Djmarceau
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2021
First time starting a thread so let's see how this goes.
My last trip to WDW was in 2018 and was my first experience with WDW's ADR system. Overall, it went well, and we were able to get most of our reservations. I recently entered my ADR's for our upcoming trip in October. Though I was able to get all our desired reservations
it didn't go very smoothly, I learned a lot while trying to navigate the system. So, I thought I would share my experiences in the hopes some will benefit. FYI, I am the planner for a party of 10 with 6 different hotel/ticket reservations and itineraries. What joy! 
. Here are my lessons learned and take aways (BTW I did all this on my desktop but had my iPad in reserve in case I needed it):
Use the pulldown MDE menu then all your days of the 60+ stay are selectable. 
. That meant all my effort to preload the restaurants from the night before was wasted.
So, all in all I survived. after 2 hours I was able to make 19 ADR's for a large party of 10 plus a couple of enchanting extra's to put some pixie dust on the vacation. I only had to split the group up 3 times into smaller groups, but we are eating only 15-30 minutes apart so that works. So anyway, I hope these few tidbits of information are of benefit to a few people. Fortunately for me I have a fast desktop with high-speed internet to make up for the glitches. After this experience I really could use a vacation.
My last trip to WDW was in 2018 and was my first experience with WDW's ADR system. Overall, it went well, and we were able to get most of our reservations. I recently entered my ADR's for our upcoming trip in October. Though I was able to get all our desired reservations
it didn't go very smoothly, I learned a lot while trying to navigate the system. So, I thought I would share my experiences in the hopes some will benefit. FYI, I am the planner for a party of 10 with 6 different hotel/ticket reservations and itineraries. What joy! . Here are my lessons learned and take aways (BTW I did all this on my desktop but had my iPad in reserve in case I needed it):- At the 61-day mark before our check-in, I did a dry run just to get familiar with the ADR system on the WDW website. It helped a little but did not prepare me for everything I experienced. I entered my credit card on the MDE website for our reservation, but it turns out it doesn't automatically use that for ADR's. The night before I opened tabs on my computer for each restaurant, I wanted to make an ADR for, signed into my WDW account, and preloaded each tab with the restaurant we wanted starting with the most difficult to get (V&A, HDDR) down to the "would be nice to get in if we can ones" (YAY). This last part of the plan didn't go as smoothly as I wanted.
- Got up at 5:00 AMEST to refresh everything and be ready for the 6:00 AM EST opening time. I tried making ADR's at 5:45 AM in case things opened early as I had read on other DIS threads. No dice; 6:00 AM means 6:00 AM.
- Pull up the first tab (HDDR) and tried to select the date we wanted. No go. The only day of our 12 day trip that I could select was our check-in day. The rest of the stay was not selectable.
. After several minutes of panic I found the problem. Lesson #1 do not use the general search bar when selecting your restaurant. It is not linked to your reservation even though you have signed in.
Use the pulldown MDE menu then all your days of the 60+ stay are selectable. . That meant all my effort to preload the restaurants from the night before was wasted.- Once I chose the date, I entered everything needed for the reservation until I found out the credit card info entered in MDE doesn't preload into the ADR. So, I had to rush to find my wallet, pull the card, and manually enter in the credit card info. Lesson #2 keep your credit card handy when placing your ADR. After the 5th-6th ADR I had the darn thing memorized.
- Then just as I was confirming the reservation the page crashed.
So I repeated all the steps again, the infamous "something happened on our end" message came up and the website crashed again. . - Then I received a text message from the credit card asking me if I have been attempting to make a charge. I answered "Yes" with the reply coming back saying it was OK and that I could try to make the charge again. Lesson #3 call your credit card company ahead of time to let them know that you will be using the card to make some reservations to avoid holds from being placed preventing the card from being used.
- So I went thru the ADR process again. Same result. Did it again but using another card. Same result. At this point I am seriously questioning my sanity. . By this time I had my credit card info memorized.
- Just on a whim I checked my e-mail inbox to see if my credit card company has sent me any messages asking WTH is going on. I then notice (5) e-mail confirmations from Disney for my HDDR confirming my cat. 1 reservation for our party of 10. Even though the website crashed each time I tried to confirm the confirmation went thru without providing the confirmation number. I had spent the last 30 minutes reserving 50 seats at the HDDR. LOL . I then checked my MDE plan and sure enough all 5 reservations were there. I then canceled 4 of the 5 to free up the seats for other people before I made any other reservations. People who were trying to make reservations for the same day I did were probably wondering WTH was going on. Sorry, my bad.
. Lesson #4 keep a tab open with your e-mail inbox open and keep an eye out for confirmation e-mails. Just because the system crashes doesn't mean it didn't go thru. - So 45 minutes in, I have 1 reservation in the box. I figured the rest of the vacation with ADR's is a washout. But luckily once I had the darn system figured out the rest went fairly smoothly. But it did take a total of 2 hours to get through everything. There were more crashes, but I had that process figured out. There were several times when days would be blocked out and not available to book. Lesson #5 in the event of a glitch just close the website page, open a new one, sign into your account and restart process. The missing days were now available to book.
- Lesson #6 when making ADR pay attention to the calendar date you chose. It defaults to the next day (aka tomorrow) not the first day of your stay. Several times I clicked on the date I wanted but made an August reservation instead of an October one. That was just a stupid mistake on my part since I was rushing to get thru my ADR list ASAP. Easily correctable by canceling and rebooking for the correct date.
- Lesson #7 if you are booking any Disney Spring restaurant do it thru Open Table first before your 60+ window opens up. Less to worrying about on your ADR day.
So, all in all I survived. after 2 hours I was able to make 19 ADR's for a large party of 10 plus a couple of enchanting extra's to put some pixie dust on the vacation. I only had to split the group up 3 times into smaller groups, but we are eating only 15-30 minutes apart so that works. So anyway, I hope these few tidbits of information are of benefit to a few people. Fortunately for me I have a fast desktop with high-speed internet to make up for the glitches. After this experience I really could use a vacation.
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I'm a veteran at this but had many of the same issues last week.Did a search on the ipad while logged in but no cc automatically filled in 
. Booked through the app on my phone and yayyyyyy it prepopulated. Kept putting me back to August when I want Oct and sometimes not giving me my +10 so I had to log back in- could've been each time I moved to a new device but not sure. It helped to have a spreadsheet with everything laid out, alternative dates and all, while booking. I always start with the hardest to get and book them during the +10. Thanks for providing this tutorial for those who are newbies at this or require a refresher...it is not for the weak of heart lol 
So I had my husband's account logged in on the phone and mine on the website and did a search on each. I'm going to call later and try to get them merged.
