ADRs; do you always know? Do you, would you PPO?

[rasadkowski]

Hey everyone!

Just looking for opinions here. This is only our second family trip to wdw. I am by no means an experienced planner, but, I can say that I spent every free moment reading the wonderful threads and entertaining responses here all last year and this year. I love it, and have learned A LOT. Thanks to all the veterans that are always there to answer questions.

Like most, I am really trying to plan a great trip for our family. I plan so far in advance for ADR day, and I always think I have all my ducks in a row, and then once I'm "finished," I suddenly come up with a new scenario that I "need" to plan for. And the ADR search starts again.....Is this normal?? Wondering if people cancel simply because of cancelled trip, or are they like me, making changes to their plans.

My second question is I always thought PPO breakfasts would be nice for our family....We are morning people, and I do like walking through the park before the masses. But, on our last trip, I definitely felt the rush to get through breakfast to get on FEA. As it turned out, Epcot dropped the ropes earlier, and although we were the first seated and out of Akershus, there was a 30 min wait at FEA at 8:50. (this was Dec)
So, I was wondering, to all the experienced travellers, do you PPO? If we want to really get on Soarin' at rope drop, (we have 2 kids) would you try to find a GG PPO breakfast? or would you prefer to just rope drop? Trying to not obsess over securing a GG breakfast....
Thanks, all. Happy Sunday

 

[JZCubed]

Hey everyone!

Just looking for opinions here. This is only our second family trip to wdw. I am by no means an experienced planner, but, I can say that I spent every free moment reading the wonderful threads and entertaining responses here all last year and this year. I love it, and have learned A LOT. Thanks to all the veterans that are always there to answer questions.

Like most, I am really trying to plan a great trip for our family. I plan so far in advance for ADR day, and I always think I have all my ducks in a row, and then once I'm "finished," I suddenly come up with a new scenario that I "need" to plan for. And the ADR search starts again.....Is this normal?? Wondering if people cancel simply because of cancelled trip, or are they like me, making changes to their plans.

My second question is I always thought PPO breakfasts would be nice for our family....We are morning people, and I do like walking through the park before the masses. But, on our last trip, I definitely felt the rush to get through breakfast to get on FEA. As it turned out, Epcot dropped the ropes earlier, and although we were the first seated and out of Akershus, there was a 30 min wait at FEA at 8:50. (this was Dec)
So, I was wondering, to all the experienced travellers, do you PPO? If we want to really get on Soarin' at rope drop, (we have 2 kids) would you try to find a GG PPO breakfast? or would you prefer to just rope drop? Trying to not obsess over securing a GG breakfast....
Thanks, all. Happy Sunday

Like purchasing a ticket for an outdoor event anywhere, you assume a certain level of risk due to weather.

PPO-strategy is a similar thing - you assume a certain level of risk that Disney will decide to interrupt your plans by changing the Park Opening time to an earlier hour, or Disney simply opens the Park a bit earlier than actually scheduled.

As my mother would have reminded us all, "We make plans and God laughs."

And with all due respect, your previous experience at FEA was still a relatively positive one. You arrived at the ride with a 30-minute posted wait (that was likely much less). You were off the ride at 9:20am (30-minutes after 8:50am); by 9:20am that wait time was likely an hour or more.

If you want a 'professional' viewpoint, look at EasyWDW.Com for some additional insight too. I use 'google' to search for articles on a particular topic by including EasyWDW into my parameters.

To answer your question(s) - since you are morning people, you can simply wait at the front of the Rope Drop and likely have a better outcome for that one Attraction than the uncertainty that Disney maintains the right to inflict on your best-laid plans.

But now you have to ask your self - was it better to wait for 45-minutes for the Park to open, or was it better to have breakfast before potentially waiting up to 30-minutes (or less) for that 'must-do' ride (like your experience at FEA last year)?

I'm here to say that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer - the answer is, "Whatever works best for your family."

