This past week was Thanksgiving and the holiday crowds have officially rolled into Walt Disney World. My family and I were brave and decided to venture out on Thanksgiving day because honestly, I did not want to cook. So we booked our reservation for Thanksgiving Brunch at Trails End and off we went on Thanksgiving day.
As we pulled into Fort Wilderness, we knew it was going to be a busy day. The line to get up to the security gate was pretty lengthy, but the security guards had extra staff outside to expedite the process. If you did not have a dinner reservation or a resort reservation, they would not let you in. They handed us a yellow tag and told us to head over to the next Cast Member to guide us to dining parking.
If you are familiar with Fort Wilderness, there is a large parking lot where you park and then take a bus to get to Trails End. Well on this day, they did not have us park in the parking lot, but instead at a hitching station on the grass where there was a special bus to get us back to the restaurant. As locals we knew to arrive early for our dining reservation, so this is your first lesson in patience this holiday season. Parking will be crowded and you have to remember to roll with it and give yourself plenty of time to get to where you need to go on time.
Thankfully we did arrive to our dining location in plenty of time; however, the restaurant informed us they were running about 45 minutes behind. Guys, this will happen during the busy time of year. Yes it’s frustrating, but please remember not to take it out on the Cast Members. They are doing the best they can to get everyone seated on time.
We were scheduled for Brunch, but because we got seated after Brunch was over, they offered to charge us for the Brunch price and not the dinner price, which I though was a nice gesture. Disney is always very good at making things right with their customers, which is why I will continue to give them my money. Please also remember to thank them. They are leaving their families to serve you.
On Thanksgiving our server was wearing a birthday pin. Not only was she working on her birthday, she was also working on Thanksgiving. She brought me a birthday cake, because my birthday was the day before, and sang happy birthday to me, but our family took the time to wish her a happy birthday as well.
The restaurants are very busy this time of year, so please remember to give yourself extra time to get there, but understand that reservations will not always be on time. Think about how many people are visiting the parks and how many have reservations. It’s amazing how they do it all. I did notice in Trails End they added extra tables to accommodate the larger crowds and I’m sure other restaurants do similar things as well. I’m not gonna lie, we are all human and I was getting a little “hangry” waiting for our reservation, but we found things to do to distract from that and once they got us in, the server immediately took our drink order and sent us on our way to the buffet. So please guys, just practice patience this holiday season.
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