Do you books "nicer/sigs" at start or end of hols?

[scojos]

we are doing the ddp and are there for 14 nights, included in this will be the obligatory (but not amazing) character meals at CM etc, nicer places (imho) like Boma, ohanas and YSH.

i was wondering how you OCD planners organised your meal scedules? i have always teamed restaurants with parks, but was wondering if i should scedule better eateries at the start (we will enjoy them more, as its all "new"... or wait til the end of the holiday... let the food crushendo and eat buffets earlier so we get our moneys worth out of them (and none of the "meal was better at XXXX like last time

so my WDW nuts... whats your thoughts??
thanks
Tracy

ps my kids will eat most stuff but have very eclectic tastes in food, and appreciate good food, their fav is lecellier but we are skipping that this year to try a few new places xx

 

[one2admire]

I plan signatures first to go ahead and get them over with so we can relax and dress down the rest of the trip.

 

[scojos]

I plan signatures first to go ahead and get them over with so we can relax and dress down the rest of the trip.

tbf thats an angle i hadnt thought about!!

 

[goodferry]

We spread ours out throughout the trip, although we prefer to have dinner each night at a signature. We figure out our itinerary before we decide on dining and then adjust our dining to fit our park schedule, that way we aren't running around trying to make it to an ADR that is far away. When we are on the DXDP I do a sit down lunch (1 credit) and a Signature dinner with the exception of our DHS day where we do a signature lunch (Brown Derby) and then 'Ohana that evening.(family tradition)

 

[Melodious]

I plan signatures first to go ahead and get them over with so we can relax and dress down the rest of the trip.

We do this as well

 

[JimmyV]

Most of our dinners at done at Signatures, so they are spread throughout the vacation. But the nicest of the nice dinners are usually done in the middle of the trip when we either take a day off from the parks, or spend a leisurely day at AK where we know that we will be out of the park around 5:00 giving us plenty of time to shower and dress appropriately.

 

[Sweet Melissa]

We used to always plan a signature dinner for our arrival night, but now that we live so far away and a credit card guarantee is required, we've ended that tradition. There are just too many variables with air travel and our later-than-we-would-like arrival times. Other than that, we'll happily eat at a signature restaurant (or its lounge) at any point during our visit.

 

[scojos]

we are unsure yet whether we will fly in on check in day (in which case we ll do a cs at dtd for speed) but if we travel in the day before and check into a cheap hotel for the night we thought about doing the GFC the first night, which ll gve the kids an idea of what to expect at a sig.... they have eaten nearly everywhere at non sig meals and have always behaved but hey... you never know!!

as for advice, you all do different things lmao... what did i expect???

 

[CarpeDisney]

We like to schedule character meals as close to our arrival as possible (usually the night we arrive, or breakfast on the first morning). This way the kids can see most of their favorites (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and the Princesses) early in the trip and we don't have to spend a lot of time in the parks waiting on lines throughout our stay.

Our signature meals are usually spread throughout the trip, but we always like to plan one special dinner for our last night, followed by a final viewing of Wishes at the Magic Kingdom. For us, it's a nice way to celebrate as a family.

 

[Pakey]

We also do signatures nightly. We do Victoria & Alberts (the only really dressy one) on our last night because it's so much food that I'm only capable of sitting the next day for the long flight back to the west coast!

 

[Sweet Melissa]

We also do signatures nightly. We do Victoria & Alberts (the only really dressy one) on our last night because it's so much food that I'm only capable of sitting the next day for the long flight back to the west coast!

A bonus to that strategy is that you're saving the best for last. I'm sure Victoria and Albert's is a hard act to follow.

 

[scojos]

We like to schedule character meals as close to our arrival as possible (usually the night we arrive, or breakfast on the first morning). This way the kids can see most of their favorites (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and the Princesses) early in the trip and we don't have to spend a lot of time in the parks waiting on lines throughout our stay.

i have "planned" a pre r/d bfast at TH (this will be the 3rd time we do this) on our 1st "real" day and then akerhaus for dinner on the 2nd evening, that way we have got the character meals "out of the way" for dh... he loves wdw but not a great fan of character meals... and both of them are "good" meals, im contemplating dropping CM as there are much better meals out there for a TS and we have "been there done that" iyswim... our 1st meal in wdw was CM but im thinking as the kids are alot older now we might do something more "mature!"

