In planning this upcoming Disney vacation, I did ask the girls for their opinion. It is their vacation too after all. At one point, Emily said, "Just plan whatever you think we'll like. I'm sure it will be fine." As we approached the 180 day mark, I hemmed and hawed over our dining plans for Magic Kingdom. Did I want to try for dinner reservations at Be Our Guest? If unsuccessful, did I want to spend the next six months and time during vacation checking for an open reservation? I reviewed the menu one last time and then decided to pass on it. The very next day, Disney announced a significant change to dinner at Be Our Guest
Be Our Guest is a table service restaurant located in Magic Kingdom. Well, it's table service for dinner. Breakfast and lunch are counter service but require reservations. You used to be able to wait in a stand-by line but I'm told that those days are over. As the name suggests, the restaurant is themed after Beauty and the Beast. You are made to feel that you are inside the Beast's castle and with dinner, you can meet the Beast himself. We ate lunch at Be Our Guest in 2012 and while we thought it was tasty, it was a light lunch of several shared items.
How has Disney changed dinner? Beginning July 27, 2018, dinner will be a set price ($55 for adults, $35 for children) with a prix fixe three course menu. If you are using a Dining Plan, say good-bye to two table service credits. See ya! So while this new menu change seems intriguing, I'm not sure I want to spend that much money to test it out. For the same cost, dinner could be had at Cinderella's Royal Table. Now, if our situation was different, like we only had one kid with us, than yeah, I'd give it a try. For now, it's a pass.
My Almost-Not-So-Magical ADR Experience
We recently hit the 180 day mark, which meant we were able to make all of our Advance Dining Reservations. (If you want to learn more about Disney ADRs, I have a detailed post here.) This date fell on a weekend, of course. Life was a bit hectic that weekend and I completely messed up the time to make reservations. Yes, I am admitting to this. The online system opens at 6:00 am EST but if you want to make reservations on the phone, you need to wait until 7:00. At 6:58, thinking that online opened up at 7:00, I attempted to make my first dining reservation. It was for lunch and my preferred time of 11:45 was available, but when I clicked to make the reservation, I received the dreaded "Sorry for the paws" error message.
I tried another restaurant and received the same error. I decided to move to the phones so I set up shop down to the basement in order to allow everyone to continue to sleep. In hindsight, I could have made reservations through the My Disney Experience app on my phone but I hadn't opened the app in awhile and there were no guarantees I wouldn't have had issues there as well. At that point in time, calling seemed easier.
I was given an estimated wait time of 17 minutes and as I waited, I continued to attempt to make reservations online. I watched all of the times I wanted disappear. Poof. Instead of 11:45, the earliest I was seeing for lunch was 1:30. For dinner, the best available time was 6:30. I know some people think, "What's the big deal? Give the kids a snack. They'll be fine." I fully believe that kids are routine-driven and I know, especially with my own children, that a major disruption in routine can lead to severe grumpiness. For example, the girls are used to eating lunch early. Like before noon. That's when they have to eat lunch at school so it has become a routine. The whole "have a snack" thing doesn't really work for them. I've tried and suffered the consequences many times.
One of my biggest tips for a Disney vacation is to stick to routines your children are used to as much as possible. If your kid goes to sleep three hours later than normal, and then is up early the next morning to make it to the park for rope drop, then forced to wait two hours to eat dinner - what do you think is going to happen? This is why you'll see kids rolling around on the ground in a complete breakdown. I try to make dining reservations as close to the time the girls are used to eating as possible. I also take into account that we may need to wait to be seated even with a reservation and that our food will not be served immediately.
I was on hold with Disney Dining for less than ten minutes. The times I wanted were not showing up for me online but through booking over the phone, I was able to secure reservations for every restaurant and every time I wanted. All's well that ends well! Now let's hope I have the same luck with FastPasses.
3 comments:
Our 180 Mark for ADRs is mid-April. Thanks for the helpful post!
I've been hearing that you see more available dining times through your computer my Disney account than with the app . I'm curious if Be Our Guest will be easier to procure reservations after it goes to signature dining. We were there last week and I was unable to get a reservation despite checking often .
Oof! What a frustrating experience but I'm glad you eventually got what you wanted!! I had some ADR hiccups too, but making FP+ on the app was a breeze! Got everything we wanted, including Flight of Passage at the exact time we were aiming for!
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