180+ approaching - please critique our dining plans

[LynJ]

We're coming up on our 180 days and getting ready to make our December ADRs. We skipped the dining plan, because we tend to like sharing an appetizer and sharing a main at times instead of ordering separate meals, but we like breakfasts. We still are planning about 1 TS meal per day, which we use as downtime, since it's the holidays. That being said, here's the tentative schedule.

Day 1 - Traveling/EPCOT evening. QS dinner at Sunshine Seasons or Yorkshire Fish Shop.
Day 2 - Hollywood Studios. Hollywood and Vine breakfast.
Day 3 - Akershus for a late breakfast (10:45ish). Restaurant Marrakesh for dinner.
Day 4 - Downtown Disney. Appetizers at Jock Lindsey's for lunch. Raglan Road for dinner.
(These are both non-negotiable. Hubby is an Indiana Jones fanatic. Kiddo is an Irish dancer).
Day 5 - Artist Point for a couples dinner (Kiddo in the cubs Den).
Day 6 - Tusker House for late breakfast. QS Flame Tree BBQ for lunch.
Day 7 - QS Be Our Guest for breakfast (?). The Plaza at MK for dinner.
Day 8 - QS Be Our Guest for lunch. Crystal Palace for dinner.
(This is Christmas Day, so we don't want to leave MK. May try for Jungle Cruise when it opens).
Day 9 - Sleepy Hollow for Breakfast at MK, then traveling.

Couple of weird caveats. Don't want BOG for dinner, but we like their lunches. Don't want Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner. MSG allergy reacted to their stuffing or gravy last time.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

Advice from someone who recently went through the process... have a plan B and a plan C and a plan D and a plan E and... well, you get the picture. I had my "perfect" days planned out around dining places and times and got pretty much 100% different than my original plan. It all worked out for the best but I was really scrambling to get alternate choices. I would also recommend you do a "test run". The day or 2 before, get up for 6 a.m. and pretend you are making ressies for 180 days out on that earlier day. See what you are able to get and how you have to modify. This was the most helpful thing for me to determine what I needed to nab first, compared to what ressies could be handled a few minutes later without losing good dining times. I only did this one day in advance and wish I had done it more than once. It really helped me a lot. Good luck!

 

[mrsjoannh13]

Also wanted to add... right now BOG breakfast is only available through July. There is no word yet on whether or not they will definitely extend it. Looking at your choices, have BOG lunch loaded first and try to get that lunch before you move on to anything else. Probably Akershus next then Tusker and Crystal Palace then H&V. The rest will have more avails.

 

[twinkybel81]

Not sure where in the country you are located, but my 180 day from my first reservation (we have 3 for this trip) was yesterday morning and I am on the west coast, so I got up at 3am (6am EST) to have the best chance at getting the reservations we want. Here is what I encountered: 1) the site was moving slower than molasses (I'm assuming that was from the number of people utilizing the site for the same purpose at that time), 2) 3 of the restaurants we were interested in already had no availability on the days we wanted to dine there, during multiple time periods (I've subsequently checked other days before and after and met the same "no tables available message"), and 3) I decided to call in to Disney Dining to see if they could shed any light on the lack of reservations and to see if they had access to more reservations than what the site was currently showing (based on some posts I've read, I believed that to be the case). The CM I spoke to was not interested in helping me and basically told me that the MDE site is live and that they (the CMs) only have access to the same information/reservation availability as we do. She also said that perhaps the restaurants just haven't released all their availability for those dates yet and that I shouldn't be worried because it is still early. I was frustrated at that answer because Disney highly recommends that you make your dining reservations as close to the 180 day mark as possible, which is what we always do, and haven't had this much of an issue ever before. So now to be told that I am just going to have to keep checking back constantly to hopefully be able to get a reservation whenever the restaurants decide to release more availability is kinda BS in my book. I apologize for the rant, just trying to share my recent experience (I've read of a lot of people recently having similar issues, so I wasn't too surprised when it happened to me as well).

Here's hoping your ADRs go smoothly!

 

[pumba]

if you like a big breakfast ..then I would opt out of BOG and maybe have Crystal palace for breakfast or at the resorts..(where are you staying)...our gd was at bog and it really wasnt enough to keep them going..your choices are great...good luck planning