 

[CherylAbby]

I'd like to see them significantly shorten the ADR period from 6-months to something more like 1 month, or even just 2-weeks.

Of course that would give people problems with FP+ and the possibility of not getting an ADR in the park they have FP+ that day. Perhaps they should both be shortened to the same period.

I agree 100%!!!

 

[MickeyWaffles]

I know others will disagree, but I say keep the ADRs but dump
the dining plan.

Pre-dining plan, there were less people doing TS, thus it was easier to get prime dining reservations. It was the best. It wasn't stressful. It wasn't out of the question to make same-day ADRs at prime locations. Pre-dining plan, not everyone was eating at a TS per day of their trip. You ate at the places you really wanted to eat at and that was that.

Dump the dining plan and keep the ADRs . The potential dining plan cost savings are significant, but I'd prefer to pay more OOP to have the old system back and not have to deal with the 180 ADR race, etc.

 

[BigAlsGal]

I think the current system is fine.

 

[Nancyg56]

I know others will disagree, but I say keep the ADRs but dump
the dining plan.

Pre-dining plan, there were less people doing TS, thus it was easier to get prime dining reservations. It was the best. It wasn't stressful. It wasn't out of the question to make same-day ADRs at prime locations. Pre-dining plan, not everyone was eating at a TS per day of their trip. You ate at the places you really wanted to eat at and that was that.

Dump the dining plan and keep the ADRs . The potential dining plan cost savings are significant, but I'd prefer to pay more OOP to have the old system back and not have to deal with the 180 ADR race, etc.

I like the DDP and do not find it to be the root that is all Disney Dining Evil. The jury is still our whether folks save on the DDP, or if the DDP is responsible fo rchanges in Disney Dining menus, so I just do not see that removng it would change a thing in regards to making ADR's. People have specific restaurants in mind when they dine in Disney, many pay OOP. They all will still want to eat where they want to eat, so I just cannto see that this would fix the race to make those reservations.