Why don't people make ADR's?

[emma'smom]

We just returned from 4 days in WDW. Everyday I would wait in line to check at whichever restaurant where we had reservations. There were always folks waiting with me who hadn't made reservations. Inevitably, they faced at least a 2 hour wait or were turned away completely.

I don't get it. Even if one is not a die hard 180 day on the nose kind of person (and would rather play it by ear a bit more), why wouldn't they at least call from their hotel or just check in at guest relations when the arrive at a park to at least get a sense of what times/places might still be available?

 

[denecarter]

The choir teacher at my former school didn't get ADRs until I told him to... they were on the DDP and his TRAVEL AGENT had told them they could just make reservations when they got there!

 

[Dorisk3]

I think most people think Disney is like most places you go on vacation- you decide that day what you feel like eating and where you want to go. Even though it seems like so many people are on the disboards or are into planning, most people just show up and decide what they want to do just a little while before they do it. I always feel kind of funny when I do this- but when someone tells me they are going to Disney I always try to give them as much info as possible (which sometimes results in strange looks!)

I'll admit- I'm a Disney planner- I love it and I also love anticipating where I'll be eating- in real life I can be spontaenious (sp?) every day- but at Disney it pays to plan!!!

 

[1st_trip4us]

Because those people are me 6 months ago. Before I discovered this wonderful life saving (well vacation saving ) website. I keep telling dh that if it weren't for disboards I wouldn't know anything. I'd have never ever known I couldn't just show up at WDW and expect to get into Le Cellier at 6pm on a Saturday. I've never been on a vacation like this where you need to actually plan ahead. I have a binder that I write down every detail in. I have excel spreadsheets in my computer for Dis info. My trip is going to be so much better because of disboards. My dh thinks I'm nuts for all this planning and even gets a little sick of hearing me talk about which ADR to make. I tell him we could always just wing it and show up at Cinderella's Royal Table for breakfast and see if we can get in. Oh yeah....like that'll happen!!! Or we can do it MY way and make ADR's and get into every character meal we want to do.
I think there are so many people who have no clue at all what a WDW vacation is really all about.

 

[mking624]

It all depends on the person.

Some people really do not know that you can make ADRs that far in advance. Some people don't know you can make ADRs at all. And for some, it really isn't a big deal. For my husband and I...our first few trips we either made NO ADRs (and were fine with just CS), madee only one or two, ahead of time, or made one or two while we were actually there. But we were fine with being turned down and eating CS instead. On our honeymoon in 2000, we tried to get into CRT for breakfast while we were there...we were turned down. We had no idea you could make reservations that far in advance. No biggie...we hadn't researched it, but of course with all th wedding planning, I hadn't even thought about going into more research with the honeymoon. But again, no biggie. We were able to get into CP instead, but even if we were turned down there, eating breakfast at the food court would have been perfectly fine. We make ADRs now because we have more knowledge, plus there are things we want to try. But we never have any objection to eating just CS...hey, I'm a big fan of the cheeseburgers!!

 

[JESW]

Most people don't know you need them! Not everyone goes on internet message boards and gobbles up this wealth of information - and not all travel agents tell you that they are needed. I knew a woman from my son's school who was going last APRIL SCHOOL VACATION and thought she would be able to walk right in and get breakfast at Cinderella's castle. Boy was she surprised (and upset) when I told her otherwise.

We are fortunate to go 2x a year (april & august) and I make at least one ADR a day well in advance - it helps us plan where and what we will be doing for the day.

Jill

 

[brandylouwho]

I am one of those people who had no clue about ADRs. But I happen to be a planner, at least when it comes to vacations. My husband often refers to me as Clark W. Griswold (you know, he planned like every minute in National Lampoon's European Vacation and his family did NOT appreciate it).

So, lucky for us I bought the unoffical guide (the same day
we booked the trip) and stumbled upon the DIS boards.

To be honest, if we weren't going during free dining, we'd probably only eat one or two table service meals. We are too cheap to spend all that money on food when a counter service would do just fine.

Our travel agent hadn't told us about making ADRs and an acquaintance, who raved about CRT, didn't tell us that we had to make reservations twenty years in advance. Lucky for me, I got in where I wanted, when I wanted when I called in May for our August trip. Now that I started second guessing some of my ADRs...it seems to be too late. So, I am just happy to have what I have and I am going to stop second guessing myself!

 

[taragl]

I only had two ADRs last year, and that was because I thought you needed them only for the character meals. Keep in mind that the amount and detail of information that you get directly from Disney after booking a trip is pretty small. We got luggage tags, a few maps, but not a whole lot about ADRs, 180-day windows, etc. I learned all of that by reading these boards and using Google!

