Half Hour Late is the New Normal

[SCSteve]

Of course not. It's a combination of things. But if you think that showing up late has no impact, you'd be incorrect. Just as sitting at your table for 3 hours has an impact. It all has an impact.
Of course people have been seated early. We've have. We've even been seated without an ADR. There are always exceptions. Always. Never expect an exception to be made but no one will bite you for asking.

Now that you mention, yes it's most likely folks taking long to dine that makes the back up happen, and I don't blame them, no one should be rushed out, dining at WDW should is one of the pleasures in a WDW vacation.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

Interesting. In Sept. we ate at 1900 Park Fare, Crystal Palace and Akershus with a party of 10 and were seated within 5 minutes each time.

Previous trip we ate with a party of 10 at CRT, BoG dinner, Via Napoli and H&V. Seated within 5 minutes at all except Via Napoli which was about 30 mins.

Not the norm at all for us - our short waits far outnumber long ones. We also have started eating early which may be why (we adore first seatings for meals!)

 

[allsaintsatx]

Four Disney Adults

 

[allsaintsatx]

Question for the OP = just curious as to how many were in your party?

Four Disney Adults

 

[SaintsManiac]

We were actually seated early at half of our reservations. Waited less than a minute for a Minnie Van. YMMV.

 

[allsaintsatx]

We had half hour to 45 minute waits at Kona and Ohana less than a year ago, we did a walk in at Kona on our October Trip and were shocked when we were sat down in 10 minutes. It’s gotten to the point that we are surprised when we are not seated late.

Also, different day this same trip, 20 minutes for Biergarten.

And as far as that aforementioned WCC breakfast we had the 1/2 hour wait for, we weren’t given anything to eat for 1 hour and twenty minutes past the point of our reservation time. So 1/2 hour wait and 50 minutes for food to arrive at the table!

 

[Dean Marino]

Just our habits, and our experience - about 12 years, twice per year....
WE arrive a good 15 minutes before a Ressie. Not to get in early.... to give the Restaurant time to adjust. Booking tables is a Black Art .

Now - Restaurant is a bit late..... in San Francisco, this happens often. A 30 minute delay is NOT unusual, for a good restaurant. Stuff happens.... people don't leave.... it can be a real mess when humans don't exactly adhere to a "schedule" .

Just US: We give any restaurant 1 hour between arrival, and seating, around a Reservation, before we start to question that restaurant's process for Reserved Seating.

All personal opinion - I'm not necessarily right, no one else is necessarily wrong.

 

[MDH]

IMHO you were more than compensated for the unacceptable WCC experience. Yet you came here to “ complain “. I guess we have different outlooks.



Really - how do you know that?



ADRs really aren’t reservations. They are a placeholder in line for the next available table for your size party. A real reservation at 7 holds a table for you at 7. This doesn’t. Using the word “ reservation “ in the title is totally misleading and leads to frustration

Come on now, this is ridiculous. We all love Disney, but this amount of blind support helps no one. I'm not going to go into evertying, I just want to talk on your statement that "ADR's aren't reservations." You do know that that acronym stands for "advanced dining RESERVATION" right? And that to make one, you can call disney where they will ask you if you want to make a dining RESERVATION, or you can go online and click on "things to do" and pick "make RESERVATIONS" under the dining heading?

And yes, I agree that the OP was compensated for their inconvenience, but by no means does that mean they shouldn't tell people about it. If this is how the world worked, where every time someone was inconvenienced or put at disadvantage was paid off and expected to never talk, we'd live in a world of cover ups. The OP stated what happened, didn't demand more, and provided valuable information on what they believe to be a trend. Based on other comments here they weren't wrong.

 

[smmcgarry]

Also, I agree with the other poster. They are, indeed, reservations. The word reservations are in the official title. That's like saying Pirates of the Caribbean has nothing to do with pirates.

I do, on the other hand, see your point... Disney is not the type of company to do anything to upset its guests, including taking late parties and not kicking people out of their tables after a certain amount of time.

 

[TeresaWen]

Just a few random thoughts on waiting

1) I will not wait more than 15 minutes past my reservation time unless there is a bar where I can order a glass of wine and an appetizer. I will not make a reservation or attempt a walk in somewhere where I am handed a pager and made to wait doing nothing in a lobby.

2) Disney clearly states that you should allow 90 minutes if using their transportation. If you think that is way too much and end up being late due to a transportation issue but would have been on time if you actually allowed 90 minutes, who’s fault is it? That is why we uber. I think 90 minutes is a massive waste of time so we spend the extra $9 and use uber.

