So, my 180 day mark is next Monday. I do have a few questions:
I believe I read on another post a couple of months ago that each reservation needs a $10 per person CC hold. The suggestion was to have a CC already linked to MDE prior to doing ADR’s. I logged in to my own MDE, but can’t see a place to link a card. Is there somewhere I can/should do this?
Assuming #1 is accurate, should I alert my credit card company ahead of time if they are going to put holds for 8-9 restaurants in a short span? I have heard of people having difficulty making their reservations due to this.
What is the closest time limit to have 2 reservations. There are 2 days on my trip that are a bit up in the air where I may need to make 2 dinner reservations the same day. Is it an hour in between? 2 hours? I am hoping to clean some things up in the next week to avoid this, but it’s difficult deciding where you are going to be and where you are going to eat 6 months in advance. I don’t even know what I am doing tomorrow.
You link your card in your profile on MDE - I don’t remember exactly where but it was easy to find. You should definitely do this because otherwise you have to do it separately for every ADR.
There isn’t a $10 hold. There’s a $10 per person charge if nobody turns up - if at least one person shows up, there’s no charge. They will often waive it if you explain at guest services that you can’t go because you’re sick or something. There is a $100 charge when you check in however.
I think maybe an hour. The way round this if you want 2 and it won’t let you is to have 1 in your name and 1 in another adult’s name (they will need their own MDE account to make it). When you book your ADRs you don’t have to say who the guests are so it works fine.
Thanks. I did find it under Profile. I got so caught up in looking at the other options, I never thought about going in to my profile. So, if we use another card to actually pay for the meal, that’s fine, right? I just use this card to hold the reservation (and be charged if I don’t cancel in time)?
If I link someone else to another MDE account for reservations, I can still schedule their FP’s when that time comes right? We have a group of 7 and I’m pretty much in charge of it all.
Yes, our last trip (2015) we had to pay up front for CRT and BOG. I don’t think any of what we are doing are pre-pay restaurants. I am going to try to get a BOG lunch, but that’s about it. The only character dining my kids want is Chef Mickey and Crystal Palace and, unless things have changed, those didn’t require up front payment in the past. Going to try Trail’s End as well this time.
I would not worry too much about selecting people when you book the reservations. Maybe try a practice one today for a random day and just don’t hit confirm all the way at the end. It’s faster to NOT choose people during the 6am scramble.
I would recommend a list of the order you want to make reservations for. I would start with BOG and Chef Mickey’s and do other hard to get ones and then start moving date-wise.
I will try that, thanks! BOG would be our last day, so 180 +6. That is my first, followed by CM. CM will be tougher as it will be on arrival day, but we are staying at BLT, so even if I get something on the later side it’s ok. I will have a plan B for CM though.
One more, kind of related, thought. 2/3 of my children are twins. They will turn 10 2 months before we go. Are we pretty much stuck paying adult prices for them at the buffet’s? I know at places where you order off the menu it seems even adults can get kid’s meals. It’s not a big deal, but they are both picky eaters to begin with, so paying adult prices for them to just get chicken fingers and fries from the ‘kids’ section is rough.
If you have the Dining Plan set up by the time you book the “charged” Events, you can use it to book. Otherwise you pay up front and can get the money refunded and use credits instead, either up front by phoning or at the venue.
Same with any discounts (AP, DVC or TIW) - you can get the discount credited to your magic band or CC on the day.
I will day this regarding alerting your bank: recently I assisted a friend in making her ADRs. She successfully made probably 6 or 7 of them. Then suddenly was getting an error message that the card could not be used. There were only two left and they were pretty non-critical in terms of priority to her and ability to secure so we left them off. A couple of days later she was successful in doing it. As she was not entering the information but was, rather, using a stored card, there was zero chance that she was making some kind of data entry error. It seemed her card company recognized the activity and blocked the ability to do more after the first 6 or 7.
Of note, she noticed that she had a charge of $0.00 for each reservation on her credit card statement. I have never personally noticed that for my own ADRs in the past and wondered if it was related to the relatively newer credit card hold policy that they recently implemented
All this to say: although you will not be charged anything to make most of these ADRs but will agree to the $10/pp no-show penalty it might not be a bad idea to contact your bank ahead to let them know this will be happening so that they do not block you. In addition I would be sure to secure the reservations in order of priority to you and with regard to overall difficulty in securing.
Thank you, yes, it does make sense. I thought I had read something similar to what happened to your friend which is why I asked the question. I will let my bank know. Better to be safe than sorry.
Sorry, one more thought I should have included in my OP. We are a party of 7. I have read that it might be easier if I reserve for a party of 8 instead of 7? Is that accurate? I assume whether it’s 7 or 8, it’s the same size table. I believe I read that the Disney reservation system is a bit weird with odd numbers sometimes?