It works out well for us that ADRs aren't well known!

 

[Lauderdaletigger]

My partner and I will be at disney in 27 days yay!! We have the premium dining plan and have all our ADR's for each meal every day we are there.
You can always change your minds but at least you have somewhere planned instead of "just winging" it and could possibly have a long wait to be seated...
Just do it!!!! YOu have nothing to lose and Will have more time to do things in and out of the park.

 

[Lynne M]

Well, there was a time, before the dining plan, when you really didn't need ADRs except for the character meais. I never made any ADRs for my first 10 trips or so.

Back in the pre-dining plan days, they also were very flexible about taking walkups. You might have to wait an hour, but they'd take you. Nowadays, a lot of the TS places are just turning people away if they don't have an ADR.

 

[schoen]

Not to play devils advocate... but you don't have to make ADRs to have great dining on your trip. Last July for our honeymoon we had zero ADRs, and we ate as a TS place for lunch and dinner everyday. We had no memorable wait times. We just called in the morning to see what was available. The only place we wanted to eat at, but couldn't, was Le Cellier.

That being said... I have ADRs made for my upcoming trip. I will try to be on more of a schedule for this trip. Everyone does the vacation thing differently. I am always amazed that people don't use fastpass!

 

[AlaskaMOM]

Many years ago we did Disney with what they used to call silver plan (where you got all meals and recreation, La Nouba, and some other misc. stuff) Well of course we paid full price (didn't know better then) and went with not one SINGLE ADR (OR PS). Not by choice, but because we didn't know any better. I would think after we paid as much as we did Disney would help us out a little. When we got there we called to make some plans and, get this, the lady at dining reservations told DH "we're all booked up, you shoulda called months ago" We did manage to get a cancellation for Spirit of Aloha dinner show [alright, but don't need to do it again], Fulton's [awesome, but quite a wait after PS], Coral Reef [great seat next to aquarium, but not so good food] and by sheer luck CRT [great seat WINDOW, but food just okay] for lunch (we just walked to the podium in the morning and she had a spot for lunch!). It was actually a wonderful trip. But we still use it as a lesson....plan what you want to do, and don't count on getting it even if you paid for a delux plan.
For the last trips we have made all our plans for must do's and then taken our chances for the maybe's when we get there and decide. Like deciding that the kids would like to do a character meal (at first they thought they were too old, until we actually got to WDW) so we called in the morning and got a ressie for 5 at Garden Grill!
This trip were going to be a party of 7 part of the time, and those ADR's are already wrapped up tight!
Well to make a long story short (errr......... ooops........ longer) many people don't make adr's because Disney (and/or travel agent) don't tell you that you should/could. They really don't make it very easy for those who've never been!

 

[jonestavern]

Not to play devils advocate... but you don't have to make ADRs to have great dining on your trip. Last July for our honeymoon we had zero ADRs, and we ate as a TS place for lunch and dinner everyday. We had no memorable wait times. We just called in the morning to see what was available. The only place we wanted to eat at, but couldn't, was Le Cellier.

We usually make our ADRs when we arrive. We don't do character dining, however. We aren't picky as to seating times, either. We usually go for the earliest TS lunch time or around 2:30-3:00 pm. We've never had to wait more than 10 minutes. We've done this for Boma, LeCellier, Chefs de France etc

For Fantasmic or Hoop-Dee-Doo we made ADRs at the window period, however.

We do travel on 'slow' times.

I will make ADRs for the Sat/Sun meals on our Nov trip as it is the end of Jersey week & Soap Opera Wkend will be going on. I will make LeCellier ADRs as I am willing to bet this is a fave. So it depends on what extra stuff is going on in the parks, too, in order for short-term ADRs to work smooth.

If there was a day & time & place I had my heart set on, I would do ADRs at the window. We're pretty laid back, though.

Jean & Christopher

 

[nanalisa]

In the 15 years that we've been going to WDW, the only ADR I ever made was for CRT breakfast. Even last July I usually called in the morning - cause we never know where we're going until that day, and didn't have a problem getting what we wanted. This year, however, I decided we needed structure in our loves and made a few ADR's for the places we really didn't want to miss. Because of the dining plan, folks are eating TS that might not have before, which is cool, it just means I have to do a little planning. Or else we'll be eating popcorn

 

[UKDEB]

Same here. We've been visiting WDW since 1992 and have only ever made a few ADRs for 'hard to get' places, or where the dining is an event in itself. For example, we made one for V&As for my brother's 40th birthday. That was the first item to be included in the itinerary and everything else was worked around that. We ate there again in July, 2004 and will be doing so again in October this year. We wouldn't dream of trying to do V&As without booking, but the same would apply to a top restaurant anywhere.

