We don't want to starve at Disney again

[tomerin]

if you dont want to be tied down by ADR's or cant get the ones you want maybe you could make a grocery stop so at least you have a fallback plan, food in the fridge, if you cant get the ADR's you want. we use a grocery service called wegoshop.com. for a small fee they will shop for you and deliver it your room.

definitly try to make ADR's. if you change your mind you can always cancel.

 

[NCombs]

... I was thinking it was a joke thread also, but apparently not. Forgive me for coming off as unsympathetic, but am I supposed to feel bad becuase the OP chose to not make reservations?.... especially considering the OP had had such a bad experience before. What is the harm in making any number of ADRs (with MAYBE the exception of those now requiring a credit card)? That said, I've got to believe the original poster is the type of person that would complain if you hanged him with a new rope... and probably thetype of person that wouldn't cancel an ADR they decided not to use.

Where did this come from?

I think the OP was asking an innocent question. Lets be nice.

 

[crisi]

We make reservations for dinner each evening (sometimes a late lunch) and a character breakfast (two this last trip). What we do is make a list of all the restaurants we'd like to try. As DVC members (like you) we know we will be back, so it reduces the commando nature - make it less important to get a late seating in MGM. A lot of our restaurants are Epcot centered, so we do a park until 1:00 or so, go back to the BW for a swim, walk into Epcot for dinner. We knew we'd do MNSSHP this year, so booked Kona for that night. If we do go "off the beaten track" we try to plan our days a little better - like the night we saw Cirque at 6:00 we ate a 3:00 lunch in MGM.

We did this after a trip similar to yours - a slow time of year (early Feburary) two small kids and I was so sick of chicken fingers and hearing that there was a two hour wait (or longer) to be seated - when we weren't told "no walkups".

Some restaurants are better bets. Marrakesh can be a good walk up. A lot of the hotel restaurants can be available.

 

[mommyoeo]

I know this sounds crazy, but on my family's first (and only so far) trip to WDW we had a heck of a time finding anything to eat! We were there around the Fourth of July, so it was a very busy place-- but 90% of the time we'd poke our nose into a table service restaurant they'd turn us away or offer a wait of three hours.

I remember the day we arrived (hungry from a long flight from Seattle), we had no reservations anywhere, and we just wandered over to Epcot to eat... for the life of us we couldn't find anything. We started in Canada and worked our way around. We decided to take the Monorail over to MK and try that... no better. Finally we found a counter service restaurant that had a table... but it was getting so late most everyone else had already eaten. We were in the mood for a nice first meal, but made do with hamburgers as we were getting weak from hunger.

We don't like having a rigid schedule on vacation, so we dread making a lot of reservations... but we don't want to wander the parks for scraps of food either!

Our next trip (first as DVC members) will be to Saratoga Springs from 12/14-12/22 -- with the park being slower that time of year, can we just play it by ear and/or make reservations a few hours ahead of time? Or will we starve again?

Thanks for the advice-- you guys never cease to amaze.

PM me and I'll be happy to try and get you some ADRs, if you'd like me to. I've got no prob getting up early and I don't have a vacation of my own to plan right now (got home on the 13th). Happy day!!

Christy

 

[malonefamily]

PM me and I'll be happy to try and get you some ADRs, if you'd like me to. I've got no prob getting up early and I don't have a vacation of my own to plan right now (got home on the 13th). Happy day!!
Christy

That was extremely kind of you to offer... I was so engrossed in our campaign I didn't see this until today. Good news, I found some time this afternoon and I have now made nine priority seating arrangements - dinner 8 of the 9 nights and breakfast at Crystal Palace with the charcaters. They even had room for us at Alfredo's for their Candlelight Processional package.

I didn't get my pick of exact times, generally, and usually had to shop around for a restaurant with room for five-- apparently as long as someone is open to options, even today wasn't too late for a 12/14 trip. (seems to be at the very edge of too late though, I wouldn't recommend waiting any longer!)

Of course, the downside is we're more or less committed to which parks we visit on which days, and we'll actually have to pay some semblance of attention to time so we don't miss reservations, but it beats the heck out've 9 days of hamburgers.

 

[Wendy1953]

We make lunch & dinner reservations for every day we are going to be there for, and then if we don't feel like going to that particular restaurant, we try and get ressie's elsewhere, then if we luck out and get them, we cancel the ones we had already booked.

 

[lynr]

We booked our Dec 8th -12th trip just two weeks ago. Unfortunately we have not been able to get anything that we wanted for dinner. LeCellier is all booked up and so is Liberty Tree Tavern, and CRT they were the three places we really wanted. When I called ADR they asked me if I was interested in the CP package for LeCellier but with 8 people that would be very costly. Especially since our teenage girls eat practically nothing.

Lyn

 

[mickeysaver]

We are going to arrive 12/11 and will leave on 12/17 and we have 9 ADR's. We usually do not tour with this many sit down meals, but this time we have decided to do things a little differently because we are eating differently in an effort to change our lifestyle to something a little healthier than we have been doing. Most of the lunches and dinners are planned as salad meals. We have determined that we do much better with a good breakfast, so that is why we have so many of them booked. I don't think that we have ever eaten more than one or two CS breakfast meals in all of our trips to WDW, so this will be a treat to have an excuse to do a couple of character meals.

December 11, 2005
Gardenview Lounge Afternoon Tea for Gabby & Pati @ 2:10pm
This is a mother daughter bonding experience for my honey and her mom.

