The thing I hate about ADRs

@stlouie totally feel your pain.

I have found that the more often I go, the less stressed I feel, the less ADRs I book, and I feel more confident with FPP selection. For our Fall 2019 trip, we only have 4 sit down meals planned, where we used to do 1 per day.

Thanks @SillySamsMom. I appreciate the insight of your experience.

Perhaps if we return in 2020 for the Flower and Garden Festival it won’t be so hard to plan. But wait, then I would need to start planning 2020 before I even do FPP for 2019! 2021 might be better.

Yeah, no kidding. I booked our Fall 2018 hotel before we checked out of our Fall 2017 hotel stay. But all of the planning is worth it when you’ll by pass people waiting in 45-245 min lines.

The “ADRs” are the reservation system, NOT the restaurants (which are TS or Signature). I absolutely hate the system (having to make a dinner reservation months in advance is crazy), but there are a number of restaurants that I really like.

I really miss the original EPCOT dining system. All reservations were “day of”. When the park opened, you went to the “Communicore”, specifically the large round room at the exit of SE and there were a series of video kiosks where you could make your dining reservations for that day.

There were only 2 places in the MK that offered “reservations” - The Diamond Horseshoe Review" and "King Stephan’s Banquet Hall (what is now CRT, but with no characters). And these worked the same way; you signed up for them the same day.

Of course this was also before FPPs or even paper FPs; if you wanted to ride something, you stood on line for it

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I remember racing to the Communicore with my parents as a kid to get reservations each day. I also remember being on stage at the Diamond Horseshoe Review for the magician act. I didn’t really like being on stage as the straight man (child) in front of the crow, but at least I got a pair of ears out of it.

The worst part of the ADR experience so far is definitely the gap between the ADR and the FPP. If all goes well it won’t matter and I’ll get what I want and when I want them (mostly). Otherwise, I dread rearranging my ADRs. The last time I was here they were still using paper Fastpasses, so it was very different.

So I totally feel the having to wait part. It stinks. But, what I really didn’t like was that when we got there we couldn’t check in until right at the appointment time. Then, we had to wait for them to call us. Sometimes it was up to 15-30 minutes. We couldn’t really go anywhere. We just had to sit and waste valuable park time. This next time, I’m taking the route @Jameyh9479 is taking and just doing QS, except for departure day, which is going to be at the resort. Whispering Canyon Cafe.

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the only place i know of that you can’t get into until right at your ADR time is Be Our Guest. I have checked in many times early and been seated. Once it was like an hour early… 1900 Park Fare. We had some down time and thought - well, let’s try!

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I usually show up about 20 mins earlier than time. Wait is usually 20 mins. after reservation time. When we’ve show up @ time, wait is longer. Dont get the point of ADR’s if you have to wait a long time. Isn’t that the purpose of a reservation?

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If that was your experience, that’s great. It certainly wasn’t mine. I tried to check in about 5 minutes early and they always sent me away and told me to come check in at my appointment time. Every single one.

@Dad_of_twin_girls that’s a shame. I wonder if it’s related to crowd levels.

@drvillarejos the ADR gets you a table. it doesn’t guarantee you the table at the precise time. they can’t control if the people sitting there are lingering for long periods of time.

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I know, thats why I try to eat and run, lol, help the next family out. I still think they should try to do better than 30 - 40 mins. Sometimes thats not a whole lot better than the walk up wait.

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It certainly could be. I was there the week before Thanksgiving week then, so it wasn’t terribly crowded, but there are certainly times when it is far less crowded I’m sure.

We do fewer ADRs every time we go. The quality doesn’t justify the time or money, in my opinion. We used to use them for mid-day breaks and now we just go back to the resort and snack in the club lounge. For old time’s sake, we won’t skip SciFi diner but honestly the rest I could take or leave and next time we’ll cut back on them even more, I expect.

When we went last spring, I really wanted to be “wowed” by a couple of new (to us) places we tried, such as Tiffins, Homecomin’ and Skippers’ Canteen but we just weren’t. Only Raglan Road really seemed worth the effort- I’d definitely make the trip to DS just for that.

I think the snack scene inside the parks has improved dramatically, though. We’d rather graze on snacks than have a big sit-down at this point.

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The hype on the ADR’s is overblown (and I am guilty of this myself). Other than the character meals and couple of the high end TS (Cal Grill, V & A, Jiko), there is nothing special about the dining at WDW. When I was excited to get an ADR at 180 days out for La Hacienda de San Angel, my wife said she wasn’t sure why I was so excited … it’s good (not fabulous) Mexican food, but we can get good Mexican food at a number of restaurants in the area of our home. She is right. I know a lot of folks are excited for Via Napoli, but is it really any better than some of the pizza places at home?!? The same point applies to most other non-character meal TS.

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Yes planning my next trip, it’s tough to decide if it’s worth it. This will be our second family trip and we did not try a lot of the CS places last time. I think I’ll plan a few TS but focus on looking at the good CS locations.

I just don’t really understand the 180 day number. It seems so arbitrary! Like mentioned the park hours are far from finalized, some show times aren’t announced, etc. I find it hard to believe that Disney is really making staffing decisions this far in advance. Why wouldn’t they just do 120 or 90 days? Drives me nuts! I feel like I made my ADRs eons ago and FP day is going to “sneak up” on me soon in a couple of weeks.

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I have found that you can always walk up to a restaurant that you have a reservation at, even if it is 3 hours early, and say “hey we are starving, any chance we can get seated now?” and they will usually seat you. I have done it for parties of 2 up to parties of 5. Usually seated within 10-30 minutes. Now not when it is a super crazy crowded day or at a prime time like 6pm dinner crowd obviously! But usually they will work with you. That being said? I cut wayyyyyyy back on the ADR’s a long time ago. We do a few sit downs and only at long time favorites. Do a lot more QS but we also know which ones we like!

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I’ve been to plenty of restaurants not in WDW where I’ve had to wait past my reservation time. Any “reservation” system is based on an assumption of how fast they can “turn a table”. As an example, a place might estimate that the average time a group will spend at a table, from seating to leaving is 60 min. Some might take a bit longer, some shorter, but in the long run, it averages out. Then why the delays? One of three reasons (a) more people are having fun and are just staying longer than the estimated time, (b) the kitchen can’t keep up with the pace, resulting in longer than estimated stays, or © the restaurant’s time estimate is not realistic compared to the actual time that patrons stay.

I think the last of these is a major factor at WDW. Using my above example, of 60 min, in the course of an 8 hour day they can turn a table 8 times. If they went with 90 min, it would only be 6 sittings. If a table of 4 typically spends $200 for a meal, that’s an $800 loss - per table. If a restaurant is packed from opening until closing, customer dissatisfaction over delayed seating is meaningless to the bottom line.

How many times have you had a 2:00 doctor’s appointment but were still in the waiting room at 3:00 waiting to be seen. Same thing.

Not “defending” it, but just telling it as it is…

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It used to be shorter, but for whatever reason Disney kept pushing it further and further

It depends on the restuarants popularity too it seems. Tonys in MK, little wait each time, can get ADR day before, lol.