Are my ADRs too early?

[perd]

Other than a 9:30 HDDR, my ADRs are early:

Sept 7: HDD 9:30
Sept 8: undecided
Sept 9: undecided
Sept 10: Cap'n Jacks 5:30
Sept 11: Concourse 5:30
Sept 12: Le Cellier 4:10
Sept. 13: Ohana 5:30
Sept 14: Coral Reef 5:20
Sept 15: undecided

We added on the 7-9th after I had made ADRs. Leaving the 15th and don't know what time yet so hadn't made an ADR for that day. For the undecided days, thinking about Crystal Palace, Boma, Wolfgang Puck.

But...now that I think about it, the only servations we have in parks are Epcot and I guess eating that early is okay if you are in the park that day anyway but on the others, we are going to have to leave the parks in order to get to the restaurants on time. And in September the parks aren't open all that late so by the time we finish eating it may not be worth going back for the evening.

It may be too late to change them to more favorable times now though.

We are staying at CSR and I'm hoping it's not a pain to get around to other resorts for dinner.

Should I just cancel some of these and plan meals in the parks instead? Is it better to have ADRs 7ish or so, to allow you a full day in the park, back to the hotel to freshen up, and then to dinner?

I think these would be okay if we were going to hit the parks at opening time every day but we most likely will not do that. On vacation we like to sleep in a little and last time we went (in 2002), by the time we got up and showered and dressed and out the door on our way to the parks, the hotel was deserted cause everyone else was gone. Felt like we were inconveniencing mousekeeping too cause they couldn't clean our room till we finally decided to leave!

 

[Amy&Dan]

I would maybe consider moving some of them to a later time (the resort located ones that is). When we are in the park, we enjoy and early dinner. But as you say, the parks aren't open all that late so you will be cutting into your time quite a bit to make some of those. Basically, if you are going to a resort restaurant from a park, its easy enough to get there, you just hop on that resort's bus no problem. However, when you leave to get back to CSR, you will have to take a bus from that resort to either a park or DTD so that you can then get on a CSR bus. Its not that difficult, just an extra step. O'Hana is easy since you can take a bus to MK, then hop on the monorail if you are going there directly from your resort. Ditto with Councourse where you can easily walk from the MK bus stop to the Contemporary. So at least most of your current ones are on the monorail which is very easy to do. But still you may want to bump them up if you can to allow more time in the parks or time to freshen up at your hotel.

Bascially to get from a park to a resort restaurant, allow one hour. To get from your resort to a resort restaurant using Disney transportation, you need to allow more like an hour and a half since you will have that extra step involved. Hope that makes sense! We have not had a car the last few trips and love to eat at the resorts. Its not that big of a deal. Also, you can always take a cab, it generally runs between $10-15 to get from CSR to any of the other resorts.

And I love Wolgang Puck's, Crystal Palace and Boma so I think those are good choices!

 

[The Sweetness]

I would make ADR for about 30 min or so sooner than your usual dinner time. So that you can wait a few min to be seated, and served )before you go postal from lack of nourishment )

 

[jagruti6]

We have our dinner ADRs around the same time 5.00pm -530pm. We did this because DS3 is usually hungry by then, One postive about it is that the restaurants are not quite as busy as they seem to be later, And when most people are sitting down to their 7.00pm-8.30pm reservations you can be out in the parks! At least thats what we think! (but then again we hit the parks at opening)

 

[mommyof2princesses]

My dinner ADR's are 5 and 5:20. We like eating early. We always eat between 5 and 5:30 at home and the kids are hungry by then. As another poster said, there are less people eating at these times and when everyone starts to go for dinner you will be ready to play!

 

[KarenAylwood]

Last year I had the same idea as a few others- get earlier ADR's (around 5:30ish) and that way we'd be eating by 6 and then could have time to play in the parks afterwards.

Neither of us actually liked this at all. We were normally still sort of full from lunch so we didn't fully enjoy all the food at dinner (the dining plan gives so much food!) and we got seated and served very very quickly. We were out to play in the parks after, but felt full from dinner so wasted some time being full. I would have rather taken that time before dinner to be playing and eaten a bit later.

Also with free dining- the restaurants are all busy most of the night anyway. Early vs. late didn't seem to have much of an effect on crowds. Places were still packed at 5:15 with people being turned away.

