Breakfasts were a mistake for our family!

[tomatecerise]

We bring our bread, peanut butter and canned pâté. We can Be lazy In the morning.

 

[raddisneyfan]

I love breakfast, but tend to just get takeout from the resort store before heading to a park. I usually do one breakfast ADR a week and it is almost always BOMA at AKL. I'm actually staying at AKL in a few weeks and I thought I would make a lot of breakfast ADRs for BOMA since it is convenient, but I just made one--it's not so much the time it would take, but the amount of food--it's a buffet and I just can't handle that every day.

 

[eliza61]

On our recent trip, we did an 8:30 breakfast at Tusker House before the 9am opening, and a 9:30am breakfast at the Sci-Fi diner. Both places had EXCELLENT food, but I wish someone had warned me about the possible problems with table service breakfasts.

First of all, my kids just weren't that hungry in the mornings. They were equally tired and excited about getting to rides. We should have just stuck to on-the-go foods (Kind bars, fruit, milk boxes, etc.) instead of wasting table service credits on breakfast. DH and I were a little better, but who wants to go on a roller coaster right after a big breakfast?

We thought that we would get into Animal Kingdom a little early, eat breakfast, and pop over to Kilimanjaro Safari just as the park was opening. We were dragging after a late night at Fantasmic, so we arrived at the AK front at 8:30 (a few minutes late instead of early - which is REALLY easy to happen with the bus system and other issues). They wouldn't let us though the gates when we got there. They kept saying, we're opening in just a few minutes, you can just go then. So first - the gates were opening around 8:35/8:40 instead of 9, meaning everyone waiting in line was also going in early and we were wasting time eating. Also, not getting in the front of the line for the safari. After another family also came for breakfast, both of us kept persistently asking (i.e. kindly complaining) that we needed to get in for our reservations and then they finally let us go through before the rest of the crowd. THAT was really unexpected - as a first time visitor, I had always read that there was a special line for early breakfast guests.

At HS, we went right to our breakfast at Sci Fi diner. The kids just zoned out to the movie screen and ignored their food. DH and I ate, but couldn't even make a dent in what they gave us. We also felt like we were wasting valuable early-park time, so we had an anxiety to rush the whole time.

I'm interested to hear other people's breakfast experiences. I felt really surprised that I disliked them so much, and didn't read anything about the "cons" of the breakfast experience before we went.

Unfortunately one of the problems with the disboards is that people are generally hostile to any negative comment you make about disney.

As a general rule if you dare to criticize the mouse you will be told
1) if you had done your research you would have known that XYZ is what really happens. all your fault.
2) it's a theme park, you don't go for the _____ (fill in the blank). your expectations are ridiculously high. all your fault
3) you should be happy that you are at disney. stop letting the supposedly "small" stuff bother you. all your fault.

When I do trip reports here, I basically report on the things that went well. I go to trip advisors and write complete reports there.

Now we love breakfast just not at Disney. they are just too overpriced for my blood. my latest was BOG which I thought was a big ripoff.
We're not commando's when we tour so we usually don't get to anxious to do rides but we're dvc members so that helps.

 

[mommyof3princess27]

We love breakfast at Disney. I had no idea a Tusker prepark isn't really prepark anymore? So we usually are done at 9. Hopefully we can go right to safari. I plan one in each park.

 

[cleopenn]

We just returned and I wanted to report back on my "no ADRs" for breakfast strategy.

First of all, let me say I am in awe of these families that have the kids up, dressed and ready to go so early in the morning. We were absolutely exhausted and no breakfast ADRs were the best choice for us. I completely forgot about our one and only breakfast ADR and we missed it.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and selection of breakfast items at the Polynesian concierge lounge. DS and I were happy to eat there everyday. DH "needs" a real breakfast. The one morning we gave into his wishes, it was a 60 minute wait at Kona so we went to Capt Cook's. We thought Capt Cook's was very expensive for the food quality. However, it was nice to be able to eat out on the patio.

An aside - People were losing their minds in line to order food! I saw three different sets of women get into shouting matches over who was next in line! That dual check-out line that feeds from both sides is sort of confusing and when person A dilly-dallied, person B blew right past them to the next register. Then person A screamed at person B and the fights were ON! There was actual arms pushing in fight #3.

 

[Quellman]

Breakfast foods are low value for us. The BOG cost is rediculous to me. So we either do room food or quick service ... UNLESS we make it a brunch to last until a 5pm diner reservation.

I'll let you know in April!

In all seriousness, this is an interesting discussion. Everyone in our family, except me, is an early riser. We live on the east coast, so there is no time change for us. I'm lucky if my kids sleep past 6:30am! We have booked PPO ADRs for both our MK (at BOG) and AK (at TH) days at 8:05am in hopes of getting to rides before RD. My 4 year old loves A&E and I have no expectation we can get FP+ for it as we are staying offsite, so I think the PPO ADR at BOG is our best bet. My 7 year old is a hug animal lover and the Safari at AK is her #1 priority. I'm hopeful that the PPO ADR at TH will get us on with little wait and active animals.

This LINK to a Disney Parks Blog suggests that over years of data, there is no truth to the myth of animals are most active in the morning.

 

[Pookles]

We bring our bread, peanut butter and canned pâté. We can Be lazy In the morning.

Okay I'm intrigued, canned pate? I see you are from Quebec, is it a French thing or Canadian or do you just like it? Any particular brand? Unfortunately most searches here in US bring up cat food. I did bring some rabbit terrine back from France which was lovely.

And also, I can't imagine this but are you eating the pate and peanut butter together?

 

[hsmamato2]

after many trips with kids,no kids, kids of all ages,old kids,young kids..... we discovered that rushing out to breakfast is NOT our thing..... at best once in a while we did a breakfast at Kona cafe at 10:30-11 a.m.- on a non park day! We prefer to eat in our room,and then eat a bigger meal later on for lunch and/or dinner....

 

[hsmamato2]

canned pate? that's the first I've heard of that... but we do similiarly in that we have our tea/coffee in the room,along with oatmeal or cereal and some fruit.....

 

[wizneather78]

We are only doing 2 character breakfasts this upcoming trip...Chef Mickey's and Akershus. The other mornings, we'll use our snack credits and resort mug for items at our resort or pay OOP. We'd rather use our credits for QS & TS lunch/dinners and get more bang for our dining plan bucks!

 

[Happyinwonerland]

As a family of not too big breakfast eaters, we have never done a breakfast ADR. We stay off site and have a full kitchen, so breakfast is cereal or waffles or yogurt or fruit. I usually eat a light breakfast of coffee and fruit and then we eat a semi early lunch, around 1130.

 

[ZoZo]

As to those asking the OP "why should anyone warn you?" I just took it that she hadn't seen other threads or comments within threads commenting on the downsides or pros & cons of early ADRs and therefore started one to either share with other newbies or see if she's the only one who feels this way.

Exactly - I'm glad someone said this.

I once got criticized by several people on a thread about morning EMHs. All i said was that I wish I'd known that many of the rides at MK are not open during early EMH. Several people came back to say that this information is "out there" and that I basically should have known better. It was all I could do not to go back on and defend myself - all I said was "I wish I'd known", and I hoped that other people could have learned from my experience.

 

[MarkF0wle]

I don't think anybody in my family is a particularly big breakfast eater, that said when on vacation we absolutely are. We have the dining plan so we eat breakfast & dinner everyday, generally we'll eat QS for breakfast though over a 3 week vacation we'll have 3/4 early buffet breakfasts. O'hana, Tusker, Trail's End are staples & we sometimes add on a 4th. The early entry into the parks isn't the attraction for us, we just like the atmosphere & food of those places. But I always book our table at Tusker for 1 hour before park open so that we can finish a calmly paced breakfast before leaving about at park opening. I don't find much anxiety with AK though as all the rides we *MUST* do we can get FP+ for, but we'll jump onto the Safari first thing if we are out in time before the queues. On more than 1 occasion we have been on the first truck out.