ADR's w/o plan for the parks...

[BELLE1718]

Hello everyone! This board has been SO helpful to me so far! I'm a newbie, 1st trip with 2DD & DH will be in Sept. I have not developed a detailed itinerary yet. How do you make your ADR's without knowing were you will be each day? Do you plan your park visits around your meals, or do you plan everything ahead of time? I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed...I did make a ressie at CRT for our 1st night. Our flight gets into ORL at 3:30pm, we have Magic Express to WL, then ressies at 5:50. Too close? Thanks for your help!

 

[Tam1067]

You have two separate questions, right?

Getting to your 5:50 is possible assuming all goes well--meaning your flight is on time, you don't wait too long for the bus, and you check in quickly. Then of course, you'll have to catch the boat at WL to get to MK. I think it's possible but really hard, and if I were in your position, I'd try to do CRT another night (cause you sure do not want to miss that one!).

About making ADRs: I know the feeling about being overwhelmed. I'd advise you to take a quick look at the touringplans.com website for the best and worst days in each park for the days of your trip. Then, have a rough idea of where you plan to spend each day, and plan your ADRs accordingly.

Here's what I did. On days we're in MK, I have my ADRs at convenient spots, like Chef Mickey's, 'Ohana, and Whispering Canyon. On a day we're in Epcot to tour, I have an ADR in Epcot. You want to minimize your travel from park to park to far flung resorts. Another example: we're staying at the Poly but we'll be doing dinner at Boma after our AK day. That's because AK is so far from the Poly, and I don't want to take the Disney bus all that distance on two separate days. I basically did the same thing on our last trip, too, and it worked well.

Have fun! And welcome to the boards--they'll drive you crazy, but you'll get lots of great info here!

 

[RockyMtnMaria]

I think that making your ressie might be tight. Could you maybe go directly there from the airport, and check in to your hotel later? It took us three hours to get to our hotel after our plane landed last Nov. We made our reservation for 4 hours after our plane landed, and plan to check if we can go directly to the Poly for our Ohana reservation.

I've read of others who are in their hotel room only an hour after landing, so hopefully my experience is the less common scenario. We plan to take a taxi if the times look at all tight after we check in.

Also, I agree with the first poster. You need to plan out your days after looking at a crowd chart (we use tourguidemike, who is advertised at the top of the page) and then book your ressies from there. We picked a restaraunt in the theme park we would be visiting that day.

 

[Nancyg56]

I checked out touringplans.com to see which parks were recommended and planned my meals around the parks I wanted to visit. For instance, on the day we are in the MK, I have an ADR for the Kona cafe, so that we can go back for Spectro and Wishes if we want, and on MGM day I have our ADR for PT50's.