Disney Dining Reservation System Is The Worst!

[GeorgiaHoo]

Hadn't been to Disney in a few years and had forgotten how bad/frustrating the dining reservation website is. I simply do not understand how a company that makes as much money as Disney can have such a poor website. I'm trying to make reservations for our late September trip and there's no rhyme or reason to the results. If I search for "breakfast" on certain days I get zero results. I find it hard to believe all restaurants are full so I change it to a specific time and there are numerous restaurants that pop up. Tried to book dinner at Epcot and I search for a specific time and nothing shows, so I change to "dinner" and three restaurants are available. I immediately hit search again for "dinner" and this time five restaurants are available, several at the specific time I entered that yielded zero results. Anyway, rant over (hoping someone from Disney reads this and someday they decide to take action).

 

[CindyT]

Hadn't been to Disney in a few years and had forgotten how bad/frustrating the dining reservation website is. I simply do not understand how a company that makes as much money as Disney can have such a poor website. I'm trying to make reservations for our late September trip and there's no rhyme or reason to the results. If I search for "breakfast" on certain days I get zero results. I find it hard to believe all restaurants are full so I change it to a specific time and there are numerous restaurants that pop up. Tried to book dinner at Epcot and I search for a specific time and nothing shows, so I change to "dinner" and three restaurants are available. I immediately hit search again for "dinner" and this time five restaurants are available, several at the specific time I entered that yielded zero results. Anyway, rant over (hoping someone from Disney reads this and someday they decide to take action).

Try putting in a specific time. I have found better luck that way.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Try putting in a specific time. I have found better luck that way.

I've done both. Sometimes a specific time shows no availability, but if you change to "breakfast" or "dinner" the same times you put will pop up with availability. Other times it's the opposite. And if I change it by 30 minutes then I might get availability for the original time I requested that didn't show when I put that specific time. They could at least make it so there was some rhyme or reason (but I suppose that would actually correct the issue).

Here's another example. I searched for reservations for 2 at noon on September 26 and got three results. Changed it to 1130 and got 31 results with availability between 11:00 and 1:00.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

Came here to say that there is something wrong with the reservation system. I've never had problems before. In all my years of going to Disney,I have only once not been able to get a reservation I wanted. Then yesterday, I log on at my 60 day mark:

1. Apparently, its not a 60 days +10 reservation date. It's 60 days for the length of stay up to +10. Was it always that way? I feel like this wasn't an issue previously? Well, regardless, I'm doing a split stay (because of the DVC 50% borrowing rule), and so I can only make reservations for the first couple days of my trip. My hopes of getting a sit down reservation for day 8 of the trip (the 50th anniversary) are basically completely gone.

2. As other posters have said, there's no sensibility as to how to find times for specific restaurants. I can't access just the restaurant and search for times that way (there seems to be a glitch). If I search broadly for dinner I can get result ranging from - literally - zero options to eat anywhere in WDW for "dinner" to 50+ options at all sorts of times. I cannot believe that the openings fluctuate quite that much in less than a few seconds of reload time. If I search by times I get fewer results, in general, but still widely ranging. Oh, and sometimes I'll get options for restaurants starting with letters A-L or A-N or A-B, and then suddenly it cuts out. It seems to be set out to give options to people who are just generally looking for ideas of where they could eat, as opposed to hardered WDW vets who know exactly where they want to eat, at which time of day, months in advance.

3. There's absolutley no sensibility to the options I am getting. I can make multiple reservations for Oga's Cantina, Be Our Guest, and other "hard to get" tickets, but I can't find a single reservation for a number of restaurants which are normally very easy to get into. I know there's probably still reduced capacity due to Covid restrictions and such, but it just doesn't make sense!

4. I was experiencing connection issues yesterday (my power was out for over 48 hours), so hoping it might just be me I called in to the dining line. And waited over 2 hours. To be told that the reservations specialists don't have anything more than what I can access from my computer. And today (when my power is back) there seem to be exactly the same issues I was experiencing yesterday.

