2009 Restaurant Rumor About This Page:

[tio marco]

I am posting this here, since it is obviously undocumented at this point.

I called to confirm the reservation i made for September 2009. After making sure everything was okay, the cast member asked if i had been given the date i could make my dining arrangements for next year (March 17). I told her i had just returned and was surprised ALL of the restaurants had empty tables (during Free Dining, no less).

She said guests making multiple reservations, then being a no-show without cancelling, has become a huge problem and the restaurants are losing money. We should expect most or all of the restaurants to require a credit card to hold a reservation. Any no-shows would be charged for the reservation.

Guess we'll see......

[lauren-roxy]

That is interesting. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

[Buffalogirl18]

I find that really hard to believe since a lot of people don't even have credit cards these days, and even the hotels don't require a credit card at check in.

[elisa1006]

I do think they shouldn't allow someone to make mulitple ressies for the same time frame and different resturants, that would cut a lot of that out.

[NanaTink]

Originally Posted by elisa1006

I do think they shouldn't allow someone to make mulitple ressies for the same time frame and different resturants, that would cut a lot of that out.

When you are calling at 180 days out and so many are booked solid! Makes it hard to plan anything!

[Disdadnmi]

I can actually see them doing this. I too was there during Free Dining and I was quite surprised as well at seeing a lot of empty tables at some of the more popular meals. I have no doubt that many of these were reservations that were made and no-shows. On the brighter side though, if they do this, it should make more tables available for everyone else.

[Kynna]

We always make a point of calling and cancelling reservations we think we won't be able to use. I think it is really selfish to book yourself to be in two places at once.

Honestly I don't mind leaving a credit card # with ressies as long as they give us a reasonable window of time to cancel in case of last minute emergencies.

[Caldercup]

Hmmmm... during the Free Dining promotion, it's also "low season" and I'd think that the restaurants would expect to have open tables.... that was the WHOLE purpose of Free Dining in the first place -- to try to draw more people to Disney World at a low-crowd time.

There have been reports lately (for the past month or two) or guests finding that, when they had two concurrent ADRs for the same party size and time, Disney was cancelling them both. This was reported to be an attempt to stop some guests from taking up two (or more) restaurant reservations and keeping other guests from being able to snag an ADR.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the next several months.
Eileen

[njsmama]

I made 2 ressies for the same time frame (a cast member suggested this). We were waiting for a definate time for the last showing of LMA stunt show before it went dark for a rehab. As soon as it was released, we cancelled the ressie we couldn't use. That is the first time we have ever done that, granted it was only for about a week that we had 2 ressies, but, I felt guilty. I was relieved when the schedule was finalized so we could cancel our second ressie.
I too would not mind providing a CC # to secure our ressie as long as it had a decent time frame for cancelling.

[chezp]

Interesting. Thanks for the heads up.

[karyntay07]

Personally, I think it's a good business practice. I worked for a concierge company for a bit and honestly most restaurants require some sort of verification that you will be there when you say you will be there. I couldn't believe what I heard about people making reservations at Disney (not necessarily on this site - more so from friends who found out I was going to Disney who said to make multiple reservations per night.....which I refused to do) I would have never thought of even doing that with out their input. In Allison's situation above, that obviously makes sense, and having two reservations in that instance is necessary, but I couldn't get over the amount of empty tables when we were there our last trip. I'm glad Disney is doing something to solve that issue. The only reason anyone should have a problem giving a credit card to secure a reservation is if they think they might miss the ADR, otherwise it shouldn't be an issue. We had two ADR's that required a CC in advance (Luau and Cali Grill) and we didn't have any problems - nothing was charged as we were there on time. Personally, I think this system, if it's put in place, will help Disney's overall service.

[magic mickey]

I agree with Eileen about it being a low season and maybe that's why the tables were not all filled. We were there Aug. 11-20 and every ADR that we had was fulled to the max. So many people were trying to get a walk up res. and were told that nothing was available. It will be very interesting to see if this happens.

[revral]

Interesting. Although if they do this I think it will make me book even fewer adr's than I do now unless they allow you cancel 1 or 2 hours before your adr without being charged. I don't mind the credit card but if they sick with the 24 or 48 hours in advance policy they currently have in place for some restaurants for all restaurants it's not going to discourage me from making adr's. In December I had an adr at LeCellier my last and intended to go however by around 4pm (about 2 hours before my adr) I realized that 1) I was absolutely exhausted 2) I just wasn't in the mood to sit through a ts meal and 3) I still had a bunch of packing to do so I called and canceled. If Disney does this I think they should only do it for character meals, signature restaurants, and the really popular restaurants such as LeCellier and for everything else allow you to do it but only give you a few days to call and cancel all but one adr before they cancel all of them for you.

[HeatherD]

I agree with Eileen about it being a low season and maybe that's why the tables were not all filled. We were there Aug. 11-20 and every ADR that we had was fulled to the max. So many people were trying to get a walk up res. and were told that nothing was available.

They offer free-dining because of low-season, but if people are calling and not getting ADRs because everywhere is full, but then, when they go places, there are empty tables, that is not due to low-season. The problem is, with free dining, people don't have any incentive to keep the ADR. They aren't out any money and there is nothing holding them to a reservation.

Walk-ins will be told nothing is available because the ADRs were so booked. But if 25% of those people never show, that's 25% more tables they could've filled if they'd known the people weren't going to show.

Since people, nowadays, don't carry the same personal responsibility toward others (the affect their actions may have on others), companies have to come up with other ways to ensure that courtesy, since they will bear a large portion of that if they are unable to satisfy their guests.

[coasties]

Interesting, Thanx for the info :-)