The only good thing was being able to make it to things like Spectro and Fantasmic, esp when our Fantasmic dinner package got rained out and we had to go another night. This year I have made all our reservations for 6:30-8pm except for two nights to leave time to get to Spectro and Fantasmic.

It may work for you, but personally we both decided this year to do things differently. It was only two of us though, and maybe kids would be hungry earlier, I don't know. We still had an amazing time anyway!

 

[Colleen27]

We like to eat earlier when we're in the parks, because it is a nice break from the heat. When we were there at the end of Sept '05, we had several 90+ degree days, and a 5:00 dinner was great for cooling off just when the kids and my mother were starting to get bothered by the temps. We didn't plan many resort meals, though, because we didn't want to deal with the transportation time involved - just Boma for right around AK closing time and Boatwrights at POR where we were staying.

With your resort ADRs both being at monorail resorts, I would think it would be okay. At least you won't be dealing with buses to get to dinner and back to the park, and there is some entertainment factor for the kids in the monorail and boat transportation. We're planning to do dinner at Ohana on a Magic Kingdom day, and enjoying the boat ride over is definately part of the attraction.

The only one I would see being difficult, if it is a day you plan to be at the parks, is Capt Jack's. Unless there is some shortcut I missed (entirely possible, since I hadn't discovered Dis before my last trip!), that's a long ride from the parks to DTD.

 

[Flagondry]

We have all our ADR's for around 5pm. We did this because we don't go back to the hotel for a break, so this gets us out of the sun at a very hot time. We can eat, cool off and hit the parks again.

 

[strmtroopr96]

We are there the same dates as you, staying at Pop Century. Where are you staying?

We also have ADR's for Coral reef on 9/14 although the earliest time we could get was 8:00 pm. We are hoping to try and switch it to an earlier time though.

Here's our ADR's so far:

9/7 Chef Mickey's 6:10 pm
9/8 Princess Storybook Dinner 4:55 pm (might switch nights w/ Coral Reef)
9/9 Mama Melrose 6:10 pm
9/10 Boma 5:30 pm
9/11 Crystal Palace Dinner 6:10 pm
9/12
9/13 Cape May Buffet 5:50 pm (DH + DD7) Garden Grill 6:10 pm (me + DD1)
9/14 Coral Reef 8:00 pm

 

[disneyfanUSA]

For us dats about the times we go! We go around 5:10, or 5:30!! We r early eaters!

 

[perd]

We are there the same dates as you, staying at Pop Century. Where are you staying?

We also have ADR's for Coral reef on 9/14 although the earliest time we could get was 8:00 pm. We are hoping to try and switch it to an earlier time though.

CSR for us! You know what, though? We may be going to MNSSHP and if so, we won't be using our Coral Reef 5:20. Haven't decided for sure yet and tried to get LTT for that day instead but no luck. I'll let you know if we're going to cancel it!

 

[Luv4Disney]

I don't think so. Your ADR's look just like ours. We have pretty much all 5:30's for dinner except for a 4:10 ADR for Le Cellier, which is actually fine because we know we'll actually be seated on time. We'll just have an early or light lunch that day. No bigge. Enjoy your trip!

 

[annaaidan99]

We did basically the same times on our trip last year. We ordinarily eat about 7ish- so this was early for us. The only problem for us was that except for a few days, we really weren't that hungry by dinnertime. We were on the DDP, so there was a lot of food to contend with. If I had to do it that early again, I'd use my CS for breakfast instead of lunch. If you don't eat your first meal too late, then it will be fine. Your resort dinners should be fine, too- as they are both on the monorail line. If it were me, I'd be at MK both of those days and monorail it to the resorts. This time, we are eating all our dinners around 8- so there is no rush to eat an early meal. My son is a lot older now, and doesn't mind eating late.

 

[ShhhQ]

May want to keep in mind something I just found out..... the Menu at Cap'n Jacks has changed since I made my ADR's.... they no longer have STEAK on their menu and it looks like the ribs are gone too.... as a matter of fact it looks like they only have 6 dinner entrees to choose from. The only thing that has kept me from canceling my ADR is the fact they still have the 2 lobster tails on the menu...although they have removed the option of adding a single tail to an entree. But we originally chose the place because we liked the idea of Steak and Lobster