What happened???

[gelatoni fan]

I don’t understand what’s going on with dining. The current situation can be blamed on staffing, perhaps, but even prior to covid I feel like the dining reservations have been getting harder and harder to get over the past few years.

Years ago I swear it was pretty easy to get same day reservations most anywhere. Then it was tough to get reservations at the “hot spots” but you still had lots of options. Then it was most everything was booked but you could still grab something like Wine Country or River Belle which never seemed to be fully booked. But now it’s like no reservations are available anywhere ever - including Downtown Disney!

I wish they’d add more restaurants at the west end of DTD (Rainforest and ESPN have not been replaced). And now that Steakhouse 55 is closed, they need to add some thing to replace that. And add something to replace Big Thunder Ranch on DL.

I think food quality in the parks has improved through the years making dining in the park better. I also think social media has made is that taking a picture of what you ate at Disneyland is part of the experience making people less inclined to leave the park to eat at McDonald's, IHOP or Denny's. But in the pre-COVID era, when I got to the park late and couldn't get a Fantasmic fastpass, I never had any problem getting a Fantasmic dining package. Something crazy has happened since the reopening and I really don't get it. I have noticed the operating hours of many restaurants in DTD cut so maybe that has something to do with it.

I never really ate at ESPN or Steakhouse 55 but do miss Rainforest Cafe and Big Thunder Ranch BBQ.

 

[MonocularVision]

Have you tried getting a dining reservation lately? With park reservations, necessity of dining reservations and so on, Disneyland sure seems to be moving in that direction. If COVID didn't happen, I think they would have done a Galaxy's Edge style opening for Avengers Campus where the first couple of months, people who didn't plan months in advance wouldn't get to go in to the land.

We rarely get dining reservations at Disneyland, so the current situation doesn’t bother me all that much. I think that situation will improve anyway as they staff up.

As for park reservations, it seems like at this point it is pretty easy to get reservations for basically any day. And again: I think that only gets better over time.

But I guess we will see.

 

[Ladyslug]

Years ago I swear it was pretty easy to get same day reservations most anywhere. Then it was tough to get reservations at the “hot spots” but you still had lots of options. Then it was most everything was booked but you could still grab something like Wine Country or River Belle which never seemed to be fully booked. But now it’s like no reservations are available anywhere ever - including Downtown Disney!

Several years ago (2014 maybe?), me and my husband decided on a whim one afternoon to eat at Steakhouse 55 that very night. I was able to book a reservation for dinner on my phone while standing in line to pick up my race bib. It was a lovely experience, and I'm sorry they've closed down that restaurant. I hope they put something comparable in its place.

 

[PirateBrigade]

I think food quality in the parks has improved through the years making dining in the park better. I also think social media has made is that taking a picture of what you ate at Disneyland is part of the experience making

Point of order, yes, quality has been slowly improving…but as for social media, some of the best looking food on IG is the worst tasting trash.

I’m looking at you, crazy sugar bomb sweet desserts! Barf.

 

[PirateBrigade]

Circling back to the smart phone thing, at least DLR seems to be cognizant of bugging people on the phone, this question came up on my recent resort survey: