Nancyg56
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2005
So, here's the outcome....
She called them back and of course she received some apologies, but it was pretty much a "dine at a different time, pay for the upgraded experience OR current ADR gets canceled and that's it." She opted for dine at a different time if he could find her something close to the original ADR time on that date. He found her something, so she went from a 6:40pm ADR to a 7pm ADR. We didn't see anything in the system when we checked just before her call (we tried by both time and dinner several times), and they are a party of 6 (not huge, not small), so whomever she was working with must have access to stuff that's held back in reserve. I know the phone reservationists always say that they see what we see online, but this wasn't a normal reservationist. That in itself is a whole different discussion, but it was interesting. Ultimately, there was nothing else given or offered to her and she was good with dinner being 20 minutes later. I know she was hoping to leave dinner and find a spot for HEA, but even if she had that extra 20 minutes, it sounds like she was underestimating the draw of fireworks. So, there's really nothing lost with that.
There is a part of me that hoped they would just let her keep the ADR time she'd initially booked and they could just eat the cost of their mistake. Their systems are notoriously buggy, and while more seasoned Disney travelers know about it and are ready to deal with it (even when it's something out of the norm for glitches), it's got to be a major turn off for anyone new to Disney who gets caught in a web glitch. On the other hand, I'm sure they have some models for monetary values of issues and errors, and this may not register for them to give anything. I was hoping they'd at least get an extra fast pass or something like that. I don't know how well this would have worked, but after the trouble and frustration, my friend was saying she wished they just handled this behind the scenes. The call itself was simple, but she was initially worried this was some kind of scam. She said it would have been less frustrating to just show up and be told it was an extra 20 min wait outside. Oh well...it's done.
I am glad it worked out. I wish they had offered her FP or something, but the fact that they were able to seat her family when nothing was available tells me there was some sort of compromise in the background. I woudl suggest your friend check in early, sometimes you can be seated earlier than your ADR. Tell the CM at the podium what happened, and explain you are just taking a chance to be seated earlier. You woudl be surprised at how accomodating those CM's can be if there is a way to help and the guest is asking nicely.