A week of ADRs for a family of 5 (feedback appreciated)

[stephmarty]

We will be visiting the first week of April with daughters age 4, 8 and 10. As a side note, we did score free dining when it was briefly offered for a 3/31 arrival. Our ADRs are listed here both for your input (thank you!) and as a help for families like ours who are looking for suggestions:
Sat. 3/31: Mama Melrose's Fantasmic Package lunch
Sun. 4/1: Crystal Palace (bfst or dinner?)
Mon. 4/2: Chef Mickey's (bfst or dinner?)
Tue. 4/3: Akershus breakfast
Tue. 4/3: Coral Reef dinner
Wed. 4/4: 50's Prime Time Cafe dinner
Thr. 4/5: Tusker House breakfast
Fri. 4/6: 'Ohana breakfast

I know some say that going heavy on breakfasts isn't the best bang for your buck on DDP, but I'm not too concerned since DDP was free and we enjoy breakfast and character dining. And, yeah, we do have a lot of character dining. But that's still an "attraction" as far as our girls are concerned. So any other feedback is much appreciated.

 

[DisneyRookie2007]

I guess for my family, having lots of breakfast ADR's means we'll need to pay out of pocket for either lunch of dinner.

We're light breakfast eaters - so prefer to use our ADR's for lunch or dinner.

 

[mince]

Not sure how old your kids are? But if you are like us, you don't like taking kids out to nice places at home. Disney offers a great opportunity to go to great restaurants with the kids. This is your vacation too and you have the dining plan. I would definitely consider some higher end dining experiences.

 

[baler31]

I would do Crystal Palace for a before opening breakfast is that is still an option. I would drop 50's it has really let us down our last 3 or 4 trips. I would do a CS for lunch if you are in HS and eat at a resort or take the boat over to the Boardwalk for dinner. You could do either Cape May if you want a buffet or something a bit nicer like Flying Fish.

For your Epcot day I woud drop Coral Reef as it is just meh IMO. I would try either Via Napoli for lunch or dinner or Le Cellier for lunch.

I have tried to pick sort of middle of the road cuisine that will please most or sort of in line with most of your choices. The others we have all done and I understand with kids your ages the desire to do the breakfast meals. Just keep in mind you will be doing CS for lunch or dinner and perhaps paying OOP for a meal or two.

Also, The Plaza is reasonably prices in MK and a nice basic TS at almost CS prices, just a thought.

 

[baler31]

I would do Crystal Palace for a before opening breakfast is that is still an option. I would drop 50's it has really let us down our last 3 or 4 trips. I would do a CS for lunch if you are in HS and eat at a resort or take the boat over to the Boardwalk for dinner. You could do either Cape May if you want a buffet or something a bit nicer like Flying Fish.

For your Epcot day I woud drop Coral Reef as it is just meh IMO. I would try either Via Napoli for lunch or dinner or Le Cellier for lunch.

I have tried to pick sort of middle of the road cuisine that will please most or sort of in line with most of your choices. The others we have all done and I understand with kids your ages the desire to do the breakfast meals. Just keep in mind you will be doing CS for lunch or dinner and perhaps paying OOP for a meal or two.

Also, The Plaza is reasonably prices in MK and a nice basic TS at almost CS prices, just a thought.

 

[casper_jj11]

I think Crystal Palace is wonderful if you can get an 8am ADR. You see the park and are out before rope drop. We love breakfast too and prefer breakfast ADRs but there are two significant downfalls: 1. depending on where it is, you could miss Rope drop. That means longers lines all day. 2. if you get early ADRs which really are necessary to us for easier touring days, it means a super early morning... ie: getting up at least an hour if not an hour an half earlier than usually needed to get to RD. Its quite honestly, exhausting. And with the new credit card policy, if you simply decide everyone is too tired, your cc gets dinged $10 per person on the ADR for not showing up.

As for the other ADRs, we really like Coral Reef. The kids love it. This is our first trip without it because the food was so so the last two times. I think we'll miss it tho, We haven't done 50s before ... not into getting scolded by strangers... some find it funny, makes me uncomfortable.

ETA: By the way, do you have your ADRs yet? If not, this may all be a moot point as you may find many of your first choices are booked solid ... you might want to have a look at what's available....