“You know where you want to eat six months from now?” Not only do we know where we want to eat, but
approximately what time of day and that makes planning Advanced Dining
Reservations for Walt Disney World easy.
Most of the time, our travel agent makes our dining reservations for
us. But after adding an extra day to our
upcoming July 2013 trip and extra dining reservations, I decided to give making
our own ADR’s a go.
The goal was to make a dinner reservation for Rainforest Café
at the Animal Kingdom location and a lunch reservation at T-Rex Café in
Downtown Disney. I phoned 407-WDW-DINE
and made my way through the voice navigations only to discover that late dinner
times were available for our selected date for Rainforest Café. Not ideal.
I hung up the phone without even trying for T-Rex Café or speaking to an
agent.
I then found the phone number for Rainforest Café at Animal
Kingdom and called the restaurant directly.
A human answered the phone—bonus!
After a few questions, no credit card to reserve our time slot, and
asking if we were celebrating a special occasion, we had dinner reservations at
our preferred time slot!
That was so easy; I did the same for T-Rex Café, calling the
restaurant directly. Again, success!
I learned that calling the restaurant directly is the best
way to go for these two restaurants, and most likely the Rainforest Café at
Downtown Disney.
While we have eaten at T-Rex Café at Downtown Disney
previously (click here to read more), we have yet to try Rainforest Café locations in Orlando.
We have dined at Rainforest Café at the Mall of America several years
ago so we are looking forward to dining there again.
The question that we are still wrestling with is whether or
not to join Landry Restaurant’s Select Club prior to our trip. Membership is $25 with a credit of $25 after
your membership is activated and then opportunities to earn points after
that. Joining prior to our trip would
allow for the membership to be activated rather than joining while at the
restaurants themselves (Landry is the company that owns/operates both T-Rex Café
and Rainforest Café along with several other restaurants).
Did you have the meal plan when you called to book T-Rex Cafe?
ReplyDeleteYes and no. . . The first time we ate there we were on the dining plan, but paid for our meal out of pocket. This next trip, we did not have the dining plan when we booked, but do now, and are STILL paying for this meal out of pocket. If you are asking if it makes a difference in your reservation as to whether or not you have a dining plan or are going to use a dining plan, our answer would be no.
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