Upset about the ADRs 90+10 fiasco that Free dining is creating

[dvcdisney]

It just so happens that I added a day to my reservation, but because I didn't have enough points, I made a cash reservation. This is considered linked in the "eyes" of MS but when you call Dining, it's a separate reservation. I made my reservations 11 months ago, not knowing when free dining would be. Well, I ended up with a split stay of Aug 15 and 16th and on.

I, unfortunately, had some problems when I called Disney Dining. I don't think it was on purpose, but there was an accusation, without even knowing if I participated in free dining or not, that I had added the night of the 15th in order to get ahead on the free dining guests. (I couldn't figure out what she meant until I read some posts at the Restaurant board.) But before she could finish, I explained to her that I was not on free dining and I had to make a split stay because I used cash on the first reservation and then linked it to my points reservation. She was quiet for a moment and then transferred me to someone else. The CM was able to help me and explained to me that they are expecting lots of calls today to try and book for free dining, and unfortunately, I was just caught in it.

I know Disney needs to offer free dining but I wished that they would handle the ADRs a little better. I was planning on calling MS if I wasn't successful with my first call. But now I don't think it would have helped since I have read a few posts saying that MS couldn't help them with their split stays ADRs either.

Thanks for letting me vent. I don't recall having this problem last year with my ADRs.....but then again, I did make them 180 days in advance....and free dining was not even announced yet.....I wish they had left it at 180 days.

I was complaining to my husband about it and he said, that if it's this difficult, we should just rent the car and have most of our dinners out of property. His co worker had suggested a few great restaurants. We may have to do that soon.

 

[jco_direwolf]

I wonder if Disney is starting to crack down on people that make a reservation that overlaps with their real reservation wrt to ADRs. That would be awesome.

For those that don't understand, say you want to stay at WDW from Oct 19-25. Currently one way I've heard of people gaming the system is they make that reservation as 14-24 (assuming you leave the 25 and don't really need ADRs.) Now you've opened your ADR window as wide as it can go. You make your ADRs Oct 14 minus 90 days (which appears to be July 16.) Then when things get closer you modify your stay to to what you want the 19-25. But you got effectively a 95 day window on your ADRs.

I've often though the ONLY way to make the 90+10 window work. That when you modify/shorten your reservation, it will cancel your existing ADRs. Or they can go back to the 90 days flat... it's a pain but only for the few "hard to get" ADRs like Cindy's.

johno

 

[gkrykewy]

I think anyone who games the system to that extent should probably be under psychiatric care.

 

[dvcdisney]

I wonder if Disney is starting to crack down on people that make a reservation that overlaps with their real reservation wrt to ADRs. That would be awesome.

For those that don't understand, say you want to stay at WDW from Oct 19-25. Currently one way I've heard of people gaming the system is they make that reservation as 14-24 (assuming you leave the 25 and don't really need ADRs.) Now you've opened your ADR window as wide as it can go. You make your ADRs Oct 14 minus 90 days (which appears to be July 16.) Then when things get closer you modify your stay to to what you want the 19-25. But you got effectively a 95 day window on your ADRs.

I've often though the ONLY way to make the 90+10 window work. That when you modify/shorten your reservation, it will cancel your existing ADRs. Or they can go back to the 90 days flat... it's a pain but only for the few "hard to get" ADRs like Cindy's.

johno

Wow...that is way too much trouble for ADRs....Personally, I am always worried about making sure I have the room reservations since ADRs were never a problem for me...I couldn't imagine someone doing this just to get an ADR...

 

[dvcdisney]

I think anyone who games the system to that extent should probably be under psychiatric care.

 

[lugnut33]

I'm making it easy during our stay from Aug. 16-21: NO meals will be eaten inside WDW!! All our dinners will be outside the World. Lunches will be a combo of our villa and Earl of Sandwich. Breakfast will be in the villa. Now I have no worries about making any reservations, since the 90 day window for Aug. 16th is today.

