Am I the Only One?

[ddawg]

When I go on vacation to Disney World I love to eat at the nice restaurants as much as anyone else but.............I can't plan that far in advance. I never know until the day of where or what I want to eat. I don't like to commit to a reservation and then be somewhere else and have to worry about getting there on time. I like to relax. I hate pressure. Am I the only one?

 

[sistertrip]

I'm exactly the same way. Half the time, I finally decide on a place I want to try and there's no availability left. Several times I've made arrangements in advance and ended up not going for one reason or another. I tend to be pretty spontaneous on my trips, so it's hard to make reservations 180 days before my trip.

 

[cinmell]

I LOVE to plan! That being said, I didn't mind the 60 days out, even the 90, but I'm not loving the 180 days out.

 

[JandJ]

DH and I go very often just for the day and I am very organized and prefer to have a plan all set but DH hates to make plans or ADRs, we never know which park we'll be in at what time, so we usually end up missing out at TS restaurants and go to counters, which is fine, but I have to insist on ADRs sometimes if we want LeCellier or someplace popular like that. Sometimes we get lucky and can get into a place but more often than not we stand there wondering where to eat I see the point, I don't want to be tied to a schedule on my Saturday at Disney but I also like a good meal and often times you have to plan ahead to get a seat at a good Disney restaurant.

 

[estnh]

I agree about the planning! The MYW dining plan makes it even worse, because most of the restaurants are so much busier it is hard to get a walk-in seating.

We love the dining plan and found it to be an incredible value, but it is really annoying to have to plan dinners three months out. We used the plan on our last trip, and several times we had ADR table service reservations that we just didn't feel like using.

 

[MelanieC]

I love being able to plan them. It makes it easy. I know what park on what day I will go, and then I just pull out my sheet and we go to that meal. No thinking!

I guess for me, I'd be stressing about finding someplace decent to eat so I wouldn't enjoy myself. This way I know when we are ready to eat we have a reservation. I've definately gone to some of my favorites, or wanted to switch something and have seen people turned away.

 

[MickeyisanNDfan]

We never plan anything. I have gone at all times of the year and will be going this weekend with no ADRs in hand. We have never had a problem calling the day before or the afternoon of and getting into the place of our choice. It has always worked out well for us.The thought that people plan out each day and what parks and where exactly to go boggles my mind!

 

[Cyndy]

As an event planner I know the value of the plan, but the new Dining Plan has really put an emphasis on planing ahead. We only plan our tableservice meals and while checking in we heard people on the plan w/o ADRs get turned away with 2-3 hr waits. I think this will only be more true as the summer crowds approach. I realize that this board has done wonders to help people prepare, but boy, I think it will be much worse in June when we go back w/ of DGKs! All of our ADRs are made including CRT breakfast and the Wishes Fireworks Cruise.

We felt badly for the families who were tired and couldn't get in to a resturant w/o a long wait.

Our other observation was NEVER have we seen so many people eating so many snacks. What a moneymaker for Disney! We've decided to renew our DE card rather than use DP next fall....we do not need all that food! But I hope those who get it enjoy it and use it up, better they take home a suitcase full of rice Krispy Mickey's then leave the snacks unused.

 

[swillis]

I am sooo glad I'm not the only one having trouble with this. I haven't been to WDW in over 12 years, and I didn't do any sit down fancy dinners because I was young and poor!

SO I've gottena really good idea of what we might like, and what the kids would enjoy, but i"m hesitant to call and make reservations anywhere because i don't really want to commit to anything.

Hopefully I won't run into too many problems with wait times. I'm not planning to do the crazy stuff like Cinderella's table. I did plan to do one character breakfast, but I don't know where or when. See...I'm just as up in the air!

 

[JCW]

We are going for 12 days in May and have 2 ADRs made and 1 more that we will be making. BUT, this is more than we have ever done. We are not meal planners, just usually make the ADR early in the day, once we have an idea where we will be. I can't imagine having planned meals for every day (or almost every day, just not our style).
This trip there are 17 of us, so planning special meals was a necessity.