Walk ins at Disney Springs (& elsewhere)

[GDubDIS]

Hey everyone! I'm considering a few days at WDW in April, but since it would be a relatively last-minute trip there aren't a ton of ADRs available.

My question is: Especially at Disney Springs, do restaurants on property hold at least some tables for walk ins? That is the standard for most restaurants outside WDW, but I believe that is not the case in the parks, so wasn't sure if that carried over to DS as well. My hunch would be that they do reserve some tables for walk ins given the number of locals that visit DS, but figured this group would know more.

Thanks!!

 

[MomOTwins]

It really depends on the restaurant--it is not going to be true across the board.

For Disney-operated restaurants, they now have a "walk-up" function in the app where you can check to see if any walk-up tables are available and what the expected wait would be, and you can essentially add yourself to the walkup waitlist on the app so that you'll be informed when your table is ready (they don't want people waiting at the restaurant because that could result in crowding/lack of social distanced. You can check the app yourself and see when the restaurants start opening for the day at around 11 eastern time--but not every restaurant has walkup availability every day.

Disney Springs has a lot of restaurants that are not Disney-operated, and the third parties all have their own system. Landry's restaurants (e.g., Rainforest Cafe, T-Rex) prioritize Landry's card holders--at at least one Landry's spot, Yak n Yeti we were told the only walk-ups they were accepting were Landry's card holders at that time (it was crowded, so that might not be true everywhere. Raglan Road was taking walkups one time we were there, and another time they were turning away walkups because they were too full.