Dining Reservations

[jdtopgun71]

Is the dining reservation system similar to the system at the parks where occasion they will slide some reservations in sporadically. In other words is it worth my time to sit there and keep refreshing the screen in hopes that something pops up or are you literally just hoping that someone happens to cancel while you are in there. Does that make sense?

 

[Debbie Jean]

People cancel and adjust their plans all the time. When they drop a reservation, an opening will appear.

Continuing to look when you have not had success booking a restaurant is called “stalking” and you may hear people refer to this method of getting a more difficult reservation. When you have the time or the inclination, go on in and do a search. You might get lucky lol

Personally, I do it all the time with great success!

 

[jdtopgun71]

People cancel and adjust their plans all the time. When they drop a reservation, an opening will appear.

Continuing to look when you have not had success booking a restaurant is called “stalking” and you may hear people refer to this method of getting a more difficult reservation. When you have the time or the inclination, go on in and do a search. You might get lucky lol

Personally, I do it all the time with great success!

Thank you for this. Is there a particular strategy that's been successful for you? Do you select the breakfast, lunch, dinner options or do you have more luck picking specific times? From the app it is much harder to do because you cannot keep refreshing on the same restaurant like you can online. I'm trying to get O'hana and having no luck but I'll keep trying. Thanks again!

 

[Debbie Jean]

Thank you for this. Is there a particular strategy that's been successful for you? Do you select the breakfast, lunch, dinner options or do you have more luck picking specific times? From the app it is much harder to do because you cannot keep refreshing on the same restaurant like you can online. I'm trying to get O'hana and having no luck but I'll keep trying. Thanks again!

I’ve done it both ways, general meal and specific times. Sometimes I increase or decrease party size since that can make a difference too. If I score a reservation for 4 when there is nothing for 2, I book it and edit later which the system does easily. Might work booking 2 and editing to 4 later… haven’t done that so I can’t speak from experience.

It takes patience, but if you keep at it, I’ll bet you will be successful, too!

 

[jdtopgun71]

I’ve done it both ways, general meal and specific times. Sometimes I increase or decrease party size since that can make a difference too. If I score a reservation for 4 when there is nothing for 2, I book it and edit later which the system does easily. Might work booking 2 and editing to 4 later… haven’t done that so I can’t speak from experience.

It takes patience, but if you keep at it, I’ll bet you will be successful, too!

That is a great tip. Really appreciate it!

 

[maltdizzy]

Do you select the breakfast, lunch, dinner options or do you have more luck picking specific times?

The WDW system is buggy and faulty as hell. They just keep slapping on more band-aids to keep it from crashing completely.

Try both, and check different slots near your desired meal. So you might search for Dinner and get nothing, then search for 6:30pm and get nothing, then search for 6pm and get 6:25pm.

"That way madness lies" - King Lear

I find the website is much easy to use, especially for the initial 60-days out ADR session. But once I'm at the park, I'm relying entirely on the app and try to remain flexible.

Single travelers have better luck when searching for ADRs for two. Sometimes, parties of 3 or 5 have better luck search for ADRs for 4 or 6 respectively, though those seem to be improving.

 

[_19disnA]

Many older threads about ADR's. Since you get charged a 'no show' fee if you don't show up for your reservation, people tend to cancel once their plans have been finalized. I assume most of the new availability for a previously unavailable place is due to that. Disney IT tends to be unreliable for just about everything. System issues might also cause openings that weren't previously available. If something doesn't seem available when planning your trip, I would just check when you are at Disney a day or two ahead of time and see what might now be available.

Personally, I wouldn't waste a lot of my time at Disney with my nose stuck in my phone constantly tapping and trying to find a particular ADR. Lots of choices of places to eat.

 

[Eastern]

As a data point, I had been trying to get SciFi Dine-in (I know...) since ADRs opened. Nothing. Even Touring Plans wasn't helping. (It was harder to get after they opened up the Fantasmic dining packages and Sci-Fi is the cheapest choice.)

About a week before, Touring Plans started offering me spots, but I missed the first couple. Then 2 days before, I started checking and kept the TP finder active. I had my choice of times and ended up getting the exact time I wanted.

So don't give up and really check those last two days prior. Also if you're up, try very early in the morning, like 5am. Once people start waking up, cancelled ADRs from the night before get taken.

 

[Eastern]

Time frame to cancel is now @ 2 hours so even look the day of.

 

[Jack Kerouac]

For those who can book ADRs 60+, can you search by restaurant and see if there is availability over your stay or are you forced to to search by date and meal and then scroll for the restaurant? Basically, our first priority is 'Ohana for breakfast and then we will start booking reservations for other days once that one is booked (if we are lucky enough to get it). If its by date and meal, should I just start with the later dates of our trip since that might provide a better chance? Our checkout from the Poly is day eight of our trip.

 

[gerilyne]

For those who can book ADRs 60+, can you search by restaurant and see if there is availability over your stay or are you forced to to search by date and meal and then scroll for the restaurant? Basically, our first priority is 'Ohana for breakfast and then we will start booking reservations for other days once that one is booked (if we are lucky enough to get it). If its by date and meal, should I just start with the later dates of our trip since that might provide a better chance? Our checkout from the Poly is day eight of our trip.

How I did it was I came up with what restaurants I want on what day. The harder ones to get I usually put at the end of the trip for better chances to snag one and so far it has worked. When my time comes to book reservations we prep by opening a tab on our computers for each restaurant and then when it is go time, we look for our first choice for date and time. It didn't let us choose a date range though. But we have gotten everything we wanted using these steps based on tips from other WDW travelers.

 

[Jack Kerouac]

How I did it was I came up with what restaurants I want on what day. The harder ones to get I usually put at the end of the trip for better chances to snag one and so far it has worked. When my time comes to book reservations we prep by opening a tab on our computers for each restaurant and then when it is go time, we look for our first choice for date and time. It didn't let us choose a date range though. But we have gotten everything we wanted using these steps based on tips from other WDW travelers.

That's really helpful! I have my spreadsheet with restaurants, rankings, preferred days, and mealtimes, etc. So this will likely work for our trip. Thank you!

 

[gerilyne]

That's really helpful! I have my spreadsheet with restaurants, rankings, preferred days, and mealtimes, etc. So this will likely work for our trip. Thank you!

We even had the issue of annual passes going on sale for DVC members at the same time which was causing the system to crash and we still got everything we wanted. It may seem like overkill but if it works, it works. Best of luck!!!