Anyone else taking a laid back dining approach?

[dakotajeanmarie]

My DH and I are staying at the Grand Floridian in mid-October (no dining plan). Except for an ADR for one night (my birthday) at Ohana's, we are taking a laid back approach to dining i.e., no reservations. I understand why people make reservations especially with the Disney Dining Plan. However, I am curious to know if there are others out there who, like us, are going to "wing it" in regards to meals? We aren't big eaters and often eat a snack in the morning, a late lunch (counter service is fine), and ice cream for dinner.

 

[RFrank9504]

We're not the kind of people to spend all day worrying about food either. I did make ADR-but in the event we're not hungry or too busy-we can call and cancel-which we've done before. We are traveling with family so we do wanna have at least one meal together-maybe...This will be our 1st trip w/o the dining plan-I am curious to see if we'll save money. We're FL ressies now so we have AP. I was quoted a price with the dining but it included park tickets which we dont need. We're gonna tally up when we get home and see for ourselves whether it will be worth it for the next time.

 

[disnut8]

Let's see, in the last year (and six Disney trips), I've made one dining reservation and ended up canceling that one on the day we were supposed to eat there (plans changed).

And I've found that it makes for such a much more carefree vacation.

 

[Pakey]

After many WDW vacations that were centered around our various meal reservations, we decided to try this approach on our trip last week. We loved it. It was so much nicer not having to plan when we had to leave Point A to get to Restaurant B on time. We are not huge eaters; have found the Disney meals to be too large anyway. So for the week, we ended up having 2 TS dinners, 1 TS lunch and a few CS meals. The only meal planed before we got there was our one dinner at V&A; everthing else was done last minute.

It was the most relaxing vacation I've ever spent there.

 

[asmit4]

I need to eat at least 1 TS sit down meal each day. Staying onsite with no transportation, ADR's either need to be made at places we like or we will be stuck eating CS all week.

1/2 the restaurants have food that I won't eat. I only eat standard american type fare- burgers, steaks, fries and Italian (but that new Tutto place I don't like b/c it's too well...italian! I like fake Olive Garden Italian). The likes of Boma and Ohana- I would never ever eat at. With being so limited on the types of foods I eat, ADR's are necessary.

 

[maraki527]

I make a reservation at all the rest. that we want to eat at for sure and then after that we wing it. We enjoy the cs in epcot and sometimes walking up to a TS for lunch can get us in.

 

[huntconn]

My DH and I are staying at the Grand Floridian in mid-October (no dining plan). Except for an ADR for one night (my birthday) at Ohana's, we are taking a laid back approach to dining i.e., no reservations. I understand why people make reservations especially with the Disney Dining Plan. However, I am curious to know if there are others out there who, like us, are going to "wing it" in regards to meals? We aren't big eaters and often eat a snack in the morning, a late lunch (counter service is fine), and ice cream for dinner.

I agree, but not so sure about the ice cream dinners We've done Disney vacations in the past where we had a whole bunch of ADR's but stopped doing it. We really value the freedom to be where we want when we want. 'Ohana and Hoop Dee Doo are the only ADR's we make any more.

 

[asmit4]

I made 1 ADR per day for our last 2 trips- usually dinners but a lunch or 2 if a dinner time is not available. I figure that having 1 place to be each day isn't really bad at all.

 

[tiggerrulz]

We generally make reservations for lunch - we find it a nice break time - and we like the lunch menus better generally, and wing it for breakfast and supper. And yes we too have had ice cream for dinner.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

Normally make 3/4 ADR's (over a couple of weeks) - then eat CS or eat off site.

 

[blackears]

We just made a few( I think 4 in all for 7 days) all around the area just because we are not taking the kids and this might be the only time to visit some of the resturants in peace!!!

 

[DizzDoll]

This year I made 4 ADR's - 2 for breakfast buffets, one lunch at LeCellier and an early (5:00) dinner at the Plaza. Other than that we're definitely in the winging it mode.

 

[aclov]

I'm going with my parents and two brothers (all adults) in Sept so I'm a bit nervous because of Free Dining but I have only made 2 ADR's so far. We're not doing the DDP this year and I confirmed over the weekend with my mother who said she did not want to feel rushed or pressured.

 

[Wildflowerz]

That would make my poor head explode to not have reservations. DH keeps saying it's not a big deal because it wasn't last time we went when we were utter noobs to WDW. I just smile and nod and go about planning my ADRs.

We like to eat. And we like to try new things. So we plan and decide what we want to try and attempt to get a bigger variety in there.

And because I just noticed that there are a lot of cute new icons linked directly to my right, I'm gonna use 'em:

::cop:

 

[dvcdisney]

I don't think I could go to Disney without everything planned including and especially Dining for each day. I am panicking just thinking about the idea.

 

[lisaj]

Our first trip we only made one ADR for CP but found that we experienced problems by a) eating rubbish all week - barely any fruit and veg eaten
b) spent half the day queuing for fast food as someone seemed to be permanently hungry
c) spent the other half the day queuing for autographs.
Last trip we booked ADRs, ate more healthily and as our stops were scheduled for food, many of which were character meals we reduced our queuing time for food and autographs.
Enjoyed the trying of different foods as well.
I guess it is like everything else - Mickey can be all things to all people - just go with your own preferences.

 

[gingerale]

We tend to use a more laid back approach. Normally over the course of a 5 to 7 day trip we would make 3 or 4 ADRs and then get snacks or counter service for the rest of the trip. It's just easier and a lot more cost effective that way. That said, for our trip last December there were 15 of us and it was way easier using the dining plan. We ate more than we normally would, but it worked out really well for us. And for free dining this September we made ADRs, but after that I think we will be returning to our more laid back style.

 

[corky441]

I'm going with my parents and two brothers (all adults) in Sept so I'm a bit nervous because of Free Dining but I have only made 2 ADR's so far. We're not doing the DDP this year and I confirmed over the weekend with my mother who said she did not want to feel rushed or pressured.

While I whole heartly agree with you about not making ADRs for every single meal, you might want to make a few only beacause of the time you are going. Whenever Disney does the free dining every single restaurant is at it's capacity. Remember free dining is for EVERYWHERE not just table service - even the counter service places will be packed. If you have some ADRs for tableservice meals ( just one a day) you'll at least go knowing that you'll be getting one decent meal a day.

 

[thegrimdwarf]

We're going for 8 days in October, and have 3 ADRs for character meals and one for Boma. That's it. For us, Disney table dining isn't worthy of dictating how our days are spent, and the food isn't impressive enough that we want to spend 4 hours a day at sit-down meals. I mean, they give it away during off-season .

 

[DisFlan]

I made 5 dinner ADRs for an 8 day stay. Those are for places we know we want to eat, and a couple of those might even get changed or cancelled. We eat breakfast in our villa and wing it for lunch. I hate to be tied to lunch ADRs - we never know where we're going to be. If we get an urge for an Uno pizza, that's what we do. If we end up eating a larger than expected lunch somewhere, we cancel the evening's ADR and catch a snack later in the evening.

So, yes, I guess you could say we're pretty laid back about dining. And that we aren't traveling with kids - that's a whole different ballgame. BTDT.


DisFlan