Should Disney get rid of ADR'S?

[Queen2PrincessG]

Ok so let's be fair is it truly a fair system?
Does it really benefit anyone or does it in fact cause more problems?

When I go on non- Disney vacations I don't pick my dining choices 90 days out? I go to the restaurant I just saw in the local area magazine with a great review. If i have to wait I wait. If I don't like the wait time I go somewhere else. Why is it so horrible to wait a few minutes. To take it easy and relax with the family on a bench or stroll around a gift-shop while you wait for you table to be ready?

I'm not quite sure why it is so difficult to do at Disney. I mean does no one else find it insane that you can't walk up to Le Cellier?

Now granted there are some places I think ADR's are a necessity, like Character Dining or dining with shows like Hoop De Do.

What do you think? Would Disney be a better place dining wise if there were no ADRS?

 

[Robo]

Should Disney get rid of ADR'S?

Nope

 

[Irish_Mike]

Disney is too popular to not have ADR's.

Face it. If you go to a Six Flag park or to a fair or another place for a vacation, it's fairly easy to get a restaurant. There's not so much demand for a restaurant. Disney, however, has people from all over the world and many restaurants are in high demand.

Hence the ADR's

 

[Robo]

I mean does no one else find it insane that you can't walk up to Le Cellier?

We did walk-up twice to Le Cellier (Lunch) on our last trip.

 

[WTP]

Of course I don't like having to plan my meals up to 180 days out. But, I would prefer ADR's over waiting in a two-hour line for a meal. Or, Disney raising prices even further to cut the line down.

ADR's are a brilliant business move on the part of Disney. It's gets customers on their website looking at options. I bet there are bunches of people who get on there to make their DDP ADR's and see new places they want to try, and upgrade to deluxe. Or, people who get on there to make 1 ADR, see the prices, and decide to stay onsite so they can buy a dining plan.

 

[JimmyV]

No.
While I do not like the whole "plan your vacation 180 days out" idea, and was perfectly happy when priority seating could be made 60 days out for resort guests and 30 days out for everyone else, the total lack of a reservation (or ADR) system would be chaos. The absolute last thing you want to do with tired, cranky kids is sit around a waiting lounge with one of those god-awful UFO light up devices waiting for 90 minutes for a table. It's bad enough having to wait 20 minutes with one now even though you have an ADR. But without ADRs? You would be going crazy killing so much time waiting for your UFO to light up.

In the "real world" when we go on vacation, we very often go to "destination dining" places that fill up 30-60 days ahead, so I plan accordingly. And even if I am not going to a hard-to-get-in place, I still use Open Table to book. I absolutely HATE not being seated at a specific time, especially with a child in tow. I don't want to hang around bars and lounges waiting for a table. I want the restaurant to expect my arrival, and seat me at 7:15 if I reserved a table at 7:15. A reasonable wait is fine. But if I choose to eat at 7:15 and plan accordingly, that doesn't mean I want to eat at 8:30. I don't feel any different about my vacations at WDW.

 

[jackskellington01]

I don't think they should get rid of ADR's. You can't compare eating meals at other restaurants on vacation to those at Disney. There are just too many people at a given time at the parks. Is the whole idea a little crazy to have to make reservations for a restaurant 180 days in advance? Maybe.......but it is what it is.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I just did a survey a few weeks back about whether they should have you pre plan and reserve your fastpasses. Sounds like things are about to get way worse when it comes to preplanning...

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

That's why we don't do the DxDP. I don't want to plan my day around where my ADRs are scheduled (except for Cinderella's Table). We have walked up to Tusker House and Liberty Tree Tavern (lunches) when we did have DxDP and got right in. We only do QSDP and if we feel like a TS restaurant, we pay out of pocket and go at an off time. We don't do hoppers, and I can't imagine having my ADRs scheduled in advance. To me, this locks us in to a certain park on a certain day. That's just not how we roll at Disney. I don't think they should eliminate ADRs, but we just choose not to do them.

 

[goofy4tink]

I have no issues with ADRs 6 months out from my trip. Heck, it gives me something to do while I pass the time. I am constantly tweaking my ADRs.
I do tend to feel sorry for anyone who books at WDW, and pays for the dining plan and doesn't bother with ADRs. Someone needs to tell these people that they need to book ahead of time...especially character meals and more popular restaurants.

 

[wcpamotm]

Absolutely not.

At home I avoid restaurants with long waits altogether, or else go during off times. But at WDW I have less flexibility due to time constraints, and that some restaurants truly are destinations in and of themselves.

I do think it curious that ADRs are available even before park hours are.

