Breakfast ADRs to get early access to the parks?

[albertamom]

Hi everyone. We are planning our first trip to WDW next February. Unfortunately, we will only have 5 days in the parks, so are looking to maximize our park hours each day. I read on easywdw that an early ADR at BOG will put you in line for 7DMT before official opening.

Do the other parks have similar breakfast options that will give you the same opportunity to by-pass the huge crowds at the gates for opening?

 

[mom2cgj]

We did pre-RD ADRs almost every morning on our last trip. It worked really well for us. However, if your breakfast takes longer than you anticipate or if the park opens early, it isn't guaranteed to get you a leg up on the crowds and may actually backfire if the crowds start coming in before you are done. That said, we had good luck with:

CRT @ MK - then went straight to ETWB and were the first in the door
CP @ MK - used this to get first in line to meet Tink - a HUGE deal for my DD
Tusker House @ AK - walked straight on to Safari after
H&V @ HS - sent DH for TMM FP- (this was in 2013) while I signed the kids up for JTA

 

[ErinsMommy]

Risks of pre rope drop ADR-
1. They can change park hourss to Emh so for example you have 800 am ADR and MK has morning EMH your eating while others are in park riding

2. Last time we went MK had an area closed off that you couldnt get past until the rope droppers caught up and it was a mad dash where people got stepped on and pushed.

 

[albertamom]

We did pre-RD ADRs almost every morning on our last trip. It worked really well for us. However, if your breakfast takes longer than you anticipate or if the park opens early, it isn't guaranteed to get you a leg up on the crowds and may actually backfire if the crowds start coming in before you are done. That said, we had good luck with:

CRT @ MK - then went straight to ETWB and were the first in the door
CP @ MK - used this to get first in line to meet Tink - a HUGE deal for my DD
Tusker House @ AK - walked straight on to Safari after
H&V @ HS - sent DH for TMM FP- (this was in 2013) while I signed the kids up for JTA

Thank you so much! I can see where it might backfire, but I think it is worth the risk. Thanks for the specific ideas!

 

[albertamom]

Risks of pre rope drop ADR-
1. They can change park hourss to Emh so for example you have 800 am ADR and MK has morning EMH your eating while others are in park riding

2. Last time we went MK had an area closed off that you couldnt get past until the rope droppers caught up and it was a mad dash where people got stepped on and pushed.

Hmmmm. More risks. Do they often change the park hours? I suppose I could always cancel the ADR if this happens.

 

[ErinsMommy]

Emh can change park hours - don't know frequency of that happening vs not happening -- as you said u can always cancel provided you give 24 hrs notice without penalty.

 

[albertamom]

Emh can change park hours - don't know frequency of that happening vs not happening -- as you said u can always cancel provided you give 24 hrs notice without penalty.

Thank you. 24 hours - I will keep that in mind.

 

[cigar95]

Thank you. 24 hours - I will keep that in mind.

Close of business the previous day, so if you're talking about a breakfast, the deadline is considerably shorter than 24 hours before.

 

[Lucius Best]

I just posted this in a different thread. Note that rope drop at Magic Kingdom has been closer to 8:45am instead of 9am. We had Crystal Palace 8:05am ADR last month. We were easily able to see all the characters and make multiple trips to the buffet. We dilly-dallied because we thought the park opened at 9am, when we got outside at 8:55am, we were surprised crowds were already flowing in. If we had requested the check earlier, we could have been out by 8:45am if we tried.

Note also there are stories on here of people getting BOG ADRs at 8:05am, then sometimes randomly being able to ride empty 7DMT before the people from rope drop have gotten there.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

Hmmmm. More risks. Do they often change the park hours? I suppose I could always cancel the ADR if this happens.

We have 2 MK days with 2 (at the time) pre-opening ADR's for our trip in a few weeks. 1 of our days, the park opening has been changed to 8:00 a.m. The 8:05 ADR is actually a handicap for that MK day. We will be cancelling it. This is our 9th June trip in a row and it is the first time this has happen to us.

Like another poster mentioned, last year we were relaxing and looked out the windows of CP to see people starting to stream by. They had opened the park 15 minutes early. We had experience this at other parks but it was our first time it has happened at MK for us.

Another tip is something else someone mentioned. The first year we had our breakfast, we couldn't find our waiter to pay our check as the crowds were streaming by the windows. Every year after that, we ask for our check as soon as we are seated and have payment ready when the check is brought back.

Hopefully with your trip being in Feb. there will be less chance of any changes in the park hours but make sure you check yourself because there will be no notice from Disney. Good luck!

 

[Missyrose]

It's not just EMH that can change the hours. Disney can move the regular opening from 9 a.m. to 8 a.m., which negates any possible advantage for all pre-opening ADRs. It happened for most of December, for instance.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

It's not just EMH that can change the hours. Disney can move the regular opening from 9 a.m. to 8 a.m., which negates any possible advantage for all pre-opening ADRs. It happened for most of December, for instance.

And a good bit of June. It happened to one of our MK days and I didn't realize it until I ran across a thread here that asked if the change in the opening time was going to mess up their plans.