December 12, 2005
Breakfast at Kona Cafe @ 10:00am

December 13, 2005
Breakfast at Chef Mickey's @ 7:50am
Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern @ 2:45pm
Dinner at Raglan Road @ 7:45pm

December 14, 2005
Breakfast at Maya Grill @ 7:30am

December 15, 2005
Dinner at MK before MVMCP at The Plaza @ 4:50pm

December 16, 2005
Breakfast at Ohana @ 10:30 am
Lunch at Rose & Crown @ 3:00pm

I almost want to add one or two more, but I don't dare to try for anything more than the blessings that we have already received with some of the late changes that we have made. We actually had two other meals that were booked that we sacrificed due to some unforseen scheduling conflicts. With the seemingly increased popularity in WDW touring in December and the close proximity of your trip to the 25th, I feel that it would be wise to make a few ADR's now. Maggie

 

[Cinderella]

Please some of the earlier posters, please try to understand that many people have never visited wdw before and just don't understand the importance of adr's. I know a lot of people who don't do any research before visiting from the uk - just wing it and are quite happy to eat burgers and fries every day. Each to his own.

To the original poster - congratulations on joining dvc. And you've found these boards - so you're in the right place. It sounds like you want to eat nice meals whilst on your vacation - so do make some adr's if you don't want to starve again. You don't have to stick rigidly to them all - having them gives you peace of mind that you won't but if you want to do something on that particular day, you have the freedom to do so. I have made heaps of adr's over the last few days and i am a busy businesswoman - but my vacation is important to me, because it is the only break i get. I've read all the threads about being to busy to have time and it's utter rubbish - if anyone where that busy and important, they would go concierge and let them do it for them.

Anyway, on a positive note - if you do starve again on this trip - you'll have over 40 years of DVC ahead of you to get it right. Have a great time.

 

[magsmom]

My family has travelled many times to Disney. Never before this year have adr's become such an issue.

Prior to this year I have made a reservation or 2 and have winged the rest of the time. Not this year. We were also at Disney the last week of June/through the 4th (10 days) and I had 2 total adrs for the whole trip. Needless to say, there were times we were also walking around Epcot and calling for availability ANYWHERE. August saw adrs hard to come by due to free dining and in October difficult due to F&W. I thought I was head of the game by deciding on restaurants for our December trip ahead of time (early November) but I still could not get Le Cellier or a good time at the Cali Grill. And this is for a slow time - December 7-12!

 

[malonefamily]

My family has travelled many times to Disney. Never before this year have adr's become such an issue.

That's exactly the sort of experience I've been suspecting... I think the dining plans have made ALL restaurants in the parks so busy that it's difficult to eat without ADRs. Since I've only been to WDW once, I was only guessing. I can say for certain that we were half starved looking for food for most of our July trip, even counter service places had long lines and no tables to eat at.

I've got some ADRs for our upcoming trip, so we're not going to be too badly off this time I hope. I wish it we could be more impulsive and less planned, but oh well... not going to let it detract from a fantastic Disney trip.

 

[NJBlackBerry]

We are going to WDW 12/29-1/3 (gee, will it be busy) and I made ADRs last night for Kona Cafe on 12/30 and Spoodles on 1/1. Last week I made an ADR for Jiko on 1/2. No problem with times or the places themselves.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

We make a list of all the places we want to eat and then try to get ADRs for those places. We plan a tentative schedule around those plus the other events we want to participate in.

I am using this strategy for my upcoming Christmas Week trip because although no one in my family will ever starve (we have plenty of reserves! ) I don't want to wait in line for an hour twice a day for a hamburger!!

Make at least one ADR per day, you can always cancel a day or two in advance or make changes when you get to the World!!

 

[goodferry]

We went through the same thing on our first trip too! Last time we bit the bullet and made ADRs and a rough itinerary, so I could look through the counter service place menus before we left and know where we might want to eat based on what park we would be in that day. I know it is more fun to just do whatever, but we found it also was fun not wandering aimlessly. Another bit of advice, plan to eat at off times. Make your dinner reservations early, like at 5:30, and stop to eat lunch by 11:30, that way you don't get stuck having to wait with the masses to eat.
By the way, we will be there at the same time! We are going Dec 14-23rd at the Polynesian. Have a great trip.

 

[ZoZo]

Reservations are a necessary evil; we need to adjust to the reality that people are dining out quite a bit at WDW.

I agree. If you're not willing to make reservations/priority seatings, you have to be willing to take what's left over. Unfortunate, but true. I didn't find it burdensome to have some PS's - we usually did at least one per day. But we did plan well in advance which park we were going to go to each day. The one day we did try to go to Le Cellier without a PS, we couldn't get reservations until almost 9:00 pm. Remember, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other people trying to do the same thing you are . . . I think you're ahead of the game if you make reservations at that 90-day timeframe.

 

[sjrogo713]

Only made 3 ADRs for the week because we were staying off property in a (free!) condo. I think that TS in the PARKS is really hard to get because I pretty much called 2-3 weeks before and got into Portobello Yacht, Flying Fish and Shutters with no problems and pretty much the times I wanted (party of 3). On Tue B4 T-giving, we just walked into Sci-FI for lunch at 1:30 with no res and sat down in about 5 mins. We cancelled our Shutters for Thanksgiving night since we ended up at DTD, and just walked into Captain Jack's about 5:00 with no problem. (Cap'n Jack not as good as we remembered from 5 years ago, though). On Friday after T-giving, called Concourse Steak in the AM and got ADR for 7:00 with no problem. We ended up at Epcot that afternoon and tried at Guest Relations to switch to someplace in Epcot but were told to forget it and also to forget about trying walk-in because of the Candlelight Procession.
SO... we took the monorail over to Contemp and ate and were back in time for Illuminations!!!

Also -- we arrived about 15-30 minutes early for all of the ADRs and were seated within 5-10 minutes of arrival every time.

The parks were really busy all week,not just Wed, Thurs, Fri. I guess we just picked the right restautrants this time.