 

[Lynn57]

I would much rather book an ADR 6 months in advance, than waste hours of my trip waiting for a restaurant. It seems like the lesser of two evils. If I want to eat at a nice restaurant in a major city, I know that I will most likely need a reservation, so I think of it in the same light.

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

I personally love planning, so no. I would be very unhappy if they got rid of ADR's and would probably end up eating off property to avoid wait times.

 

[Lynne M]

Restaurants in a theme park are a very different situation than restaurants in your home town. At home, there are likely hundreds of restaurants in an easy driving distance from your house. And only a small percentage of people in your area will go to a restaurant for dinner, most will dine at home.

Let's look at MK. On a typical day, there are tens of thousands of people in the park.....and FIVE table service restaurants. Two of those (CP and CRT) have highly sought-after character meals. If there are no ADRs, can you imagine what would happen at rope drop? The stampede for CRT? If you wanted to eat lunch there, you would likely have to stand in line from the time the park opened.

With ADRs, you know ahead of time whether you'll be getting into character meals or not, so you're not wasting an entire morning standing in line for a meal you may not even get into.

I don't find anything unusual about having to book popular restaurants well in advance. There's a reason that many restaurants all over the world take reservations....it's a fair way to handle the demand for seating, and it helps the guests (and the restaurant) plan their schedule.

 

[Jedimike]

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I'm a big fan of food and enjoy eating. When it comes to ADRs, both my wife and I enjoyed planning them out 180 days in advance. We thought it was fun.

We are about 120 days out now, and have since modifed them quite a bit. We made our original plans based on the "Unofficial Guide" and then we started trolling the DISboards, and then even went as far as checking each menu to see if we could plan individual meals at each of the restaurants. It was fun and gave us something to look forward to.

I do feel bad for the folks that don't do it "right" (right according to the 180 day rule) but it is still possible to get ADRs weeks to months before your vacation, it just takes a little more effort.

I like it, and hope they keep it.

 

[phyllis1966]

No way would I like WDW to get rid of ADR"s. I would much rather, as other posters have said, plan my meals 6 months ahead of time than waste precious hours of our vacation waiting around. There are too many restaurants where we live that don't take reservations, and we avoid them because no restaurant is worth an hour or more wait. Don't want to go through the same thing while on vacation.

If you plan it well, you are not stuck in a particular place just because you have an ADR there. We know our favorite breakfast and dinner places, and we always add a few new places for variety each trip. When park hours are released and I plan best parks (we hop) for each day, I then fit my ADR's in according to where we'll be that morning/evening. This method of planning places little to no restriction on where we want to be and when. We always have a great meal to look forward to and we rarely wait longer than 15 minutes.

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

Let's look at MK. On a typical day, there are tens of thousands of people in the park.....and FIVE table service restaurants. Two of those (CP and CRT) have highly sought-after character meals. If there are no ADRs, can you imagine what would happen at rope drop? The stampede for CRT? If you wanted to eat lunch there, you would likely have to stand in line from the time the park opened.

With ADRs, you know ahead of time whether you'll be getting into character meals or not, so you're not wasting an entire morning standing in line for a meal you may not even get into.

That's a scary picture you paint there! Exactly how it would be!

I personally enjoy making ADR's. I am a planning fool! I love the rush I get when I get up that special morning 180 days before our arrival and the sense of accomplishment when I get the restaurants I wanted... then I spend the next 150 days or so questioning my decisions and changing ADR's over and over again.

 

[phyllis1966]

[snip]

Let's look at MK. On a typical day, there are tens of thousands of people in the park.....and FIVE table service restaurants. Two of those (CP and CRT) have highly sought-after character meals. If there are no ADRs, can you imagine what would happen at rope drop? The stampede for CRT? If you wanted to eat lunch there, you would likely have to stand in line from the time the park opened.

[snip]

I didn't thnk of this! It's a scary thought, even though we are past our CRT days!

 

[mishkamushka]

NO NO NO NO NO

I do wish it was 60 days/30 days though -- it's impossible to plan a last minute trip and get all the dining ADRS you want (or nearly impossible anyway)

What I would like however is a certain "leeway" for guests staying in Disney hotels -- where they can call the front desk or somewhere and be able to get a last minute ADR.

I remember the excitement of getting to the hotel, dropping the bags and calling on the house phone for all my reservations for that week.

 

[VAN]

I don't have a problem with the ADR system. Sure it's hard to figure out that far in advance where you want to eat, but I do it and so does anybody else who wants to eat there.

I do think it is "fair". I have an equal chance to get a reservation as does the next person, and would really hate to get into the "running with the bulls" scenario that would happen without the system. It just takes a lot of stress out of a visit to WDW, knowing that you have a guaranteed table reservation at your desired restaurant.

So, I feel your pain, however, it is what it is.