 

[Beezle2]

We have 2 MK days with 2 (at the time) pre-opening ADR's for our trip in a few weeks. 1 of our days, the park opening has been changed to 8:00 a.m. The 8:05 ADR is actually a handicap for that MK day. We will be cancelling it. This is our 9th June trip in a row and it is the first time this has happen to us.

Like another poster mentioned, last year we were relaxing and looked out the windows of CP to see people starting to stream by. They had opened the park 15 minutes early. We had experience this at other parks but it was our first time it has happened at MK for us.

Another tip is something else someone mentioned. The first year we had our breakfast, we couldn't find our waiter to pay our check as the crowds were streaming by the windows. Every year after that, we ask for our check as soon as we are seated and have payment ready when the check is brought back.

Hopefully with your trip being in Feb. there will be less chance of any changes in the park hours but make sure you check yourself because there will be no notice from Disney. Good luck!

We have 2 8:05 BOG ressie's for our June trip and I am looking at 2 different strategies. On the first morning Disney is opening at 8 am so we plan to be there at 7:15 and be up front in the dining line. We ASSUME that with a 8:05 meal time they should let us before park opening? We will go straight to the A&E area and wait there to be among the first to visit. Then we will pop over for bfast within our grace period. If that doesn't work we still have an 8:05 on a different park day that still has the 9 am opening so far. On that day we will have our food pre-ordered and will have the same arrival strategy at the front of the park but plan to have eaten and get in line for A&E by 8:45. That's the plan anyway

 

[albertamom]

So much great information! Thank you everyone! Lots to think about.

Does anyone else have experience in parks other than MK?

 

[Ava]

We had an 8:05 ADR at CRT last year, but Cinderella was late coming out to start taking photos so we ended up not finishing breakfast until ~9:15am.

We did have good luck with an early Akershus ADR and getting a jump on the Test Track line. We didn't rush but we still made it back to Test Track not too long after 9:00. I think the standby line was only 10-15 minutes when we got there. (We also enjoyed the breakfast so we're doing this one again this year.)

I will say this, though - if your family are not normally morning people, the early breakfasts can be tough. I cut it down to just the one this year because we had a difficult time getting everyone up and there on time last year. You have to factor in the travel time from your resort, plus add another 10-15 minutes to go through security and then walk back to the restaurant once you enter the park. I probably won't do an early breakfast at MK again unless we're staying at a monorail resort.

 

[puffinp51]

So much great information! Thank you everyone! Lots to think about.

Does anyone else have experience in parks other than MK?

Hi! We just got back last Friday and for the first time did a Tusker House breakfast in AK at 8:00 (for a 9:00 park opening day). It was fabulous! You are way back in the park so it sets you up nice for rides when the park opens. The breakfast and character interaction was truly awesome - and it was me, my DH and my 20 year old DD and her 22 year old friend. It was great walking through the park with literally no one else around, so nice and quiet. It was cool, temp wise, and the photo ops were really good. Food was very yummy - need to figure out how to make their juice blend! We got to see all the characters and were done by 8:40-ish or so. We then left and started to walk around and had some major pixie dust given as we were chosen to ride the first safari of the day - by ourselves! Truly magical.

This breakfast will be added to our "must-do" list for each visit. And we know the first safari ride was a once-in-a-lifetime magical experience but everything else was so worth it!

 

[SaintsManiac]

I know I asked this in the wrong thread, so I will try here. We plan to book Akershus for breakfast with the hopes of getting to Soarin before it gets wild. Anyone have experience with this strategy? I really want to ride it twice and I know we'll only get one FP for it. We're going 2nd week of December.

 

[Missyrose]

I know I asked this in the wrong thread, so I will try here. We plan to book Akershus for breakfast with the hopes of getting to Soarin before it gets wild. Anyone have experience with this strategy? I really want to ride it twice and I know we'll only get one FP for it. We're going 2nd week of December.

Akershus is REALLY far from Soarin, it's on the Test Track side of the park (but midway back in the World Showcase). You'd really be much better off getting to the Epcot gate 45 minutes to an hour ahead of when they'll start letting people in (9 a.m., or sometimes 8:45) and head straight for Soarin for the standby ride.

Eating at Akershus, even with a pre-park ADR, will take a good bit of time and then you still have to haul all the way across the park to get where you're going.

 

[SaintsManiac]

Akershus is REALLY far from Soarin, it's on the Test Track side of the park (but midway back in the World Showcase). You'd really be much better off getting to the Epcot gate 45 minutes to an hour ahead of when they'll start letting people in (9 a.m., or sometimes 8:45) and head straight for Soarin for the standby ride.

Eating at Akershus, even with a pre-park ADR, will take a good bit of time and then you still have to haul all the way across the park to get where you're going.

Thank you so much for the reply. May do a late breakfast

 

[Ava]

Thank you so much for the reply. May do a late breakfast

We had good luck last year with an early ADR at Akershus and riding standby for Test Track. Our ADR was at 8:10 and we were probably over to TT shortly after 9. I think standby was ~15 minutes at that point. Also, to get from Akershus to TT you can go across the bridge past the Odyssey Building (I think that's what it's called, where First Aid is) instead of going all the way back through the middle of the park, which cuts a few minutes off your walking time.