I guess we will usually make one or two ADRs each trip, but bear in mind that we normally visit for either 2 or 3 weeks. Whilst I always prepare an itinerary, I do so mainly because I enjoy it. We rarely stick to it once we arrive - it just provides a framework and serves as a reminder of what we want to do. We prefer to go with the flow. If we wake up one morning and don't fancy doing what's we'd planned, then we do something else. We're on vacation, after all.

The pay-off is that we have to be willing to be flexible with our dining choices. And we are. I can honestly say that we've never had a problem getting in anywhere. Admittedly, we've never been at the very busiest times and, as I've said, if there's somewhere we know we definitely want to eat, then we do make ADRs. Other than that, we make sure we don't turn up at restaurants at peak dining times, or we'll check availability at a park's restaurants at guest relations when we arrive, or we'll eat at a resort or offsite.

So far, we haven't visited during free dining periods. If we do, I'll have to re-think.

On the whole, though, I think other posters have hit on the main reason people don't make ADRs - they simply don't know they can.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Not to play devils advocate... but you don't have to make ADRs to have great dining on your trip. Last July for our honeymoon we had zero ADRs, and we ate as a TS place for lunch and dinner everyday. We had no memorable wait times. We just called in the morning to see what was available. The only place we wanted to eat at, but couldn't, was Le Cellier.

Ah, see, that worked because you were flexible! Someone who just shows up at, say, Rose & Crown at 7:30 because they want to eat there and then might well not be accommodated. But someone who calls Dining or goes to Guest Services and is willing to eat where there's an available table is going to have a much better time (and food!)

This trip were going to be a party of 7 part of the time, and those ADR's are already wrapped up tight!
Well to make a long story short (errr......... ooops........ longer) many people don't make adr's because Disney (and/or travel agent) don't tell you that you should/could. They really don't make it very easy for those who've never been!

Yep! One of my coworkers (because they mostly know to come to me with Disney World questions ) had everything booked - hotel, airfare, tickets, even the free dining - but didn't plan to make ANY dining arrangements until she got there. Silly girl... anyway, now they've got an ADR for each day.

 

[patsal]

My parents hate ADR's and only use them if they join us on a trip or if I make them for them. They say things like --I like spontanaity, I don't know what or when I'll feel like eating, I don't want to be tied to a schedule, etc. Most all of those are lame and they always prefer buffets over a sit down menu, always eat at the same time of the day,etc. However they do not like to plan what park they are going to go to a particular day. Since it is just the two of them and they do not eat at traditional times--they like a large meal at like 2 pm and something small at like 8pm (my Dad worked second shift for a great many years and the schedule has not worn off in retirement) it isn't that difficult for them to be seated, and I don't think they have ever been turned away. I figure when they are finally told no reservation no meal they might give in!

 

[Piglet54]

had no memorable wait times. We just called in the morning to see what was available.

Is it possible to call Disney Dining and they can look at the computer and tell you which restaurants ARE available? for example, make a suggestion? Will the computer just tell them what restaurants and times are open?

 

[tabrizia]

Honestly last time we went 5 years ago we didn't make any ADRs either. We didn't know you could and we got in the 3 places we wanted to eat. We got Coral Reef with about a 30 minute wait, Rainforest Cafe in DtD with an hour/hour and a half wait, and Cinderella's Castle for dinner. To be fair for the Castle we did make reservations at the begining of the week for later that week when they had an opening, but it wasn't a problem getting the reservations when we got to Disney.

Of course we were flexable about times and we don't eat early so it wasn't a major problem for us. This trip I am doing a bit more planning then our last one so we have ADRs for all nights but one. However, we tend to be go with the flow type people so if we weren't going with the DP and free dining, I am pretty sure I could have gotten the 3 or 4 restaraunts we wanted after we got there or something close to the restaraunts that we wanted without too much trouble since there are only two of us and we tend to eat around 8:30/9pm normally.

 

[spookyuki]

I didn't know about it either until after I had booked my vacation.
Even after finding out about ADR, I resisted. We are very much go with a flow type and didn't wanna be restricted to the dinner reservation time.
BUT after joining these boards and reading up on it, all my ADR are set and changed several times.

I do feel really sorry for the people paying that much money and not getting to eat where they choose to...

I never used Dining Plan. In Japan, unless you are staying at official hotels (only 2 and very expensive), you have to run after the park opening to get a reservation for dinner shows at the location.