Will Disney still charge a no show fee if the wait is an hour after check in?

[Sunnywho]

I have a difficult time because of health issues with the length that a table service meal itself can take. A long wait on top of that can make it undoable. What I do is avoid the restaurants that are known to be prone to long waits. Ohana's and Crystal Palace and, because of a past experience, the Plaza.

The Plaza was especially unfortunate because I had to leave before dessert, which was covered under dining plan and was the reason I'd booked the Plaza, lol.

 

[Karlzmom]

On our recent trip, DH and I kicked around the idea that maybe Disney is trying to push us back to making near same day dining plans. I remember reading somewhere that you used to be able to make TS plans same day, then everything went to months in advance or out of luck. With the new "locked in" policy (and the potential for steep penalties) is this Disney's way of using *price signals* to alter our behavior -seemingly by our own choice?

 

[DCDisney]

Unless things have changed recently when you checked in that moved your name from one list to another. The names left on the list at the end of the night that weren't checked in were charged. So theoretically you could check in and then decide to leave. We had an issue with some of our reservations on our last trip that I made over the phone were duplicated so the host specifically asked if the second reservation was mine and marked it as checked in so I wouldn't be charged. I've been havind trouble getting the FP+ system to work well around my ADRs so I cancelled those I could and rebooked under an alternate email. For any future trips I will do the same as well as using a disposable credit card. I won't cheat the system but I also won't take responsability if WDW has problems on their end. If they have an hour wait they clearly don't need me to stay. I'll happily give them the same wait time they will give me.

 

[katallo]

After reading this thread, I'm feeling even better about my decision to not make ANY dining reservations until "day of". I'm sure I won't starve but neither will I be paying money for nothing.

Totally agree. We are traveling with a group of 8 and have all decided to take our chances. Luckily, we will have a car and can always eat offsite. I'll miss Disney restaurants, but not enough to deal with all of this preplanning.

 

[momof2disprincesses]

We are a family of 4 who just returned from 13 nights on free dining. That meant we had 13 ADR's.

Twice in that time we wanted to cancel the day of. Both times, I did call Disney dining and was told I would be charged $10 per person if we cancelled, so we went and were miserable both times. The other 11 sit down meals were delightful (for the most part).

Once we wanted to cancel because there was torrential rain and we were eating in the WS of Epcot. As you all know, there is NO easy way to get there without getting completely soaked.

The other time, we were all exhausted and crabby and just wanted to go back to the room to take naps, but no, we had to go eat or be charged $40.

I just finished emailing Disney about my dissatisfaction with this new policy.

This was our 33rd trip to WDW. We are DVC members and regular AP holders. We felt like slaves to our schedule this trip, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as other trips.

We have decided for our family anyway, we will not do the dining plan again and we will not make ADR's in advance. We always drive and can easily eat off-site or in our villa.

I will miss dining at a few of our favorite places and maybe in time, I'll change my mind but for now, this new policy really left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[katallo]

We are a family of 4 who just returned from 13 nights on free dining. That meant we had 13 ADR's.

Twice in that time we wanted to cancel the day of. Both times, I did call Disney dining and was told I would be charged $10 per person if we cancelled, so we went and were miserable both times. The other 11 sit down meals were delightful (for the most part).

Once we wanted to cancel because there was torrential rain and we were eating in the WS of Epcot. As you all know, there is NO easy way to get there without getting completely soaked.

The other time, we were all exhausted and crabby and just wanted to go back to the room to take naps, but no, we had to go eat or be charged $40.

I just finished emailing Disney about my dissatisfaction with this new policy.

This was our 33rd trip to WDW. We are DVC members and regular AP holders. We felt like slaves to our schedule this trip, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as other trips.

We have decided for our family anyway, we will not do the dining plan again and we will not make ADR's in advance. We always drive and can easily eat off-site or in our villa.

I will miss dining at a few of our favorite places and maybe in time, I'll change my mind but for now, this new policy really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Well said! We feel the same way. We have visited over 45 times and I can honestly say we will not use a credit card hold to eat at Disney. There is just too much risk involved. We will be with a group of 8 and if I book things and incur a cancellation fee it will be 80.00. We just can't take that chance.

 

[msteddom]

I'm at WDW right now, and I've had good luck making reservations the same day.

Melissa

 

[fairy8i8]

I have decided for our trip the end of April/beginning of May that I will keep my current reservations, but each night I will check to see if there is a bunch of availability in our desired restaurants for the next day. If there is, then I will cancel the reservation and just call an hour ahead of when we want to eat to make a reservation the same day.

However, I don't imagine that I will have flexibility at the popular restaurants like Be Our Guest and Ohana's, so I might have to take my chances with those. Luckily, Ohana's is for 5:05pm, so if they are an hour behind when they first open, there is a serious issue with management of the restaurant.

Does anyone know what happens if someone with a later ADR arrives before you at the restaurant and checks in. Are you put behind them in line?

 

[fairy8i8]

Scratch that. The cancellation time is now 48 hours! You have to cancel 2 days beforehand now!

...Called Dining Reservations. Apparently MyDisneyExperience is wrong again. It is still cancellation the day before, not 48 hours. Gotta love big companies with different departments.

 

[jimandami]

Scratch that. The cancellation time is now 48 hours! You have to cancel 2 days beforehand now!

Where did you hear/read that? To the best of my knowledge, the new policy is the cancellation must be by midnight the night before.

 

[fairy8i8]

Where did you hear/read that? To the best of my knowledge, the new policy is the cancellation must be by midnight the night before.

It says, "For dining reservations guaranteed by a credit card, Guests who cancel within 48 hours of their reservation time or fail to show will be charged a $10 per person fee for each Guest on the reservation." if you go to My Reservations in your MDE account and hover over the i in the circle next to the words "Guaranteed by Credit Card" for your reservations.

That's why I called. I am relying on the Dining CM on the phone to be right. She double checked, even on my specific reservation and said it was still the day before. However, if you have a trip for the future, it might not hurt to double check the cancellation policy a few days before you leave.

 

[Colleen27]

Scratch that. The cancellation time is now 48 hours! You have to cancel 2 days beforehand now!

...Called Dining Reservations. Apparently MyDisneyExperience is wrong again. It is still cancellation the day before, not 48 hours. Gotta love big companies with different departments.

It has been that way a while now. 48 hours is the policy for prepaid reservations only, but it is showing up in the fine print on all ADRs for some reason.

 

[fairy8i8]

It has been that way a while now. 48 hours is the policy for prepaid reservations only, but it is showing up in the fine print on all ADRs for some reason.

Funny, because the only reservation that says 24 hours is my Cinderella's Royal Table, which is my only prepaid reservation. I did take the time to call Disney Web Support, and they opened a ticket to get it fixed. Hopefully that will do it.