[Soundgod]

Originally Posted by dznylvr

When you are eating at a restaurant during a character meal, don't take pictures of the character at MY table. Don't send your kids rushing over to meet the characters when my kids are trying to meet them. I don't want a picture of Eeyore, my three kids and some random child from another family. Let me have my time with the characters, and I promise to do the same!!

Now THAT is a properly defined pet peeve!!

[brumcg]

Originally Posted by Soundgod

After reading this thread, it seems that none of you really have any pet peeves about Disney dining.
The desire or compulsion to make ADRs 180 in advance is not a peeve, it's more like an obsessive compulsive disorder that makes you "have" to make those reservations as early as you can.

Well, I think the OP was pretty focused on the 180 day thing, so the thread followed on that track.

Personally, I really don't have any pet peeves about Disney Dining. I might have had some below Disney-level experiences here and there, but nothing that I would consider specifically caused by Disney policies and procedures. I despise some of the check-in areas/procedures at certain places (Chef Mickeys, Rainforest Cafe for two), but those seem to be restaurant specific... not Disney specific. I hated the pace of the service in Alfredo's, but that was specific to Alfredos and reflected my personal taste.

We rarely (if ever) eat late while at WDW, but I can certainly see where your peeve would, erm, peeve me if I was in the same situation. When you make the ADR, they really should warn you about that.

I don't feel like I "have" to make my ADRs 180 days out; I just want to. We're planning for our March 2009 trip now. In fact we had our first "official" planning sit down with the family last night just for fun. If we have a list of places that we want to eat 180 days out, well, why not make the call to make sure they are going to happen? Okay... maybe that is a bit obsessive compulsive. I typically get 1 real vacation a year; I think it helps my overale "morale" to make specific plans even as far as 6 months out.

Bruce

[Dana]

I only don't like that the tip isn't included anymore. I have no other peeves with the plan itself. I would have paid a few extra dollars per person to have it included...it's just easier to have it all in one. I do like being able to control what is tipped however, so it's a doubled-edged sword for me...whatever. I am going to WDW..don't care!!

As for meal planning: I have always planned my meals in advance (as you as I was able to book them), so this is not a problem for me. Spur of the moment at WDW does not work unless you want to just eat counter service.

[Soundgod]

Spur of the moment doesn't work, that's true for most of us, including me, when having a sit down meal. There is a difference though between totally winging it and waking up and changing your day's plans. That does still require some planning and forethought.
I'm not sure what I miss from the standard dining plan more, the appetizer or the tip. As we've done the deluxe plan a couple times now, I know it would be nice to still have the tip included. Perhaps a future optional increase of $5 per person, per day to cover the tip. Then again, maybe not.

[tonyksl]

Pet peeves on dining:

People who didn't make a reservation, but, give the CM a hard time when they are told that the restaurant is all booked for the evening. I actually stood up for a CM during my last trip at LeCellier by saying that it was one of the hardest restaurants to get into and if you don't book it 6 months in advance, you are going to have a hard time getting in at all. The guy got all whiney about how ridiculous that is and walked out.

People who don't wait for characters to get to their table.

People who just squeeze into places within the buffet line without waiting their turn.

[fjs08]

When the kids were little, we'd have our sheet of lunches and dinners made out way before our trip. Of course about 80% of the time, we changed everything!!! Never really had a problem, just so we were flexible in our eating times.

Now we almost never make reservations. Of course it's just my wife and I, and we like to do appetizers, "etc" at various restaurants in certain areas. For instance, we love the Boardwalk area. We'll walk in, sit at the bar and almost never get turned away. It's the food version of the old college pub crawl. Usually we'll rotate between Blue Zoo, Kimono's, Il Mulino's, Flying Fish, Crew's Cup.... etc. Sometimes we'll do it at Epcot. Easy enough to do.

Cute story.... about 10 yrs ago on Easter Sunday, we were staying at the Beach Club. Had reservations for a 2:30 "dinner" at Cape May. We returned from then MGM around 12:30 pm. My daughter and I noticed no one was anywhere around Cape May. Seemed strange since it was supposed to open in 2 hours. A manager happened to be at the Cape May podium. Asked and he told me the restaurant didn't open until 5:30!!!! So I pulled my sheet out, complete with reservation numbers (always carry them). He pulled it up and sure enough, we had a 2:30 reservation!!!! Yikes. He told us to come back, if we could at 5:30 and we'd be seated. We did, he wasn't there, and the manager at the time wasn't as accommodating. He thought we were telling him a tale, even though we had the reservation number which he pulled up and confirmed. He told us we couldn't be seated and that was that. Lucky for us, the original manager happened to come by. We ended up getting seated and the entire meal picked up by Disney.

Frank