 

[Geomom]

DH and I try to do the place WE want to eat at the most on the first night or very early in the trip. This came about after the 'sick' year, when both kids came down with the 24 hr. stomach bug--on 2 different days and caused us to miss the reservation we were most looking forward to. Other than that, we try to match parks/restaurants, alternate character meals with regular meals so no one OD's on the characters. We're also planning to do a character breakfast on our last day as a nice memory.

 

[chicharitta]

IMHO paring parks and meals is the best way to go. I can not justify wasting precious park time to trek to the other side of the property for a meal. Maybe one night for a special meal but certainly not every night.
We usually use are AK day as our wild card for dinner. We aren't interested in any of the AK restaurants or Boma & Jiko. Yes I realize that statement is going to be met with shock and horror by some. What can I say the menus just don't appeal to us.
Another thing I usually do is put together a dream schedule (park days are scheduled around EMH/special events and ADR) DH and I will go through it and pick out our must haves for the trip and adjust accordingly.

 

[Three cats]

We do a table service daily for lunch and a signature restaurant for dinner. Works out great for us.


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[one2admire]

DH and I try to do the place WE want to eat at the most on the first night or very early in the trip. This came about after the 'sick' year, when both kids came down with the 24 hr. stomach bug--on 2 different days and caused us to miss the reservation we were most looking forward to. Other than that, we try to match parks/restaurants, alternate character meals with regular meals so no one OD's on the characters. We're also planning to do a character breakfast on our last day as a nice memory.

Same thing happened to us, DS got sick and we had to cancel too. We do dxdp so its usually character meals for breakfast and sigs for dinner. We may do 1 or 2 non-sigs at the end.

 

[scojos]

Same thing happened to us, DS got sick and we had to cancel too. We do dxdp so its usually character meals for breakfast and sigs for dinner. We may do 1 or 2 non-sigs at the end.

not sure we could cope with dxddp, american portions are alot larger than UK ones, after 3-4 days we start to flag lmao!!
we did V&A on our last day in 2010, and found the food was amazing but not too much, we werent uncomfortable iyswim....

Its DH s 40th bday while we are there and im trying to fit in a nice sig dinner for us, YSH is my choice at the mo... but may add another

thanks for all your replys guys xx

 

[disnmooner2013]

For our upcoming honeymoon we are doing Le Cellier (dinner), Narcoossee's (Dinner), V&A Chef's Table on nights 4,5, and 7 respectively of our 8 day trip. We paired up Le Cellier on our Epcot day, Narcoossee's on our relaxed resort day, and V&A Chef's Table on our Animal Kingdom Day. We tried to match certain restaruants with certain parks or days. I wanted to do V&A Chef's Table on the first night we are going to be there but the last night was the only available night for it. I look at it as going out with a bang!! So for our first night we are still doing a nice dinner at Sanaa at 5 to snag a window table to view animals while eating while it is still light outside. For our trip We have the 3 sig. dining restaurants, but every day of our 8 day trip except for the last day we are doing 2 table service meals (1 on the last day since will not be there for dinner). Also, the one character meal we are doing is on day 3 of our trip (breakfast at Crystal Palace).

 

[minnie mum]

we are unsure yet whether we will fly in on check in day (in which case we ll do a cs at dtd for speed) but if we travel in the day before and check into a cheap hotel for the night we thought about doing the GFC the first night, which ll gve the kids an idea of what to expect at a sig.... they have eaten nearly everywhere at non sig meals and have always behaved but hey... you never know!!

as for advice, you all do different things lmao... what did i expect???

Just an FYI: GFC (Grand Floridian Cafe) is a regular TS restaurant. It is not a signature.

 

[Ro Z]

First and last are always special. With a bunch of good places in between! Lol! Have a great time!