ADR vs parks

[twinnersmama]

Which do you decide first ...
make an ADR then choose your park based on the ADR location ..
OR
Choose a park and make an ADR in proximity to the park?

this is our 3rd time to WDW and we are having a hard time making a schedule...

 

[ddeschon]

I always make a list of the restaurants we want to eat at. Then I look at the "estimated" park hours/crowd level and recommendations. Then I fill in a schedule based on those.
Seems to work for my family.

 

[4under4]

First I analyze the crowd calendar to determine which parks on which day. Then I check for ADRs. If I can't get what I want, I might change my park plan to accommodate an ADR, but usually I just accept that we will be at a different restaurant that day. Thankfully, most of our favorite restaurants are at the resorts, not in the parks, so our park plans rarely conflict with our ADR plans.

 

[Fivemuggles]

I made my park selection first- based off crowd calendars, EMH and park hours.
Then I look at the extra stuff we don't want to miss- wishes, parades ect. I plan all the meals around those - at first it was REALLY overwhelming, but after the initial park choosing it went a lot smoother!
I asked my kids which restaurants they wanted to try, and just plugged the restaurants into the parks I would be at that day!
We are having 2 dinners out of the parks, so I had to plan where we would be during the day to make those work. 1900 park fare I reserved the night we are going to AK, and the close at 6 so we made a 730 ressie. 'Ohana we are going to on a night we are at MK, so it's a short monorail ride there and back- no big deal!

 

[Wistraveler]

When I plan a trip, I look at Park schedules. I don't worry about crowds as I usually travel during Off Peak times.

Once I have pretty much nailed down where I am going to be on any particular day, I then think about where we want to eat, and when. If I need an ADR, I look at options based on location, weigh my favorites that are available for the time and place, and make my reservations where applicable.

If it's dinner, it might wind up being a little later than I would prefer, but I just work around that. Once I make the ADRs, I never change them, since I take the time to commit to a plan. After so many trips, I have never been disappointed.

Maybe I'm just easy to please.

 

[Jonathan Swift]

Parks first, then restaurants. No park hopper, so any non-park restaurants that day are nearby hotels. Polynesian, Contemporary, and Grand Floridian all accessible from the monorail.

 

[snowweisz]

I'd say a little flexibility both ways is a good combination.

There are places where it's harder to make reservations, so we'd be happy switching a day from any other park to MK if we got a res to BOG, for example.
If you also really want something for a day in particular (like say, Via Napoli for your birthday), then planning your day around that event also works.

However, this is where I think park hopping is a great deal. Because you may really, really want to try more than one or two places at say, Epcot. But it's not a great deal to do 3 days at Epcot! So if you can park hop, you can be at MK all day and take the monorail over to Epcot just for dinner.

So, first go for the events you really want and for the hard to get ADR's.

Second, I would go for park hours and EMH like others have said. But to me, chasing the difficult ADR's and the stuff you really want for particular days is more important.

 

[magicbob]

First I analyze the crowd calendar to determine which parks on which day. Then I check for ADRs. If I can't get what I want, I might change my park plan to accommodate an ADR, but usually I just accept that we will be at a different restaurant that day. Thankfully, most of our favorite restaurants are at the resorts, not in the parks, so our park plans rarely conflict with our ADR plans.

This strategy works well for us too. I figure out which park on which day first. Then I try to get the ADRs I want to fit that schedule. If I can't get the ADR I want for that day, I'll either go with a different restaurant or, if the crowd estimate for a different day is not too much worse for that park, I'll sometimes shuffle our park days around to accommodate a particularly desirable ADR.