Walk-ins?

[bellebride116]

Has anyone not made reservations and gotten to eat at any good restaurants by walking in? We let time slip us by... we're going this weekend and this is the first trip we haven't made ADRs... oops

 

[ThanksForNoticingMe]

We have walked into several "good" restaurants with no ADRS. Including:

Chef Mickeys
1900 Park Fare
Cape May
Tokyo Dinning
Coral Reef
Bistro De Paris
T-Rex
Chefs De France
50's Prime Time

and others...

 

[DLB]

We went the week after thanksgiving and we did not have ANY reservations. We walked into many good restaraunts with little to no wait.

Rose and Crown at 8:00 and was able to see illuminations
50's Prime Time for Early Dinner
1900 Park Fare for Breakfast
Holywood and Vine for Breakfast
Crystal Palace for Breakfast
TRex for Lunch

If you go at "off" times you might have a better shot, but we were always seated within 15-20 min. I do not know if that was during a "free dining" promotion or not, but some say if Free Dining is going on it makes it that much harder to get a table?
We just went with the flow and it seemed to work out. If we couldn't find a Table service place we ate at a counter service. No big deal.

 

[bellebride116]

Oh yay! So maybe there is hope after all! Thanks!!!

 

[JimmyV]

I have a funny "walk-in" story. We didn't make any plans for dinner one day and decided to see what we could find (if anything) in World Showcase. (Party of 3). I walked up to the podium at Bistro de Paris and sweet as could be, asked if there was any way they could squeeze us in. The lovely hostess told me to sit tight and that she could probably accomodate us since the restaurant was not on the DDP. She said that a large percentage of people who make reservations there do not appreciate that fact, and once reminded of that fact upon arrival, promptly walk away in a huff not wanting to pay OOP. The very next group to show up was a party of 4 who, when reminded that the BdP is not on the DDP, got all up in her face about how no one told them, blah blah blah, and left in a huff. The hostess looked over at me and winked, knowing that we had just witnessed the whole scene. We were seated 2 minutes later. Total wait...about 8 minutes.

 

[Nathaniel.Strawn]

My wife and I had no ADR's for our honeymoon as it was a surprise from my father(so we only found out about it during our wedding weekend). The only place we were not able to walk-in was the Crystal Palace our first night. The nice CM there was apologetic(due to our circumstances of no prior knowledge of the trip), but suggested we try eating at the resorts. We followed her advice and almost always got seated within 5-10 minutes. The only time we ate in the actual parks was to go to Restaurant Marrakesh, since that is the place I proposed to her, and even then it was only about a 30 minute wait. IMHO You should go for it, we found many great places to eat and made lots of neat memories by winging it.

 

[librarygeek]

I have a funny "walk-in" story. We didn't make any plans for dinner one day and decided to see what we could find (if anything) in World Showcase. (Party of 3). I walked up to the podium at Bistro de Paris and sweet as could be, asked if there was any way they could squeeze us in. The lovely hostess told me to sit tight and that she could probably accomodate us since the restaurant was not on the DDP. She said that a large percentage of people who make reservations there do not appreciate that fact, and once reminded of that fact upon arrival, promptly walk away in a huff not wanting to pay OOP. The very next group to show up was a party of 4 who, when reminded that the BdP is not on the DDP, got all up in her face about how no one told them, blah blah blah, and left in a huff. The hostess looked over at me and winked, knowing that we had just witnessed the whole scene. We were seated 2 minutes later. Total wait...about 8 minutes.

I was going to say that even if it is during a free dining period, you probably have a better chance than usual of getting in at restaurants that aren't on the dining plan. This story illustrates the point I was going to make perfectly

 

[ellie0101]

You shouldn't have any problem this time of year.

I just canceled and changed a reservation at a fairly popular restaurant with zero problem this morning. This is for a trip happening in a couple weeks and there were multiple time slots available.

 

[NMW]

I think it depends on a lot of things, the time of year, the time of day you go to the restaurant, the popularity of the restaurant.

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

go to a restuarant as they are openning or try going to a Guest service that morning. It never hurts to walk to a restaurant and ask. We did at 3 restaurant in December which had free dinning and very high crowdes and we were sitted to all 3 places within 10 mins. I think some people double book and never cancel their ADR. One year we walked to a Chef Mickey b/c for 3 months I could not get ADR and we walked in as they were openning so I asked and they sitted us in 5 mins. Of course my husband would say see you don't need to plan 180 days. Like last month we changed parks and he said lets see if they would get in Via Napoli and we didn't have ADR.
have a magical trip

 

[Alabama Minnie]

We have been lucky enough to get "walk-up" lunches three different times at CRT (for only 2 people). The last time we were seated at a table for 4.
It's worth a try if you want to consider there.

 

[DuckMom]

We got a walk up in June for CRT for lunch. Before I went up, DH laughed at me and said we'd never get it ... so wasn't he surprised when I came back with a time. Moral of the story, never hurts to ask. The worst they can say is no.

 

[FireDancer]

I was just there this past weekend (Thurs through Tues) for marathon weekend and walked into:

Fulton's
Tusker House
The Wave
Whispering Canyon
Biergarten
We also arrived 2 hours early for our Boma ADR and were seated in ten minutes.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

On a previous vacation to WDW myself and friends of mine from Orlando were able to walk into Liberty Tree Tavern for lunch after only waiting 5 minutes and later that same day we walked into 50's Prime Time Cafe for dinner, once again only waiting 5 minutes to be seated.

In fact a few days before when I tried getting a lunch ADR for the Magic Kingdom I was told all their restaurants were not available no matter what time, so the fact we still walked into Liberty Tree Tavern shows that anything is possible if you at least try it.

 

[Lynn57]

I did a quick dining search for places available on Saturday at 6pm. There is a quite a list of availabilities! 56 to be exact! Only 17 don't have availability and those weren't surprising. Hope this helps!

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/reservations/dining/search-results/?sid=20730434953-7515541-4814696-4004433&ts=1294870438

 

[lucas]

I did a quick dining search for places available on Saturday at 6pm. There is a quite a list of availabilities! 56 to be exact! Only 17 don't have availability and those weren't surprising. Hope this helps!

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/reservations/dining/search-results/?sid=20730434953-7515541-4814696-4004433&ts=1294870438

Thanks for the great idea! I've never thought to do a search and leave in "no preference" to see all the available places. Cool!