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

Came here to say that there is something wrong with the reservation system. I've never had problems before. In all my years of going to Disney,I have only once not been able to get a reservation I wanted. Then yesterday, I log on at my 60 day mark:

1. Apparently, its not a 60 days +10 reservation date. It's 60 days for the length of stay up to +10. Was it always that way? I feel like this wasn't an issue previously? Well, regardless, I'm doing a split stay (because of the DVC 50% borrowing rule), and so I can only make reservations for the first couple days of my trip. My hopes of getting a sit down reservation for day 8 of the trip (the 50th anniversary) are basically completely gone.

2. As other posters have said, there's no sensibility as to how to find times for specific restaurants. I can't access just the restaurant and search for times that way (there seems to be a glitch). If I search broadly for dinner I can get result ranging from - literally - zero options to eat anywhere in WDW for "dinner" to 50+ options at all sorts of times. I cannot believe that the openings fluctuate quite that much in less than a few seconds of reload time. If I search by times I get fewer results, in general, but still widely ranging. Oh, and sometimes I'll get options for restaurants starting with letters A-L or A-N or A-B, and then suddenly it cuts out. It seems to be set out to give options to people who are just generally looking for ideas of where they could eat, as opposed to hardered WDW vets who know exactly where they want to eat, at which time of day, months in advance.

3. There's absolutley no sensibility to the options I am getting. I can make multiple reservations for Oga's Cantina, Be Our Guest, and other "hard to get" tickets, but I can't find a single reservation for a number of restaurants which are normally very easy to get into. I know there's probably still reduced capacity due to Covid restrictions and such, but it just doesn't make sense!

4. I was experiencing connection issues yesterday (my power was out for over 48 hours), so hoping it might just be me I called in to the dining line. And waited over 2 hours. To be told that the reservations specialists don't have anything more than what I can access from my computer. And today (when my power is back) there seem to be exactly the same issues I was experiencing yesterday.

1. 60 days prior to check-in date you can make reservations for up to 10 days of your trip.
2/3. Even prior to the pandemic, all available reservations were not being loaded to the system at what was then 180 days, so I'm sure that is also still happening now at 60 days. There is no consistency, which is a problem when Disney wants to be super restrictive about having to reserve anything and everything well in advance.
4. Once the dining reservation system came online, there was never any difference in what a live person could book vs. computer.

 

[Realgrumpy]

Thank you!!! It's ridiculous. One minute there's nothing available, next there's 10 different available restaurants. And don't get me started on the Fantasmic Dining Package which comes up every single time!

 

[supersnoop]

Apparently, its not a 60 days +10 reservation date. It's 60 days for the length of stay up to +10. Was it always that way? I feel like this wasn't an issue previously?

Yes, it was always that way; or at least it was always marketed that way. About 6 or 7 years ago they updated the system to actually make it work that way. I guess too many people were making a one-night reservation and booking 10 days worth of dining.

 

[rwdavis2]

Disney IT per their web site has been terrible since its inception. It stays that way because they don’t pay that well. If you go to their jobs web site you will constantly see open positions for web programmers.

 

[Eastern]

The dining reservation system seems worse than usual.

 

[goofynut41]

Been checking on site when I can get on it.... There is NO reservations anywhere... What do you do????

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Been checking on site when I can get on it.... There is NO reservations anywhere... What do you do????

I had the same issues yesterday and getting ready to try again now. Yesterday it showed no reservations at any restaurant depending on how I entered it--"breakfast" or 9 am or whatever--but if I made some tweaks (or just reran the same search) it would show availability.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Whelp, the terrible continues today. Looking for dinner reservations at Animal Kingdom on September 26 around 5 pm. Searched for "dinner" and got nothing, searched 5 pm and got nothing, searched 7 pm and nothing, searched 8 pm and nothing, then searched 6 pm and got availability at Tiffins (510, 6 and 615), Tusker House (540, 6 and 615) and Rainforest (545)

 

[bsmcneil]

Came here to say that there is something wrong with the reservation system. I've never had problems before. In all my years of going to Disney,I have only once not been able to get a reservation I wanted. Then yesterday, I log on at my 60 day mark:

1. Apparently, its not a 60 days +10 reservation date. It's 60 days for the length of stay up to +10. Was it always that way? I feel like this wasn't an issue previously? Well, regardless, I'm doing a split stay (because of the DVC 50% borrowing rule), and so I can only make reservations for the first couple days of my trip. My hopes of getting a sit down reservation for day 8 of the trip (the 50th anniversary) are basically completely gone.

