Will WDW’s new $10-per-person cancellation fee prevent Guests from continuing to abuse the Resort’s dining reservations system?

Jim Hill

13 years ago

So what's the deal with that new dining reservations policy which
The Walt Disney World Resort put in place earlier this week? Which states that …

If
a Guest cancels within one day of the reservation or if the dining party is a
"no show" for the meal, a cancellation fee of $10 per person will be
charged to the credit card used at the time of booking.

Now some will tell you that this is yet another example of Mickey
being greedy. But that isn't really what's going on here. This recent change-in-dining-reservations-policy
is actually Disney World's way of dealing with the pretty horrific no-show rate
that the Resort's restaurants have begun experiencing over the past few years.

Just ask any Food & Beverage veteran and they'll then tell
horror stories about how seemingly hugely popular / hard-to-get-into WDW eateries
like Le Cellier Steakhouse at Epcot and Chef Mickey's at Disney's Contemporary
Resort have been experiencing nightly no-show rates that often range from 20 –
40%.

"And why aren't the Guests who've made these reservations actually
showing up?," you ask. Well, some have legitimate excuses. Perhaps their child
get sick and they then have to change their dinner plans at the very last
minute. Or maybe they're unfamiliar with the Disney World transportation system
and it then takes these Guests a lot longer to get across property than they
had originally expected to. Which means that they'll then miss their dining
reservation time.

To be honest, this change in WDW's dining reservation policy
is not being made to penalize people like that. But – rather – that select
group of Guests who have figured out how to game the system.

To explain: To guarantee you and your family a seat at some
of WDW's most popular restaurants, you often have to make dining reservations
for these eateries six months ahead of time. But there are those who didn't
like to have their vacation plans pinned down 180 days in advance who discovered
that there was a flaw in Disney World's dining reservation system. One that it
would actually allow you to book multiple reservations at different restaurants
around the Resort on the exact same day.

So that's just what these Guests did. To give themselves
some flexibility when it came to which theme park they could then go to on any
given day of their vacation, they'd then make multiple dining reservations. Say
– for example – booking a table for 4 at the Crystal Palace at the Magic
Kingdom for 6 p.m. PLUS a table for 4 at Hollywood and Vine at Disney's
Hollywood Studios for 6:15 p.m. PLUS another table for 4 at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall at 6:30 p.m. all on the
same night.

And the crew who worked at Disney's Dining Reservations
office over on Kirkman Road would then treat each and every one of these
reservations as if they were legit. So they'd send notice to each of these WDW
eateries to please hold a table for 4 for that evening. Which these restaurants
would then do for upwards of an hour because … Well, this is Walt Disney World
after all. And people who are unfamiliar with the layout of a particular theme
park might then have trouble making it to that restaurant for the exact time of
their reservation. Or the attraction that these Guests were riding on may have broken
down. Or the monorail that these tourists were using to get over to that theme
park may have been held for traffic clearance. You get the idea.

So Disney would treat each of these booked-well-in-advance dining
reservations as if there were real Guests out there somewhere who would eventually
show up at that restaurant looking for a meal. But as more of these on-property
eateries began not making their budgets because this persistent & growing no-show
problem, the Mouse's accountants then realized that they now had a real problem
on their hands.

Which they initially tried to address by jiggering the
software that was used to power Disney's dining reservation system. Dropping in
new bits of code which would then flag a reservation / reservations if it
appeared that a Guest were booking tables at multiple restaurants in different
theme parks or resorts for the exact same day or time.

What WDW's IT staff hadn't anticipated is that these same
Guests would then learn to adapt, to exploit the flaws that still existed
within the system. Take – for example – when the code was changed so that, say,
if a Jim Hill made multiple reservations at different Disney World restaurants
on a single day, that record would automatically get flagged. People figured
ways around this roadblock by making one reservation under Jim Hill, the next
under Jim Hill and a third under Jimmy Hill.

Every time Disney tried to shut this select group of Guests
who made multiple dining reservations down by insisting on additional
information like home addresses and e-mail accounts at the time of booking, these
folks just found yet another way around the new protocols (EX: transposing ing
the numbers in their address and/or deliberately setting up new e-mail addresses
that would then make it possible to book multiple dining reservations at WDW).

Now add to this the Guests who were just making phantom
dining reservations at Chef Mickey's or 'Ohana so that they could then get free
parking at Disney's Contemporary or Polynesian Resort … And you then see why
Disney felt that they had then no choice but to institute this new
credit-card-based $10-per-person cancellation fee.

Now do keep in mind that this recent change in policy will
have absolutely no effect on Guests who've already made dining reservations
prior to October 26^th. More to the point, given the current 180 day
window that people have to make WDW dining reservations in, it'll be upwards of
six months before we see if this $10-per-person actually has an impact on the
20 – 40% no-show rates that some of Disney World's most popular restaurants have
been experiencing.

Which – the Mouse is hoping – will then help the Resort deal
with one of its more persistent Guest complaints. Which when people actually
show up on time for their dining reservation and are then told that they'll
have to wait 15 – 20 minutes because this restaurant is still holding tables
open for Guests who, as it turns out, have made multiple dining reservations
for that day and have no intention of ever showing up at that eatery.

So now that you've heard about why Walt Disney World is
really making this change to its dining reservations system, are you more comfortable
with the concept of this new credit-card-based $10-per-person cancellation fee?
Or do you still view this recent change in policy as yet another greedy cash
grab by the Mouse?

Your thoughts?