ADR's without stress?

[sharadoc]

The major positive of the MDE app is the ability to book dining reservations from your phone. That gives you a lot more "day of" flexibility. I think the major MK restaurants will give you the most difficulty booking day of, but if you are willing to take off times, you can usually squeeze in somewhere.

 

[kclark9830]

Thank you everyone!

 

[eliza61]

OK, if anyone takes a look at this and can give feedback, I'd be grateful . How likely would we be to find, say, night-before reservations for these places:

*O'Hana for breakfast (at say 10am'ish, though I realize there's no way to guarantee a time!)
*Rainforest Café at Animal Kingdom (that's one of our kids' faves)
*Cinderella's Royal Table
*Tony's Town Square
*Mama Melrose at Hollywood Studios
*Coral Reef at Epcot

If some of these are harder than others (I'm guessing O'Hana and Cinderella's Royal Table?), I could make ADR's for them. Then try walk-up or getting night-before rez's for the others, as we want. Thoughts?

You absolutely must make an adr for CRT and O'hana. now way are you going to get walk up there.
I have gotten day off ressies at Mama Melrose and Coral reef. We generally go the last week in August through the first week in September. never have a problem.

Personally I would skip tony's town square all together. food is nasty.

I don't make a lot of adr's but I don't have any "must do" restaurants. what I do is the night before I call Disney dining and see what they have available. I have had some really good meals (Olivia's, turf club) that I would not have tried otherwise.

 

[cnavarrete]

What I have realized is that character buffets in and of themselves can be stressful. Instead of a nice break from touring, you are constantly racing to and from the buffet so that you don't miss a character. When you are actually at your table, you are frequently interrupted by fiddling with the camera and autographs. I love character meals, but I do find them stressful.

Two meals that we tried last time that really let me relax were Teppan Edo in World Showcase and Liberty Tree Tavern in MK. There is no getting up to get anything and at Liberty Square you don't even have to decide what you want to eat - everyone gets the same thing, served family style, and it's all delicious. My kids cannot wait to go back.

Feeling like you are truly getting to relax during your meals might help you not feel like you are rushing around quite as much. Coral Reef is also relaxing, but I always feel like there is pressure to turn the table over to all the people waiting in the lobby.

 

[chelseabun76]

I either booked a pre-park character breakfast (Tusker House and Crystal Palace), or dinner (1900 PF, BOG) and I booked our fastpasses between around 11am and 5pm. That way we weren't rushing to and from meals and rides. I only had one lunch adr and that was at Rainforest at AK for 1:30 which worked great around the show times (we don't do the big rides, mind you). We did the regular dining plan so one adr per day or 2 some days and none on a few of the days and the rest counter service, which I find work better for lunch since you can just pick somewhere around where you already are at.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Past two trips I have been on the DDP. We did mostly dinners. My kids weren't too happy for some of the meals because they don't like being interupted while having fun. We did midday breaks at the pool and once we got back to the parks they didn't want to stop and having a TS meal. They wanted to ride rides.

Next trip is no DDP and we are staying for 10 nights. I am only making ADR's for Chef Mickey's (DS pick), CRT (DD pick), BOG (my pick), Ohana (think it'll be fun for my BF's first trip) and Cali Grill (date night). The rest of the trip we will do day of ADR's or CS.

As for FP it will be a mix for us. Some days we will do an AM park and do FP in our PM park. Some days do FP in our AM park and then stroll Epcot in the evening. Hit the PM EMH park and do FP only there 3 hours before the EMH starts.

I'm thinking we may try to get same day or day before ADR's for Kona, Cape May breakfast, Via Napoli and Trail End's. If we can't no big deal...we will try other places or just eat CS. If we can great. We aren't very picky and I'm looking forward to more freedom and trying more CS places. There are tons I've been wanting to try.

 

[Pfau]

I would LOVE to go without ADRs next trip and just play it by ear. It would be so much fun for me!

If there are any MUST DOs for you, book those and then leave the rest up to chance.