2. As other posters have said, there's no sensibility as to how to find times for specific restaurants. I can't access just the restaurant and search for times that way (there seems to be a glitch). If I search broadly for dinner I can get result ranging from - literally - zero options to eat anywhere in WDW for "dinner" to 50+ options at all sorts of times. I cannot believe that the openings fluctuate quite that much in less than a few seconds of reload time. If I search by times I get fewer results, in general, but still widely ranging. Oh, and sometimes I'll get options for restaurants starting with letters A-L or A-N or A-B, and then suddenly it cuts out. It seems to be set out to give options to people who are just generally looking for ideas of where they could eat, as opposed to hardered WDW vets who know exactly where they want to eat, at which time of day, months in advance.

3. There's absolutley no sensibility to the options I am getting. I can make multiple reservations for Oga's Cantina, Be Our Guest, and other "hard to get" tickets, but I can't find a single reservation for a number of restaurants which are normally very easy to get into. I know there's probably still reduced capacity due to Covid restrictions and such, but it just doesn't make sense!

4. I was experiencing connection issues yesterday (my power was out for over 48 hours), so hoping it might just be me I called in to the dining line. And waited over 2 hours. To be told that the reservations specialists don't have anything more than what I can access from my computer. And today (when my power is back) there seem to be exactly the same issues I was experiencing yesterday.

Got caught by the split stay thing, too - so frustrating!

 

[serenitygr]

Looks like I’m doomed to only Rainforest cafe and T-Rex my whole trip, and that’s only if they will take me as a walk up with my Landey’s card

 

[dachsie]

Today when I logged on at 5am CST there were 7 restaurants available. So I booked Kona. Then I tried again and was able to get Citricos at 6:40 which was what I wanted. It’s like they didn’t load them all at once or something. Hope it’s better on Sunday when I book the rest of my trip

 

[Rick195275]

Just keep checking. Definitely not ideal but it worked for me.... only took me a few hours Eventually I got everything I wanted over the course of a couple days of checking. At one point the sci-fi reservations seemed to not even be in the system, no matter how many days I looked, times, party size, etc there was absolutely nothing! Try switching up the party size too if you haven’t. If Disney doesn’t want us booking a reservation for 5 when there is only 2 coming they should fix their system ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[OneinThree]

The system is miserable. Solution?

 

[MikeRx]

On hold now due to the dreaded “errror” at final confirmation page. All other 60 +10 reservations made. No go for SciFi at the 10th day of + 10 (Oct 6th). Showing availability, but get the error as it tries to confirm. We were able to get Citricos for the same day, so it’s not me….46 minutes and counting…We live in AZ, but are on the east coast this week so it was 6am and not 3am to start the madness.

 

[Rick195275]

On hold now due to the dreaded “errror” at final confirmation page. All other 60 +10 reservations made. No go for SciFi at the 10th day of + 10 (Oct 6th). Showing availability, but get the error as it tries to confirm. We were able to get Citricos for the same day, so it’s not me….46 minutes and counting…We live in AZ, but are on the east coast this week so it was 6am and not 3am to start the madness.

I called yesterday at 7, had literally just gotten the office closed message, hung up and redialed Immediatel, already a 2+ hour queue didn’t wait. Tried calling back around 11am to get an all circuits busy try again later message. Such a disaster

 

[goofynut41]

Well if this continues looks like all quick service meals which I hate!! To us thats part of the Disney Vacation is to get to eat in all the great resturants... We get Disney gift cards and thats how we pay for all are food... This is such a bummer.... Maybe by the time my reservation time comes around they will have it fixed, but I feel sorry for all you guys that are doing it now...