Something new I learned about Reservation Finder

Walt Disney World Dining
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I’ve used the reservation finder many times and not to brag but I’ve gotten about 95% of the reservations I requested on the first notification and I would say 99% all time. I chalked it up to fast fingers, good wifi/data service, and doing small things like having the MDE app already open when I go to bed for a quicker response. I’ve even secured reservations for other liners who would post that they were having difficulties reacting quick enough.

Recently, I’ve been trying for a PPO BoG reservation and it seemed like I was loosing my touch after numerous notifications came through and I came up empty handed. I figured out what was happening.

In the past, whenever I would get a notification I would immediately jump on MDE, click the # of my party, click the date and then I would hit “Breakfast” and the earliest time would show up. I would secure it and voila I had my reservation.
For this PPO BoG ADR I’ve been doing the same thing but by the time I would do the steps I mentioned above, the reservation was gone (or at least I thought it was).

You see, I had an 8:55am ADR already secured but I wanted an earlier time closer to 8:00am. The notification would come through for an 8:10 or 8:20am, I would immediately open the app, hit # in my party, hit date, hit “breakfast”, scroll down to BoG but I’d never see the 8:10 or 8:20am time. I’d see times closer to my current reservation like 8:50 or 9:05 ( sometimes both) but the earlier times were eluding me. Came through 2 or 3 times in about a 2 hour span and I never was able to snag it.

Then it hit me. If I was getting the notification 2 or 3 times it must still be there. So I tried again but this time instead of hitting “breakfast” (which is not only quicker as it’s the first thing that shows up in the time field but in the past has always showed the earliest times) I instead clicked on 8am and what do you know… There it was just sitting there for the taking “The earlier time”.

It had been there the entire time. I had not been searching for an ADR since the new update to MDE so It hadn’t been an issue. However, since the update back when they made getting Fpp’s different I found the app is much more slow and little things like the way I would normally secure an ADR had changed. I have a last minute trip coming up in a few days so this is the first time I’ve really had a chance to play with the newer version. I’ve noticed a lot of funky things in regards to FPP’s as well. Like, seeing rides and times that are available in the older change party version ( yeah, I still have that version downloaded too) but not so on the newer version.

Maybe this is not news to some but it was for me. So I hope this helps someone along the way.

2 Likes
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There is definitely something different about the way the times show up. I was recently changing around some dinner reservations and wanted something around 5pm. First I chose dinner and there were only times I didn’t want like 7:05, 7:30pm. But if I put in a more specific time that I actually wanted like 4:30 or 5pm, then there were all kinds of times during the time I wanted like 4:45, 5:05, 5:15. I thought it was odd that those times would not come up when I chose “dinner”.

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It’s good to note this @Olafsdad. Thanks.
This kind of MDE quirk is super irksome.
I didn’t know about the issue with ADRs but (well at least on the old MDE version) it always did a similar thing with FPP times. Often the time you wanted would be available, but you had to refresh in different ways (clicking on different times etc) to finally get it to show.
Glad you’ve figured it out and got your BOG res.
Res Finder is awesome. It hasn’t let me down yet.

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This is a good tip tip kit just for the res finder but for initial bookings. The results can be vastly different by selecting an actual time.

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Yes, I’ve noticed that even when scheduling my ADRs at 180 days. I always hit the hour I want, not the meal. Otherwise it gives you a bunch of random times.

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You don’t follow the link in the text to the exact time they found for you? On my phone I log onto MDE through my bowser through fingerprint it. I hit the link, fingerprint, and it brings me to the booking page for that reservation in my account. I never have to search for a time?

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At least on my phone it always seems to take too long or it glitches out when doing it that way. Also maybe because of having the greyed out app also installed, it adds an additional step for me by asking which app I want to choose when completing the task. Then I get only 2 options (greyed out MDE version or chrome) and even though I choose “always” it shows up Everytime.
Probably a glitch on my end but since I rarely ever missed an ADR I didn’t really research it. I did try this way again yesterday but it still didn’t work for me.

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Android or iPhone?

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Android

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That might be why it is different for me and Safari.