Nubbedy said:
Am probably overdoing the character thing, but want to book Crystal Palace and Chef Mickey's (still undecided whether to do breakfast or dinner), and am holding out for info about new MGM pixar breakfast as DS would adore meeting any pixar characters but especially Woody and Buzz. Did want to do Donald's as well coz I really like Donald, but this may be taking it too far!
Other than that I am booking Fantasmic package at Mama Melroses (seems the best menu for vege options), Sci-Fi (fancy the cheesy aspect of the cars), Rainforest Cafe, but still unsure what to book for our time in Epcot and Magic Kingdom - any suggestions?
Hiya! The number to ring is 00 1 407 939 3463.
The CMs who take the bookings are very nice but speak slooooooooowly - well at least I had to because they could barely understand my accent!
If you're staying at a Disney resort have your Disney reservation number handy - Disney resort guests can book 180 days out PLUS 10 - in other words if you're staying for 10 days and today is 180 days from the first day, you can book all your meals for the whole 10 days. If you're not staying at a Disney resort you can book them exactly 180 days (or less of course) from the date you want to dine.
They'll ask for a phone number and their computer systems only take a certain amount of digits (can't remember how many, 7 I think?) so don't bother giving them the whole international code - they're only taking the phone number for reference purposes anyway.
ESSENTIAL - have a pen and paper ready (or be sitting at your computer) because they'll give you a reservation number for each meal so take that down straight away. Also, they might not have your time available but might have one for 15 minutes later so you'll need to take that down straight away too (it's remarkably easy to forget! lol!).
Anyway in the event that you lose the information later you can ring them with your name and details and they'll be glad to call out the reservation times and numbers again.
Chef Mickeys and Crystal Palace are brilliant!
Liberty Tree Tavern in Magic Kingdom do a beautiful vegetarian burger (at least they did last year) for lunch only (they don't do this for dinner) so I'd highly recommend that. Wolfgang Pucks Cafe in West Side at Downtown Disney do some beautiful vegetarian pasta dishes and veggie pizzas - some of the nicest I've ever tasted. Apparently Boma in Animal Kingdom have gorgeous vegetarian stuff but I haven't eaten there. I've also read that Chefs de France in World Showcase, Epcot do a lovely vegetarian meal. Coral Reef (Epcot) was very disappointing - they had one veggie option which was a very bland, boring pasta dish. Oh, Columbia Harbour House in Magic Kingdom had a gorgeous veggie wrap (no need to book this as it's counter-service - we went back there again and again last summer).
Go to
www.allearsnet.com and click on 'Dining' and all the menus are there. It's great fun.
EDITED TO ADD: Rainforest Cafe is a great choice - beautiful vegi burger there! Oh and about your question re: lunch or dinner at Crystal Palace and Chef Mickeys - one idea is to do dinner in both i.e. do dinner at Crystal Palace on your Magic Kingdom day and do dinner at Chef Mickeys on your Epcot day because you could get the monorail over to the Contemporary from Epcot via the Ticket and Transportation Centre - the monorail is a nice way to pull into Chef Mickeys
ie phone no from UK, when to phone, what info I need to hand when I call, can I book all places from the same number etc.
It was good news for my bookings but like you stated if people are going by those dates they loose out 
Especially Cindrellas castle res cause that one needs to be dead on the day, doesnt it?