 

[rasadkowski]

Like purchasing a ticket for an outdoor event anywhere, you assume a certain level of risk due to weather.

PPO-strategy is a similar thing - you assume a certain level of risk that Disney will decide to interrupt your plans by changing the Park Opening time to an earlier hour, or Disney simply opens the Park a bit earlier than actually scheduled.

As my mother would have reminded us all, "We make plans and God laughs."

And with all due respect, your previous experience at FEA was still a relatively positive one. You arrived at the ride with a 30-minute posted wait (that was likely much less). You were off the ride at 9:20am (30-minutes after 8:50am); by 9:20am that wait time was likely an hour or more.

If you want a 'professional' viewpoint, look at EasyWDW.Com for some additional insight too. I use 'google' to search for articles on a particular topic by including EasyWDW into my parameters.

To answer your question(s) - since you are morning people, you can simply wait at the front of the Rope Drop and likely have a better outcome for that one Attraction than the uncertainty that Disney maintains the right to inflict on your best-laid plans.

But now you have to ask your self - was it better to wait for 45-minutes for the Park to open, or was it better to have breakfast before potentially waiting up to 30-minutes (or less) for that 'must-do' ride (like your experience at FEA last year)?

I'm here to say that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer - the answer is, "Whatever works best for your family."

Thank you I love that quote.
I'm glad that it's normal to be assessing all of these different scenarios and always be changing what would work best. It's hard since the kids are older each year, so things will always be different!!

 

[Nancyg56]

I fell into that rush at one of our PPO meals, and I was pretty mad at myself. I think that you have to look at the entire day and ask yourself what makes your family happy. WE usually book one PPO for the trip. WE enjoy strolling through a relatively quiet park, although with the new opening procedure at MK, I think that the quieter MK stroll boat has sailed.

Personally, on ADR day, I would book the PPO you think you will want, and then as you reassess your plans you can either keep it or drop it. Lately, there are a lot of changes, so you may have an entirely different plan when you get closer to your trip. I know we seem to make more changes now then we ever did.

 

[jaiminee krikit]

I change my ADRs up until the day before sometimes. I even had a CM mention it once when I needed to change an ADR in person - apparently they can see all of your changes. I want our vacations to be perfect, and sometimes that requires adjustments. I think it's totally normal, at least in my world.

In regards to PPO breakfasts, I'm not a fan. I did one at CP to have an empty castle photo op. I was surprised at how many people were doing the same thing, and even though our photo had fewer people, it still wasn't just us. And then we felt rushed during the meal because we wanted to get out and get going on the rides. We even ended up leaving before all of the characters came to our table. And it didn't really give us much of an advantage getting in line for rides. I would rather just eat a light breakfast waiting for rope drop and do either a later breakfast or lunch if I want to do the character meal.

 

[JZCubed]

Thank you I love that quote.
I'm glad that it's normal to be assessing all of these different scenarios and always be changing what would work best. It's hard since the kids are older each year, so things will always be different!!

Exactly.

My daughter is old enough to now try to stay awake for nighttime activities.

And since we are going this December, instead of the past two July's, she has a real chance at enjoying the nighttime 'adult' stuff at Disney.

We will be (attempting) to stay out more than be at Rope Drop this year. Partly, and I must mention, because we have the luxury of going every year.

And we mix in the new (River of Lights, Pandora, Homecoming, Brunch at CA Grill, etc.) along with the 'old'. Hoping for Star Wars Dessert and/or Club Villain too. Maybe even something Disney has yet to announce.

Another year, and our child may even want to go on a Tour and learn something while on vacation.

 

[julieFitz]

You do not need PPO breakfast for Soarin, just be there for rope drop. You'll have to wait 15-20 min max

 

[stace1214]

I went back and forth on this as well. We ended up getting an 8:15 ADR at Garden Grill. I'm thinking that we will try to get in at 8, won't necessarily need to rush through breakfast and should still see a pretty short wait for Soarin' a little bit after 9. I've heard great things about the GG breakfast and I love Chip and Dale. I don't think I would book it just to get on Soarin' unless it was a really busy time of year.

