Mini Pre-Trip Report!
Alright, going to wrap this TR up soon, but had to stop by with a mini pre-trip report interjection. Specifically the annoying morning I had trying to make dining reservations.
So this September we decided to only book 4 ADRs, and not hard ones to get, so I figured this morning would be a breeze. It started off pretty easy, and in fact, it let me start making reservations when I first signed on at 6:30 this morning, so it was nice I didn't have to wait until 7:00! Although annoying I was up so early on a Saturday, especially since today is actually 179 days from the start of our trip, but because of the split stay I got to do this twice!
Got my first reservation no problem, but then I tried to make reservations for the FotLK package. We wanted to go on September 29th, that's where it fit best in our schedule. Well, the package as of right now ends on September 28th! HA! Figures it ends the day before we want to go. So I decided to book it for the 28th and mess with our schedule later.
For the last reservation I had to call since it was for the Illuminations dining package and they seem to really limit the number of 2 person tables since only reservations for 3+ were available for this trip (and we're going for more than a week!). I had read over in the dining forums though that people just called and the CM on the phone was able to get them the table for 2, so that's what I did, or tried to do.
The woman I spoke with on the phone was nice enough, but she also found she could only make a reservation for 3 or more, not for 2. So she ended up booking for 3, with one as an infant so we wouldn't have to pay, and said she would then remove the 3rd person after it was booked. Well, before she had the chance to cancel the 3rd person, she hung up on me!
I figured it wasn't a big deal, I know how to modify the reservations on my own anyways, I could do that later. So I decided to spend some time messing with our schedule to fit in our new FotLK package. Turns out, moving it made our schedule not exactly ideal, and I realized it would interfere with the French breakfast F&W event we wanted to do this year. Ugh. I tried to move other things around in our schedule to see if I could move the reservation to even earlier in the trip, but with my mom arriving later in the trip than me this year of course the only day it worked was the day before she arrived. Seriously, trying to work out a Disney schedule can be a huge pain sometimes!
I needed time to think about this schedule now, so decided to take a break and modify the Illuminations dining package reservation down to 2. Now I've done this many times before, I've found time and time again if I can't find a reservation for 2, to look for a reservation for 3+ and many times one will show up, and it's super easy to modify it back down to 2 once you get it booked. Welp, it's normally super easy I should say. Today it wouldn't let me at all. I could add people, but not subtract!
So I find myself on the phone once again with Disney to see if they can do it. The first CM I spoke with tried but also couldn't get it to modify, so she ended up calling guest services to see if they could do something. After about 10 minutes on hold, the CM comes back to inform me that nope, no one can seem to get the reservation modified! HA! Now, I know this isn't a huge deal, but still annoying!
One interesting tid-bit, the second CM I spoke with asked if we were celebrating anything that evening with the dining package, and I joked that we were possibly celebrating a new fireworks show, and she said it would be! Eek! I was just joking, and was really hoping that it would still be Illuminations, but if this CM was actually in the know, it sounds like Illuminations will be gone before the end of September! (fingers crossed she was also just joking)
So in the end, not all horrible, we ended up getting most of what we wanted, and now have a infant named little Bobby (after my dad) "joining" us for our Illuminations dining package which my mom found to be pretty hilarious. Just have to keep watching to see if the FotLK package opens up for the day we want, and then we are golden! Just hope it's not an issue when we show up at Rose and Crown without a kid!
Alright, thanks for letting me rant about my morning, more fun pre-trip excitement will be coming up shortly, along with the rest of this TR!