Was just curiously browsing the newly released “Ferrytale Fireworks: A Sparkling Dessert Cruise” and realized finally that I guess these are only on Wednesdays and Saturdays. If you select any other day you get a blank timeslot.
This trip has been extraordinarily difficult to get any reservations and I blame a lot of that on the current state of the system. People book things they don’t plan to keep, you can’t search for more than a day at a time and anything that opens up gets instantly gobbled up by others using software to make reservations and alerts.
I think this is a bad sign for how lightning lanes will work too with too much demand and insufficient supply driving people to grab spots instantly whether they really want it or no just because if you wait it will be gone and (FOMO) fear of missing out driving up demand artificially.
The system should know your dates of travel ahead of time and whether you will or not have access to each park as well. For example, Why would I book a restaurant in MK when I have no park reservation or hopper for that date. It also makes me think that Disney may actually be profiting from people missing reservations and losing deposits (I’m guessing they fill the seats with walk-ins anyways so no lost sales).
Sorry for the long rant but this experience is making me want to plan to eat off site next trip aside from character meals.
My ADR day is in a week and a half. I’m dreading it. I really don’t have a lot of high demand restaurants on my list. Just Sci Fi and Ogas appears to be the ones most difficult to get, which I’m am shooting for on 60+6. We already have a contingency plan to eat off site if we can’t get Disney restaurants, as we will have a car with us this time due to driving down from PA, rather than flying.
I recognize I’m not any better than others with the FOMO. I was able to get 2 I wanted and then some random ones but I’m not better, I have a an evening OGAs and CRT rezzyboth that I’m probably going to cancel at 5pm, it’s a great reservation but I don’t know if it’s worth the $$$ with distanced meet and greets.
We aren’t doing any character meals. I agree that it doesn’t seem worth it for the distant meet and greets. The only exception we would allow would be Garden Grill if they brought the breakfast back. That is one of our favorite meals.
For a start if you have an onsite stay you can book for your entire stay, or at least for 10 days worth. And any remaining days will have the 10 day lead which should make it doable.
I would also hate to see only being able to book ADRs for days that you have a park reservation for. I might really, really want dinner at CRT for a trip. So if I can find a table on a particular day, I might then arrange my parks around that. Why force people to do it the other way round? Why not allow people to plan their trips whichever way round they want?
Once the parks are at full capacity, park reservations will be available on the day. And with the new modify functionality there is nothing to stop people switching. Being tied by ADRs is no different than being tied by park reservations.
As for reservation finders, this site has the best known free one, and is very successful. I don’t see why alerting people to availability is so bad.
I think hoarding was probably more prevalent at 180 days than 60. I would prefer to be able to book further out, maybe at 90.
I know the system has been very, very glitchy lately though.
I’m not saying I have a better idea, but the whole experience turns me off trying again next time. Maybe there is just too much weight in getting good ADRs without any other knowns like Fastpass.
It is weird though, you can search a range of dates for something like the photo sessions but not Ohana?
Oh, I didn’t realise you could search a range of dates for some stuff.
I found out fairly recently that I don’t book ADRs the way most people apparently do!
I saw a whole load of advice to go to the restaurant you want and then search for the date and time. That’s how I learned how to do it from the start and had no idea that there was this other way (which I haven’t looked at yet).
So I don’t find it an issue just to move to the next day or select another day from the calendar.
But I don’t think the ADR system has changed, other than the 60 days instead of 180. So it doesn’t even look at park reservations, resort stays or anything else. It’s designed to be completely independent of anything else.
Literally anyone can go in and book a table for themselves and a number of unnamed guests.
I actually did that for someone who had posted that she was desperate for a reservation for their DDs birthday or something. I found one when I got up a few days later, which would have been the middle of the night for them, and just booked it. I took a gamble that I wouldn’t get charged for a no-show.
Actually, I’ve seen posts of people not having as much success with TP reservation finder lately. I see people finding the ADRs themselves or there is a paid reservation finder that seems to be much quicker at finding available ADRs. I’m not sure if it’s the 60 day booking or that the other website is using a different method than TP.
I book the same way you do, by restaurant. I always thought it brought up more available times that way. I usually am very specific with the times I want.
Pretty sure mousedining sails close to the wind with being a paid service. TP uses a team of actual people to search, not sure about mousedining.
I suspect the shorter window is making things tougher to book, whereas the 180 window meant more by way of cancellations as people got closer to their trip.
Bottom line is I decide which ADR I want is MOST important and I book that one first. Then second most, etc. Sure I may not get everything, but I get most - and usually through searching on my own (more often) or the finder here (less often as I am typically not awake at 2am when they come through) before I go. Worst-case I look the day before as people cancel. In 2 trips since reopening, I have gotten everything I wanted at some point in planning or during the trip.
(I would also not assume everyone is “grabbing fireworks cruises with the intent to cancel”. People have been wanting them back since reopening, so the demand is there.)
Disney IT is a mess. I just tried searching for a reservation on the furthest day out. Dinner for 2 on Nov 18. In Firefox I could not get it to pull up any reservations. The last search was an error searching message. So I went over to Edge and was able to pull up all kinds of reservations. I have not actually tried to book one, but I can at least see times. I decided to try to search for something sooner. I checked for dinner for 6 on Oct 1st. I am not seeing anything in MK. However, there are a variety of options elsewhere on property.
So not sure if what you see at any moment in time is actually a good reflection of availability. In the past, there were times when there were no times showing, but it was because they have not released any reservations yet. So there could be a variety of reasons for not seeing a reservation.
My suggestion would be to try different browers, try the app and the website and just keep checking. If you are dining at Disney Springs, check Open Table. Be a little flexible with the restaurants you try.
The browser is definitely much better MDE. MDE is a disaster for planning. For example, If you open “my plans” every single event takes 3/4 of your screen so at most you can see the bottom of one activity, one full one and the top edge of a third one.
I’m honestly not sure if I’m more impressed by everyone here who has not had problems managing their trip with this or wondering if I’m just doing things wrong. It honestly feels like I’m trying to hammer in nails with a sneaker getting everything planned out.