 

[brockash]

Hey everyone!

Just looking for opinions here. This is only our second family trip to wdw. I am by no means an experienced planner, but, I can say that I spent every free moment reading the wonderful threads and entertaining responses here all last year and this year. I love it, and have learned A LOT. Thanks to all the veterans that are always there to answer questions.

Like most, I am really trying to plan a great trip for our family. I plan so far in advance for ADR day, and I always think I have all my ducks in a row, and then once I'm "finished," I suddenly come up with a new scenario that I "need" to plan for. And the ADR search starts again.....Is this normal?? Wondering if people cancel simply because of cancelled trip, or are they like me, making changes to their plans.

My second question is I always thought PPO breakfasts would be nice for our family....We are morning people, and I do like walking through the park before the masses. But, on our last trip, I definitely felt the rush to get through breakfast to get on FEA. As it turned out, Epcot dropped the ropes earlier, and although we were the first seated and out of Akershus, there was a 30 min wait at FEA at 8:50. (this was Dec)
So, I was wondering, to all the experienced travellers, do you PPO? If we want to really get on Soarin' at rope drop, (we have 2 kids) would you try to find a GG PPO breakfast? or would you prefer to just rope drop? Trying to not obsess over securing a GG breakfast....
Thanks, all. Happy Sunday

We did a PPO GG breakfast last year and it worked great. Yes, anytime we do a PPO, it's not a leisurely paced meal, but we still do it. The nice thing GG and Soar in is that you'll be able to see when the masses are lead in slowly by the CM (I guess it depends on your seat actually.) Either way, ask for the check as soon as you sit down and let your waitress know you're wanting to make rope drop and plan on walking out by 845 if you're at a spot that you'll have no warning.

 

[rasadkowski]

I went back and forth on this as well. We ended up getting an 8:15 ADR at Garden Grill. I'm thinking that we will try to get in at 8, won't necessarily need to rush through breakfast and should still see a pretty short wait for Soarin' a little bit after 9. I've heard great things about the GG breakfast and I love Chip and Dale. I don't think I would book it just to get on Soarin' unless it was a really busy time of year.

I'm thinking that I'll still try to get an adr. We want to try for soarin early, but we're also big breakfast people, so I think it would be the better option for us. Fingers crossed it'll work out thank you, all!!! Wonderful advice

 

[kiford]

I suddenly come up with a new scenario that I "need" to plan for. And the ADR search starts again.....Is this normal?? Wondering if people cancel simply because of cancelled trip, or are they like me, making changes to their plans.

I make plans at the 180 day mark and make my bookings. Sometimes I have to make bookings for less than ideal (i.e., my original plans) conditions and may look to make changes when something comes up that meets my needs better although I'm fully prepared to go with the flow if it doesn't work out. Sometimes, friends who live in Florida plan to join us at a later date and that requires me to make last minute changes. Then there's DH who has no interest at all in the planning and could care less about what I've done until about a month beforehand when he starts asking all kinds of questions and asks for all kinds of things that cause me to change my plans if it's possible.

We've also made changes 24-72 hours prior to bookings as we realize that we're simply too tired to travel all the way over to AKL, for example, for Boma reservations from GF when we can just go to the GF Cafe 45 minutes later so we make the changes suddenly. We also changed reservations 24 hours in advance on our last trip after we had some snacks at the Nomad Lounge in AK and decided to have dinner at Tiffin's the next night instead of Cali Grill.

So, I was wondering, to all the experienced travellers, do you PPO?