3) Disney has a massive amount of data on all sorts of guest behavior. I bet if they tried they could tell on average how long a party of 5 spends at lunch when it is raining. Unfortunately not every table will fit the average.

 

[disneyAndi14]

We have been lucky and most of our ADR waits have been less than 10 minutes, we also have had good luck with transportation and we only use the bus system. In all our trips we have only been 5 minutes late 1x. I hope our trend continues with our February trip.

 

[kia5711]

IMHO you were more than compensated for the unacceptable WCC experience. Yet you came here to “ complain “. I guess we have different outlooks.



Really - how do you know that?



ADRs really aren’t reservations. They are a placeholder in line for the next available table for your size party. A real reservation at 7 holds a table for you at 7. This doesn’t. Using the word “ reservation “ in the title is totally misleading and leads to frustration

You do realize the R in ADR stands for reservation right???!

 

[missbrooke06]

We actually had great luck after two trips of long waits. We only had one long wait (TH) but it was partly because we were 20 minutes early and waited 20 past our ADR time. The only other wait was Chef de France but that was likely because we were late (at the bus stop an hour and 45 minutes before our reservation and we didn't expect that it would take an hour for an Epcot bus to appear).

 

[DisneyHardin]

We had 9 days of dining 10/25-11/3.

We weren't seated late once. Not at California Grill and not even at Ohana which is notorious for late seating! We had WCC for lunch and seated right away, which I would hope, it was empty in there!

So no, not the norm.

Didn't use Minnie Vans, but Uber and Lyft worked out great!

This was our experience too. We were there the first week of October and arrived 15-20 minutes early for all our ADRs and were always seated right away - most often we were at our table a few minutes before our scheduled ADR time. I was very impressed.

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

I've been about 1/2 late to my Beaches and Cream ADR and I explained to them why I was late (mostly due to watercraft transportation from HWS). They understood.

 

[robndani]

we waited 1/2 hour past our reservation to sit for our Whispering Canyon Cafe breakfast, we waited a 1/2 hour for the Minnie Van to show up and there was a 1/2 hour wait for our reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern.

And that was all in one day!

We thought that kind of wait was just at places like Ohana and Kona. Guess not!

And, just in case you were curious, 1: we didn’t get food til 1 hour and 20 minutes past our reservation time at WCC and it was ice cold and the appetizers came out after the meal (manager comped meal, gave us fast passes and manager of hotel gave us a free meal anywhere on property), 2: we just walked down and took the bus and the Minnie Van driver called and told us he arrived as the bus was pulling in to MK!, 3: after 1 & 2 happened, as soon as the CM told us they were 1/2 hour behind at LTT, we decided to cancel and we ordered Village Haus on the mobile app and were served and completely done eating in less than 25 minutes!

Same happened to us at WCC. It was over an over after our reservation time until we got our drinks!! I kindly mentioned it to the hostess. We however, did not receive anything but an apology (not that I was expecting anything).

 

[Cornish Lad]

Thought that ADR was Advanced Dining Request?

Nope. I looked it up. It is reservation[/QUOTE]
Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[jrmasm]

I've only waited more than 30 minutes for an ADR twice. Both at Ohana. It's now on my Never Return list. If the 30 plus minute waits become a trend, I won't be doing table service anymore.

I'm glad to see others are not experiencing long waits everywhere so for now, I can keep making ADRs.

 

[focusondisney]

I have to jump in here, I agree that it's not accomidating late folks that cause everyone to be seated late. I ask anyone on the boards, has anyone ever showed up for a reservation 30 minutes late and was actually seated? In my opinion folks always show up early and are made to wait.

Actuall, I feel it's really one sided; at WDW, the GUEST must show up early but the HOST can make you wait as long as they want!

 

[dbriggsq]

I had a horrible experience at Trails End last night - party of one - reservation at 7.30 hoping to get back in time for the fireworks afterwards.

Arrived at 7.15 - told they would be running late and it would be close to my reservation time. That's fine - asked if i could wait inside at the bar 'no there are no seats at the bar' oh OK.

By 8.30 - an hour after my reservation time and absolutely frozen to the bone because it was very cold last night I was eventually taken in - and I think this was only because the large group of us outside looked like they might start a riot. I looked through the windows from time to time (longingly at the food and the warmth) and there was always at least a third of the tables open so I don't know what the heck was going on.

It's an experience I never want, or intend, to experience again.