 

[gkrykewy]

I'm making it easy during our stay from Aug. 16-21: NO meals will be eaten inside WDW!! All our dinners will be outside the World. Lunches will be a combo of our villa and Earl of Sandwich. Breakfast will be in the villa. Now I have no worries about making any reservations, since the 90 day window for Aug. 16th is today.

For us, table service meals in WDW are a large part of what we look forward to. A WDW trip without margaritas at San Angel Inn? No chardonnay and flatbread at California Grill? Unthinkable.

 

[Ksp]

Wow - this brings a whole new dimension to planning ahead - this "gaming" the system is just a whole lot of crazy, lol!
I know from our perspective, we try to do breakfast in the room, look for a larger lunch meal (usually a Table Service) and then a smaller dinner or cook in the room (we usually do a rest and regroup kind of dinner break) and then back to the parks for the rest of the night.
It has been getting harder and harder to get ADRs that we really want. . . .now I'm beginning to see why! The DDP and the free dining incentive has definitely changed the dining at WDW; I don't think that our family has found it a positive change, but I do hope that it is working out for Disney.
Dining on property is not the treat that it used to be. (We do still enjoy it ... but it has changed)

 

[rbuzzotta]

WOW!! I could never have thought to figure something like that out.

We are no longer a dining crazy family. The past few years, thanks to owning DVC and finally using the kitchen, we have eaten in quite a bit............and guess what..........I don't gain 10 lbs when I get home!!!

 

[jpeka65844]

I wonder if Disney is starting to crack down on people that make a reservation that overlaps with their real reservation wrt to ADRs. That would be awesome.

For those that don't understand, say you want to stay at WDW from Oct 19-25. Currently one way I've heard of people gaming the system is they make that reservation as 14-24 (assuming you leave the 25 and don't really need ADRs.) Now you've opened your ADR window as wide as it can go. You make your ADRs Oct 14 minus 90 days (which appears to be July 16.) Then when things get closer you modify your stay to to what you want the 19-25. But you got effectively a 95 day window on your ADRs.

I've often though the ONLY way to make the 90+10 window work. That when you modify/shorten your reservation, it will cancel your existing ADRs. Or they can go back to the 90 days flat... it's a pain but only for the few "hard to get" ADRs like Cindy's.

johno

This makes me glad I own DVC and have a lifetime of trips (barring unforeseen circumstances) ahead of me. Eventually I will get to do it all and not have to think that hard about it.

 

[M5ward]

I agree with the OP - I preferred the 180 day mark for making ADRs. As a DVC member, I plan our trips well in advance, planning our restaurant choices as well. The dining plan (and free dining in particular) make it very difficult to get reservations at the 90 day mark. I have read numerous posts regarding this issue. I have also read on some of the sites that people are double booking if they aren't sure which park they might be in on a given day.
I sent an e-mail to DVC suggesting that maybe, as a perk to DVC members, they could allow members to book ADRs further out than 90 days. Wouldn't cost Disney a cent to do something like that.

 

[nunzia]

I've heard about double booking.. to me it is inconsiderate to block out a time for yourself at 2 places at the same time/same day. They let you do tht? I'd think they'd have a way and a motivation to stop that.

 

[HayGan]

I'm making it easy during our stay from Aug. 16-21: NO meals will be eaten inside WDW!! All our dinners will be outside the World. Lunches will be a combo of our villa and Earl of Sandwich. Breakfast will be in the villa. Now I have no worries about making any reservations, since the 90 day window for Aug. 16th is today.

We have a different issue with Disney Dining. We aren't going during free dining but rather during this ridiculous "holiday" surcharge period of June. Instead of paying an extra $4 a person, we cancelled our Disney Dining reservations and will be spending that money offsite. SO instead of getting an extra $16 per meal off of us, they lost approximately $700 of revenue. We have no problem in helping out the greater Orlando economy!