Generally not. We're not morning people and we're on vacation so feel that we're entitled to sleep in. A couple of years ago we accidentally made rope drop at MK because we'd booked BOG for 9 am on an 8:30 am MK opening and got there earlier than expected (transportation aligned and I padded my time expectation more than required) and got to see the opening ceremony with the train (which DH made a video of and then promptly lost because he fried his iPhone two days later). I had no intention of getting there PPO for breakfast. We don't scarfe down breakfast quickly - we like to take our time - and wouldn't normally eat QS/CS but had wanted to try BOG so I wasn't using it to get in early and do any attractions. Since were there earlier than normal for us we did end up doing a couple of attractions but that wasn't our goal. But everyone has got to do their own touring style. Our is late TS breakfast, late entry, leisurely touring, long TS dinner, late or early night depending on how we feel. We know we'll be back again so feel no pressure if we miss something. Not everyone is in the same boat or has the same mindset. Even after breakfast it was fairly quiet (this was early December).

 

[Surgie2]

do you PPO?

I'm not nearly as experienced with WDW as others here but I will say that we are not planning any PPO breakfasts for our family trip next year. It kind of stresses me out to plan and then have Disney make that an EMH day! I just want to take that out of the equation. We are staying CL so that means we'll have an included mini-breakfast but even if we weren't, I'd have breakfast bars and fruit and cereal in the room. Then we are planning later breakfasts in the parks on two mornings - one hopefully at CRT at 10:15 after BBB and another at Tusker House around 10:40 after RD at AK. That way we can better control (ha!) our time. If there is EMH on our AK day, then we can reevaluate going at RD but we'll still have our breakfast reserved when we want it.

 

[rasadkowski]

I make plans at the 180 day mark and make my bookings. Sometimes I have to make bookings for less than ideal (i.e., my original plans) conditions and may look to make changes when something comes up that meets my needs better although I'm fully prepared to go with the flow if it doesn't work out. Sometimes, friends who live in Florida plan to join us at a later date and that requires me to make last minute changes. Then there's DH who has no interest at all in the planning and could care less about what I've done until about a month beforehand when he starts asking all kinds of questions and asks for all kinds of things that cause me to change my plans if it's possible.

We've also made changes 24-72 hours prior to bookings as we realize that we're simply too tired to travel all the way over to AKL, for example, for Boma reservations from GF when we can just go to the GF Cafe 45 minutes later so we make the changes suddenly. We also changed reservations 24 hours in advance on our last trip after we had some snacks at the Nomad Lounge in AK and decided to have dinner at Tiffin's the next night instead of Cali Grill.



Generally not. We're not morning people and we're on vacation so feel that we're entitled to sleep in. A couple of years ago we accidentally made rope drop at MK because we'd booked BOG for 9 am on an 8:30 am MK opening and got there earlier than expected (transportation aligned and I padded my time expectation more than required) and got to see the opening ceremony with the train (which DH made a video of and then promptly lost because he fried his iPhone two days later). I had no intention of getting there PPO for breakfast. We don't scarfe down breakfast quickly - we like to take our time - and wouldn't normally eat QS/CS but had wanted to try BOG so I wasn't using it to get in early and do any attractions. Since were there earlier than normal for us we did end up doing a couple of attractions but that wasn't our goal. But everyone has got to do their own touring style. Our is late TS breakfast, late entry, leisurely touring, long TS dinner, late or early night depending on how we feel. We know we'll be back again so feel no pressure if we miss something. Not everyone is in the same boat or has the same mindset. Even after breakfast it was fairly quiet (this was early December).

Thank you @kiford !! My husband sounds exactly the same. Has absolutely no interest, to the point of actually getting annoyed at my planning. Then once he sees how the planning was actually very helpful as we start touring, he starts using all the Disney lingo and acronyms, as if he had designed it all.

I'm thinking of switching our Boma dinner to Tiffins for a similar reason. We'll be at AK and not sure if we'll be up for hopping to a different resort just for dinner. I'm looking for a Tiffins dinner now, too! Would you recommend it??

