Oddly enough, some doctor’s offices have abandoned the appointment system in favor of walk in only. The transition period is painful, but once they got past it they have said that it works great. No more missed appointments that you made a year ago, and you can actually see the doctor on the day that you are sick, rather than making an appointment for a week later.
I do not wait more than 15 mins for any of my docs, and i have a few. If i had to wait an hour each time, I’d find a new doc.
I understand the need to not have same day “no shows” but as I sit in the airport 8 hours after my flight was supposed to leave for Orlando and I call to cancel my Skippers Canteen ADR (
) the last thing I want to hear is how you are doing me a courtesy waiving my cancellation fee… it just needs to be more flexible and really only penalize complete no shows.
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Yes to all of this!! I just wish WDW would wake up and realize what a stupid effort in futility these 180 day ADRs are. And as mentioned, move them to a timeframe when park hours are locked in (30 days). I’m in the thick of this now as we prepare to book our ADRs and I’m trying to guestimate what parks we might be in that day. And ultimately, I know that I’ll likely end up cancelling and rebooking most of them once the park hours change anyway. Sooo stupid.
To be fair, I very much doubt that Disney are purposely “forcing” guests to make ADRs 180 days out. That just happens to be how far out their system will accept reservations, just like Open Table and similar will only take bookings up to a certain point in time. The fact that some restaurants are so popular that guests are willing to get up in the middle of the night to snag an ADR is just supply and demand. And since park hours can and do change as late as a few weeks or even days out, I really feel like they can’t win on this one.
Does this include BOG PPO breakfast or just dinner? We have 8:20 AM reservations on a 9 AM park opening day. I’ve been reading that we can go in at 7:45 AM. TIA
They will let you in the park at 7.45. They used to seat in order of arrival but lately there have been reports that they are being as strict with breakfast as they are with lunch and dinner.
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Huh. This might put a slight wrench in my plan. lol. I also have an 8:20 res and was gonna get there early. lol. ah well.
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I’d definitely get there early still. Even if they won’t let you check in, you’ll be able to get great pics of the empty park. And if you eat fast you’ll still be out before RD if you’ve preordered.
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This is def my plan. I just gotta make sure to be ready to relax it if I have to. This is something I struggle with.
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So true. And if your plans change, you are stuck with an ADR that you can’t give up. We have an ADR for Cinderella’s Table which I booked months ago, just to realize that that is the day when we want to be at SGE. This means that we will be at DHS in the morning for SGE rope drop, go to MK for our Cinderella’s Castle lunch (I have an 8 year old, and can’t cancel this one), to then go back to DHS. I guess that day we will be using the Minnie Vans to get around.
ADRs go right along with the whole “locking in” logic Disney staffing loves so much.
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I have never done the ADRs. You just never know what is going to happen and it seems so complicated. So we have learned to wing it when it comes to food and just concentrate on the FPP. Once we leave for our break during the day, we look for a place to eat (either on or off) Disney.
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Winging it is not an option for me. I have a special needs child that needs to know when he is going to eat and where. The funny thing is that otherwise, he’s pretty easy going. But his focus is food.
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“and the people with imaginary food issues.”
I actually laughed out loud at this.
Then…
"You have multiple devices going, with more keyboards than Rick Wakeman "
And being a big Yes fan who also plays keys, I laughed even more at this.
Thanks for a great read.
ADRs are a scourge, aren’t they? 
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I think 60 days, like FP selections
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It seems like what you really hate is that you stress out over ADRs. It would not really matter when they could be done. You would still stress about them.
I mean the only thing Disney can do to keep people from stressing out about ADRs is to get rid of them and put everyone on a first come first served policy. How do you feel about ADRs now?
It would not matter if ADR day was 100 days out or 15 days out. You would stress yourself out about them. Unless…
You just don’t. No, hear me out. This is the first trip I have planned for myself, but I have seen enough to know that most things will open up at some point. I know that people have to cancel their vacations, or maybe just the table service meals, for a lot of reasons. I also know that a lot of people grab everything they can that they might want and then drop them, when plans firm up which might be some random day, or might be around fast pass time or might be the day before. I read today about one group who had ADRs for several lunches at BOG and they were going to be dropping all but one.
There are quite a few sites that will search for ADRs for you, including this one.
If there is one thing that you feel you have to do, or your trip to Walt Disney World is going to be ruined…umm…
Schedule a trip where you don’t plan meals at all, or pick a day after you have your fast passes to be your ADR day and see what is available and go with it. You do not have to spend the whole time leading up to your trip stressing over what you are going to eat. Or pick a couple of things you really want to do, and get up and get them scheduled. Then put them in the reservation finder and see how many times you could have scheduled them without getting up and feeling rushed to do it.
Don’t blame the stress on the fact that there are ADRs. That stress is self imposed, and if you want it to change you need to do something about it.
The thing is, no matter how well you plan things can mess it up. Life happens. And there is always this- Disney has the right to change anything, any time, for any reason.
One last thing… you do not want ADR day And FPP day to be the same day. If each one stresses you out separately- would you even be able to function if they were the same day? 
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I really like having the ADRs. They force my very active family to take a breather. It is actually stressing me out the opposite: we’re going to Universal for the first time during a high crowd time and I really want to do both Harry Potter restaurants but they don’t do reservations for those. So, we just have to hope to time it well and expect to wait. I would much rather have a res for those. I did make a res for their Mythos restaurant but it’s at a weird time b/c they don’t actually open for dinner during regular dinner time…made me miss Disney a lot…they would have had it open until park close.
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I hear you about that. I am trying to convince DH that we need to go to Universal next year, the first week they have Christmas, and stay in one of the upper level hotels which includes the express ride and Breakfast at both places. It is a little less than our trip to Disney. And does not have to be booked until the end of the year. I am hoping that this trip will get him to want to do more things.
Interestingly, this is pretty much how EP was when it first opened. There were video kiosks in the large room at the exit of SE where you could make reservations for that day. But only about 50% of the capacity was available via reservations, the rest was standby. I wish they would go back to that system…