Why is Disney so inefficient at seating people

[summermac]

"The waiting areas are small because when these restaurants were built, not as many people were using them. They weren't as popular, and most people didn't even have ADR's because you didn't really need them most places way back in the day."

This is an excellent point. Our first trip was in 1998 and we walked right in to every restaurant we wanted INCLUDING LeCellier @ dinner! Now? hahahahaaaa!!

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

For our last trip, we had 8 TS ADRs for four adults, DD4 and DD1 who needed a high chair - and did not have any issues/problems with check in and seating process. They did ask us at each check in how many children, how many high chairs, and whether we were on the dining plan. Since when I made ADRs, they only asked for just the total number of guests and not how many of them were children, didn't think this was unusual. And each time we were taken to our table, there was a high chair waiting for us.

It is a bit of an odd system, but considering the volume of diners they have to turn over AND people who make ADRs but don't show up, I can understand the reasoning for it. We did have to wait for our table for awhile a few times but didn't really detract from the our experiences. If we weren't happy with the process, we would have gone off-site dining or CS.

 

[Queen2PrincessG]

We never had a problem. I placed in the special instructions that we needed a booster. There was never a problem!

 

[waynesgirl]

Its not management. Its guests that check in late, show up with more people then their ADR, check in without their whole party or camp at the table. The computer quotes times by how long a guest has been at the table. What do you want Disney to do? Put a time limit on your meal? Oh that would go over real well.....

Sometimes that would be nice...

One thing to remember is an ADR is not a reservation for an actual time, as it would be in the real world. What it is supposed to do is give you the next table available for your party size. The problem is, especially with character meals, is that people like to linger. And a few people taking an extra 15 minutes or so throws everything out of whack.
You can't compare Disney restaurants to off-site restaurants. They serve more people and have characters and photos to juggle as well. Whole different animal.

15 minutes I can handle. No worries there but yes, as my above comment, a few minutes lingering because of pictures is fine. Lingering from a 6:30 seating until 10:30 to watch the fireworks so that someone who made a 9 or 9:30 ADR to specifically be able to be seated to watch them, yes, I have a huge problem with that. And being a former server and owner, I would think the restaurant would have an issue with that as well, based on turnover times and guest satisfaction issues.

I like to pace my meals, like Bistro and CG and other places. But, for a buffet meal or family-serving like Ohana's, that isn't pacing. That is flat-out taking advantage of a situation. Can't get the 9:30 ADR- take the 6:30 and not leave until 10:30. It'll be okay. It is not unreasonable, even if they were seated at 7, for them to be done by 9PM. That's 2 hours. Even 2.5 hours is one thing, but then you are infringing on someone else's time slot.

In this regard, I think Disney should be smarter in this regard- much like V&A's post their estimated time frame for a meal, so should all the other popular restaurants, as a suggestions. "This meal is recommend for diners wanting a meal of an hour or less." or "This meal is an estimated 1.5 hour time..." or something. Or "If your party hangs out here for 4 hours, you will be charged a 25% tip and an extra credit per person"- that would really make people think about hanging out. (I am kidding about the last one...but it would be funny to watch someone's face until they got )

I guess that's why I prefer lesser-liked TS or more CS meals anyway.

 

[Luv4Disney]

Overall, I think Disney does a great job as well. The only times when our wait time went way beyond our ADR time was at Ohana's. However, we knew that going in. Now we check in 30 minutes early and pretty much get seated on time, lol.

However, this last trip I made all of our ADR's online. 2 adults, 1 infant. I put in 3. We check in, they would pretty much say, party of 3, look at us and say, 2 adults and 1 infant? We say yes, they ask if we need a highchair, we again say yes and we're done. Like a PP said, 99% of the time there was a highchair waiting, if not, it took 1 to 2 minutes for the seater to get us a highchair.

We'll see what happens again this trip but I can imagine it should be like our previous trips.

 

[bumbershoot]

Then, I'd correct them, and the girl at the podium would get a confused/concerned look on her face, type in some corrections, and ask us to wait for the next available table.

Waiting for the next available table is exactly what an ADR does for you.

What you can control is 3 people being required to get you to your table. Every other restaurant from Applebees to 5 star establishments can do it with 1 person, why does Disney need 3? And as others have pointed out, one person in the process may lack the "credentials" to fix a problem the earlier person made.

Others here have not experienced what you experienced, though. Since they aren't having to wait for certain people to bring a highchair, etc, then it's not policy to have only certain people bringing a highchair.

Maybe there was a delay because they had to FIND a highchair. Maybe the person that you talked to first had 18 things to do and needed, for his/her own sake, to ask someone else to do it?

I know what it's like to have things color your future experience (it's caused a deep dislike of AKL that I just can't shake even though i can reason it out), and I can't help but wonder if that wasn't what was happening.

either that or you just have awful luck with WDW seating.

 

[HunnyJar]

Sorry you had such a bad experience. I can say that we did not have any real problems while we were there in September and we needed two high chairs and were a party of six. The only place we ran into any problem was at Crystal Palace. I hope you have a better experience next time.

 

[HarborBlvd]

Wow. That's a very fine display of sarcasm, indeed. I can't help but wonder how it played into your unbelievable amount of consistent bad luck for one group of people. Hopefully you were able to get past the traumatic experience of dining out and enjoy yourself at the parks.

Considering all the factors, most notably the sheer amount of people that filter through any given restaurant on any given day, much less during the onset of the holiday season, I'd say Disney has fine-tuned the art of moving people. As with everything, I'm sure there are exceptions, and you seem to have found all of them in one fun-filled week.

I agree that things could have gone smoother for your party. But I guess in the grand scheme of things, I just find it unnecessary to give it that much power to ruin an experience. It's just a dining reservation. In a theme park. On vacation.

I hope you come back and give them another shot at it. I think your luck will improve.

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

OP you are correct. Disney Dining no longer operates with the smooth efficiency it once did.

However, I've never been to a full service restaurant anywhere when it took just one person to greet, and seat us.

There is always at minimum, two. There is a person operating the podium (in the capacity of determining where we will be seated) and one person to show us to the table. Sometimes, depending upon the quality of the restaurant we will have more than two, but never had just one.

Now, having said that, Disney Dining turns over huge numbers of guests for each meal. For example, at Cape May's Breakfast it's not unheard of to seat over 950 people. That takes coordination and good management to say the least.

Oh, and I don't find your original post sarcastic at all.

Take care now and I hope you have better luck with your Disney dining experience from here on out.