New to the Smaller Res Window and Suprised

[cchevela1023]

Good morning Disney World Fandom!

It has been 8 years since I planned a trip to WDW (Last one was Aug 2015 with my 2 boys). This year, it's just me and my wife for our 5th anniversary trip. This was my first time booking restaurants post-covid/new format and although I got pretty much everything we wanted, I was just shocked at how quickly everything goes! Also, we are doing a split stay so I can't even book the whole trip, but that's okay, the only restaurant I'm booking is Monseur Paul and I'm confident should have no issues as it's a higher cost restaurant (plus just spot checking for the last day I "could" book now, there were several time slots open).

But for anyone that hasn't booked dining reservations since Covid, the process is no joke! Be on 30 min before, have your browser and app ready and use a world clock with milliseconds. For this trip we got:

Sun 6/25: Art Smith Homecomin' lunch (was hoping for brunch but no timeslots left); Dinner - Paddlefish
Mon 6/26: Dinner - Le Cellier 5:30PM
Tue 6/27: Dinner - Ohana 4:25PM (a little earlier then wanted, but that's okay -- this will beat the mad dinner rush)
Wed 6/28: Dinner - Grand Flo Cafe 6:40 PM

For the other part of stay:
Thu 6/29: Eating off property
Friday 6:30: Monseur Paul
Sat 7/1: Breakfast - Trattoria Al Forno; Will figure out some lunch spot

If you weren't able to snag the ressies you wanted, keep checking and use one of the dining finder tools to help you. I'm trying Touringplans since I have a subscription there. The only one I really want to change is an earlier slot with Homecomin. I'm thankful I got anything though. For this trip, I prioritized Ohana #1, Le Cellier #2, Homecoming #3.

 

[PDXmouse]

Our times there will be overlapping you - 6/23 - 7/6. I was also surprised that I had some trouble with finding ADR's in our earlier days. I ended up emphasizing less popular restaurants and counter service earlier in the trip, and moved harder to get ADR's later out where I could lean on our 60+8, 60+9, and 60+10 status. Pretty wild.

I have read, however, that it's easier to get reservations same day. The newer systems encourage more flexibility in the parks than the old ones, and I think that has affected the way people use ADR's. I'm hoping to make some changes within 2-24 hours of some of our meals.