waiting for a discount seems to hurt your ADR chances

[stephk1981]

Please tell me if anyone has some kind of 'getting ADR's' trick, because it seems to me that the only way to get the good places such as BOG is to go ahead and book your resort to take advantage of the 180+ 10 days ADR's. I have gotten up at 5am to wait for the 6am ET online bookings the past 2 trips and both times BOG had no availability for any of our trip. I checked back daily for cancellations with no luck In the past we've always waited to book our reservations to get whatever the best deal was. This year we'd love to have a deal, but I've already paid for our airfare, so we'll be going Nov 17-25 either way. The whole thing seems a little nerve wracking to me, because if I book early I have a better chance of getting a BOG ADR since the 10 day advantage will help. However, as people are always quick to remind us, the more people booking now, the less chance of a discount since more rooms are filled. I wish Disney had a better system, either make everyone wait until 180 days out or something. It seems as though so many people are booking now and then going to have a discount 'applied' later just so they can make their ADR's........to be honest it seems like they are getting all the good ones! Does anyone have a better strategy for getting top ADR's?

 

[mickeynut1]

Please tell me if anyone has some kind of 'getting ADR's' trick, because it seems to me that the only way to get the good places such as BOG is to go ahead and book your resort to take advantage of the 180+ 10 days ADR's. I have gotten up at 5am to wait for the 6am ET online bookings the past 2 trips and both times BOG had no availability for any of our trip. I checked back daily for cancellations with no luck In the past we've always waited to book our reservations to get whatever the best deal was. This year we'd love to have a deal, but I've already paid for our airfare, so we'll be going Nov 17-25 either way. The whole thing seems a little nerve wracking to me, because if I book early I have a better chance of getting a BOG ADR since the 10 day advantage will help. However, as people are always quick to remind us, the more people booking now, the less chance of a discount since more rooms are filled. I wish Disney had a better system, either make everyone wait until 180 days out or something. It seems as though so many people are booking now and then going to have a discount 'applied' later just so they can make their ADR's........to be honest it seems like they are getting all the good ones! Does anyone have a better strategy for getting top ADR's?

I don't have any tricks as all I can suggest is just keep trying for that specific ADR as people do cancel, especially now with the a cc guarantee needed. With that said, I don't usually have any trouble getting exactly what I want at the times I want, but the few times I wasn't able to get a hard to get ADR from the beginning, I would eventually end up getting it after checking every day multiple times a day.

As far as booking now vs waiting for a discount, if you are going regardless of whether or not a discount comes out for your dates, I would go ahead and book now to make sure you get what you want. Good luck.

 

[SGMCO]

I haven't booked a package either (waiting for Fall Discounts hopefully FD) but I have been getting all of the Ressies that I want. I got 2 different Character Meals, later in the morning, no problems. I don't want to eat dinner at BOG but probably lunch, even if we have to wait. I've been booking Ressies each day for the whole week, it's not been a problem, I've always had the package and the 180+10 so this has been a whole new experience.

 

[cbrown1007]

If you've already booked your airfare, you're going that week no matter what. I'd book your package, pay the $200 deposit. Then if a deal comes out, you can apply it to your package, or even change resorts if you need to. Especially if you're using a travel agent, they do all of this for you!

And you don't need a package booked to book ADRs. So book them!!

 

[SGMCO]

If you've already booked your airfare, you're going that week no matter what. I'd book your package, pay the $200 deposit. Then if a deal comes out, you can apply it to your package, or even change resorts if you need to. Especially if you're using a travel agent, they do all of this for you!

And you don't need a package booked to book ADRs. So book them!!

I've also already booked and paid for Airfare, but if everyone goes ahead and books a package hoping for FD, Disney will see that since everyone is booking the offer is not needed. Disney offers the Special Offers to fill rooms, if they are already filled there is no need for the offers.

 

[mommyrosa2]

Please tell me if anyone has some kind of 'getting ADR's' trick, because it seems to me that the only way to get the good places such as BOG is to go ahead and book your resort to take advantage of the 180+ 10 days ADR's. I have gotten up at 5am to wait for the 6am ET online bookings the past 2 trips and both times BOG had no availability for any of our trip. I checked back daily for cancellations with no luck In the past we've always waited to book our reservations to get whatever the best deal was. This year we'd love to have a deal, but I've already paid for our airfare, so we'll be going Nov 17-25 either way. The whole thing seems a little nerve wracking to me, because if I book early I have a better chance of getting a BOG ADR since the 10 day advantage will help. However, as people are always quick to remind us, the more people booking now, the less chance of a discount since more rooms are filled. I wish Disney had a better system, either make everyone wait until 180 days out or something. It seems as though so many people are booking now and then going to have a discount 'applied' later just so they can make their ADR's........to be honest it seems like they are getting all the good ones! Does anyone have a better strategy for getting top ADR's?

If you already know your dates and you're going no matter what, I would book the resort you want and put the deposit on it so you will be able to take advantage of the 180 + 10. As far as getting the more "popular" ADR's, I don't believe there is a trick but I will share what has worked for me for years. I normally rank my ADR's in order of "difficulty to obtain" which for our upcoming August trip, were O'hana & BOG for dinners so I immediately concentrated on those two before moving on. BUT, because of the 180 + 10 rule, I knew better than to try and get those in the beginning of my trip, so I opted to start trying a few days into our trip and I've always been successful. This year, we got a 7:00p O'hana ressie on our 4th day into our trip and a 7:05p BOG on the 5th day of our trip and there were plenty of options midway thru the end of our trip for both of those. I knew that the rest of my ADR bookings were going to be easier and I was able to plug them in on the days I wanted. So while I wouldn't say there are any tricks, I wouldn't count on getting the more popular ones right in the beginning of your trip. If you try that, I would be shocked if you weren't successful, but I would also plan to take advantage of the 180+10...HTH

 

[wdwmaw]

I don't think it has anything to do with people booking ADR's at 180 day mark or not. For years I have read about people not getting ADR's at some of the most popular places. You will find those that do pre book and those that don't and every person will have a different outcome. Watch for cancellations at the 45 day mark, at the 24 hour mark, and the weekend before each of these dates ( people will set down and get it done the weekend before). Good luck and I hope you get what you want.

 

[stephk1981]

Thank you for all of the responses! I'm still on the fence about whether to book now or wait for a discount. While we prefer to be at the Beach Club this trip, we're open to YC or heading back to a monorail resort if needed to take advantage of a discount. If no discounts are offered on our dates, we'll get over it and pay rack rate. I just don't want to inhibit disney from releasing a discount because I or anyone else books early......however, flip side to that, I have a little boy who has wanted to eat at BOG the past 3 trips (and haven't had any luck)...so booking ADR's at 180 + 10 days out would really help with that! Anyway, thanks for everyones comments. I guess I need to make a decision soon