I will say Disney Dining has really begun cracking down on the double bookings. It is not as easy to book two meals for the same timeframe. Whenever we have changed ADRs they always seem to mention the cancellation of the other reservation. I do not know how the on-line dining booking system will impact the entire system.

 

[jco_direwolf]

I've heard about double booking.. to me it is inconsiderate to block out a time for yourself at 2 places at the same time/same day. They let you do tht? I'd think they'd have a way and a motivation to stop that.

As far as I know you can make as many ADRs, for as many people, as you want at a time.

The morning after our wedding, we made ADRs for 50+ people, in blocks of 4-10 for Chef Mickey's for everyone that wanted to come by and see us off before we hit our honeymoon cruise.

I know that is different because we intended (and did use all of those plus they managed to work in a few others that just "showed up".) But...we didn't have to do anything special to do it. We (and by we here I mean my wife) just called 407-WDW-DINE and made the bulk of them in one marathon call. We (My wife and I) got there at opening (I still remember standing at the podium and the CM walking up and me saying "Hi I've got twenty-something ADRs here this morning...") , and we didn't eat till almost 11. But some people wanted to hit Chef Mickey's early so they could make rope drop. Others want to get packed up and make it more a brunch before heading home.

But it was just a series of ADRs (we end up with something like 25 ADR confirmation numbers spread out all that morning) all against our one room reservation (with 2 guests) at Port Orleans.

So my apologies to anyone that is reading this and wondering why they couldn't get a table at Chef Mickey's the morning of 29 May 2005. It was mostly our party.

The CMs at Chef Mickey's where SUPER nice to us. Let us play Host and Hostess and pretty much worked our people in as they showed up. When we finally got seated (all our guests had shown, and most where gone) they seated us away from the main area (that little nook to the right of entrance) and basically did wait service for us so we could eat alone.

johno

 

[helenk]

We have a different issue with Disney Dining. We aren't going during free dining but rather during this ridiculous "holiday" surcharge period of June. Instead of paying an extra $4 a person, we cancelled our Disney Dining reservations and will be spending that money offsite. SO instead of getting an extra $16 per meal off of us, they lost approximately $700 of revenue. We have no problem in helping out the greater Orlando economy!

I know what you are saying, we will be in WDW from 6/13-6/20 it is ridiculous that there is a "Holiday" surcharge during the month of June. And it really ticks me off, I mean honestly, what Holiday is there in June...besides Father's day. I think its horrid that they charge extra for the actual holidays as it is.
This will be our first family trip in years and my first trip as a grandmom, so I did keep our reservations at Crystal Place and Akerhaus, but cancelled Chef Mickey's and Boma.

 

[lugnut33]

I know what you are saying, we will be in WDW from 6/13-6/20 it is ridiculous that there is a "Holiday" surcharge during the month of June. And it really ticks me off, I mean honestly, what Holiday is there in June...besides Father's day. I think its horrid that they charge extra for the actual holidays as it is.
This will be our first family trip in years and my first trip as a grandmom, so I did keep our reservations at Crystal Place and Akerhaus, but cancelled Chef Mickey's and Boma.

Chef Mickeys is mediocre and overpriced IMHO.

 

[gkrykewy]

the morning of 29 May 2005

Wow, that's our wedding day Not in Disney though.

 

[jco_direwolf]

Wow, that's our wedding day Not in Disney though.

We where an old married couple by the time you guys got married then. We had been married for a WHOLE 24 hours Our wedding was the first time slot at the Wedding Pavilion on 28 May.

johno

 

[robinb]

I think anyone who games the system to that extent should probably be under psychiatric care.

I am a champion "system gamer" but I totally agree with you! People are actually making bogus reservations just so they got the 10-day jump on their ADRs for free dining?!? I was kinda bummed that I had to cancel my annual mid-August free dining bounce-back I booked months ago. Maybe I'm not so bummed anymore!

 

[Steamboat Girlie]

How is it that you can dupe the system? I thought you needed to provide a reservation #?