 

[kiford]

Thank you @kiford !! My husband sounds exactly the same. Has absolutely no interest, to the point of actually getting annoyed at my planning. Then once he sees how the planning was actually very helpful as we start touring, he starts using all the Disney lingo and acronyms, as if he had designed it all.

I'm thinking of switching our Boma dinner to Tiffins for a similar reason. We'll be at AK and not sure if we'll be up for hopping to a different resort just for dinner. I'm looking for a Tiffins dinner now, too! Would you recommend it??

Totally annoys me. I plan everything, get grunts for weeks to months then suddenly requests a month before wanting to do nighttime parades so he can take photos after dark, wants to eat at XYZ, read something online that I've been talking about for weeks but now suddenly realizes it. AAAAGHH!

Yes, I would totally recommend Tiffins. I ended up having 3 appetizers instead of an entree because there were so many appetizers I couldn't decide on. We also loved the Nomad Lounge. Sat outside on the couches and had several appetizers between three people and a couple of drinks. I'm sure it's busier now - we were there shortly after they opened and no one seemed to know about the place. If you like food that's a bit more interesting, aromatic, some slightly spicy, then you'll like Tiffins. We all loved the bread service, even our friend who isn't very adventurous. She doesn't drink alcohol so had one of the non-alcoholic drinks and we shared the bread service and the charcuterie board and liked it.

The other thing that was nice was that we decided to make the change the night before. We originally had reservations for Cali Grill at 8:30 pm for the next day - which is fairly normal for us - but it was our last night and we were being picked up the following morning at 6 am by ME. So we were able to get a reservation for Tiffin's 24 hours in advance for a 5:45 pm reservation which worked so much better.

 

[OThopeful35]

We usually do a PPO but on our upcoming trip, Tusker House and Crystal Palace, we booked them later in the morning. I didn't want to rush and we always rush with PPO. I just want to enjoy my meal and the characters without constantly looking at my watch.

 

[rasadkowski]

We usually do a PPO but on our upcoming trip, Tusker House and Crystal Palace, we booked them later in the morning. I didn't want to rush and we always rush with PPO. I just want to enjoy my meal and the characters without constantly looking at my watch.

The more I think of it, it really would be so much more enjoyable to not have to rush to eat! So many things to think about. Actually, those two exact restaurants were ones I was thinking of booking later breakfasts for.. (CP and TH)..those two I really love, and I wanted to enjoy them more...
Have fun on your vacation in only 2 DAYS!!! So exciting!

 

[TiggerTrigger]

I change up my ADRs all the time. I had one trip where I got everything I thought I wanted on day 180, but by the time of travel, not a single one of those ADRs was still in my lineup. It didn't help that it was right when BOG opened for dinner ADRs for the very first time and I had to flip flop several days to make it work. Still I changed up everything.

As for PPO, I used to love it...especially MK, but with them letting people in earlier...it just doesn't feel like it's worth it these days. So, now we eat a lighter breakfast on the go and try for a late TS breakfast. This way, they work more like lunch for us, but at breakfast pricing.

 

[ChasingLeslie]

We like PPO breakfasts. BOG is the best because it's QS and you don't have to wait on characters. We also love Tusker House (but there is NO advantage for Pandora) and Akershus. Last year we didn't make it onto FEA after our breakfast (RD was let in very early), but this year we did (near the front of the line).

 

[Gus V.]

We like PPO breakfasts. BOG is the best because it's QS and you don't have to wait on characters. We also love Tusker House (but there is NO advantage for Pandora) and Akershus. Last year we didn't make it onto FEA after our breakfast (RD was let in very early), but this year we did (near the front of the line).

We are doing Akershus PPO in early December, what time did you have to leave the restaurant to make it to FEA? My daughter is 3 and is really into the princesses right now, not sure I want to rush to make it to the ride. We also have CRT a couple days later so she will get to meet the princesses there again.

 

[buzznina]

I'm sorry but no way am I spending all that $$$ on a character meal to just rush through it so we can save some time of waiting in line