This is the year that everything I know about Disney can just be thrown out the window, because everything is different due to COVID, and I therefore know nothing. Yesterday was the first day we could make dining reservations for our June trip, a date four months later than is typical. And, the restaurants are at lower capacity than pre-COVID, so getting reservations is tough. I suspected that, I’ve read others writing about it, and I’ve been told that by our travel agent.
If you don’t know, the Disney reservation system allows guests staying on site to make reservations for the entire length of their stay starting 60 days prior to their check-in day. So, people checking in two days ago (and three days ago, etc.) had first shot at the restaurants we wanted. And since we’re checking in on a Monday, I’m guessing we were behind a lot of people for those early week reservations. On the other hand, we are able to book later day reservations earlier than the people checking in behind us, so it‘s probably a wash in the end.
There were six reservations we hoped to get:
- Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, on the first day of our stay
- Yak & Yeti, on the second day of our stay
- California Grill, on the third day of our stay
- Be Our Guest, on the last day of our stay
- Teppan Edo, on the fourth day of our stay
- Oga’s Cantina, on the first day of our stay
All were dinner except Oga’s. We had a plan that Andrew and I would both take half the list, with him taking our top choice, me taking choice number two, him taking three, etc. I had backups for each reservation, second choice places to eat, which we planned to try after we’d made our way through the top choices.
Things went wrong almost immediately. We were both logged into our DisneyWorld accounts, but mine would only let me go out 60 days, not the full length of our stay like it was supposed to. Since every one of my planned reservations were after the first day of our stay, I was shut down. I was on a web browser on my iPad, then I tried the MyDisneyExperience app on my iPad, and then I tried my computer. No luck.
Fortunately, Andrew was efficient. He was able to get us California Grill, Be Our Guest, and Teppan Edo. When he couldn‘t get Sci Fi Dine-In Theater at Hollywood Studios, I was able (since it was day one) to book nearby Trattoria al Forno for after the park closes. He tried Yak & Yeti with no success but was able to schedule Tiffins at Animal Kingdom instead. I looked at the Tiffins menu and am not sure Madeline will eat anything there, so that was a concern. And I wasn‘t really expecting to get Oga‘s Cantina on the first try. I didn‘t last time either, but eventually I found something.
My Disney planner friend had suggested that I try calling the Disney dining reservation line if I wasn‘t able to get what I wanted online, so at 7 am I called there. Despite calling at exactly when the line opened, I was on hold for about an hour and 15 minutes. I wasn‘t the only one not finding the reservations I wanted, apparently! When I eventually reached the front of the queue the man on the line was super helpful, but we didn‘t have much success. He did find a lunchtime reservation at Sanaa, which was our second choice behind Yak & Yeti, so I asked him to book that. The poor man had to read about three minutes worth of warnings, and when he got to the end and started asking about my card number, his system blipped and he lost the reservation!
Disney, of course, has the best customer service on earth, and I didn‘t even have to ask him to get it back. He just asked for my patience while he put me on hold to talk to someone. When he came back he was ready to finish the reservation — the only thing is it was five minutes later than the previous one.
Once that reservation was taken care of I mentioned the problem I’d had online and that while I was on hold I noticed (1) only my September trip was showing up on the My Disney Experience app; and (2) there were two of me listed in the Family & Friends List of my Disney account. The representative immediately thought the dual Tinas thing led to the problem. He merged the two Tinas, I logged out and back in, and voila, I was able to look at dining reservations for the length of our trip. Yay.
Unfortunately, the whole hold-talk-reserve-correct process took about an hour and 45 minutes, so I was late to my morning meeting. But after holding for over an hour, I was not getting off that phone until I was finished!
In the end, here‘s what we got:
- Trattoria al Forno (Hollywood Studios day, after the park closes)
- Sanaa (lunch, Animal Kingdom day)
- Tiffins (early dinner, Animal Kingdom day) We will end up cancelling one of these
- California Grill (Magic Kingdom day one, after the park closes)
- Teppan Edo (Epcot day)
- Be Our Guest (Magic Kingdom day two)
I went with Be Our Guest even though I know Madeline will not eat enough to justify the price. But she was too young when we had lunch there on our last Disney trip (in 2013) to remember the Beast‘s castle, so I decided to go ahead and book it so that she can experience the amazingness of the restaurant.
I‘ll keep trying to improve our reservations. When I took Ellie for her birthday in December 2019, I was able to eventually book everything we really wanted. I know how to be persistent. And you know what, that‘s probably the one thing that hasn‘t changed: persistence pays.