Dining Questions from first timer

[BCRose]

I am single father taking my three daughters on September 12th (ages 11-12) and am a bit confused over the dining part.

We are staying at the Disneyland hotel and from what I understand I will need to make reservations well in advance for each meal we want to have in the restaurants? Is this what my best bet would be? Make 15 reservations for the 5 days we will be there?

I was just going to wing it but understand that would not be advisable and we might go hungry!

Any advice would be helpful and appreciated.

Thanks

BCRose

 

[skiingfast]

Only the restaurants that have table service require reservations. This is most of the place in Down Town Disney, the Hotels and a couple in each parks.

You can reserve places 60 days out. But unless you are visiting on a holiday you can reserve them a month, week, a day out, and sometimes even right before you want to eat. They only quickly fill up on the busiest days.

I'm sure you can get lots of suggestion on where to dine.

 

[BCRose]

I have been reading all the threads here, lot's to digest

Being a first timer it seems a little daunting with all the choices and not knowing anything about them I think I will start asking questions and hopefully get the info I need.

Thx

 

[skiingfast]

I have a couple suggestions that may help you decide.

Particularily when I've gone to WDW I've read Trip Reports. I've been many times, but nearly enough to sample every location there. So I read TRs and some people do a great job entailing their dining experiences.

Also look at these link from allears.net

DLR menus
DL dining overview
DCA dining overview

Finally I reported your post asking that it be moved to the main DL board. This is what the DL side mods have suggested and I'm surprised they have not moved it. You might just start a new thread there asking for dining suggestions for your family. You would have a couple pages of replies by now.

 

[BCRose]

Thanks for this info.

I hate to bother you but where is this "Main Disneyland" board? I have been directed there a few times. I thought I was there!

Where am I now?

Cheers,

 

[skiingfast]

http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26

Sorry I've seen you post there and assumed you knew.

 

[bumbershoot]

Thanks for this info.

I hate to bother you but where is this "Main Disneyland" board? I have been directed there a few times. I thought I was there!

Where am I now?

Cheers,

You're in the Southern California Theme Parks forum, which is part of the overall CA/DLR forum.

Disneyland > Disneyland (California) > Southern California Theme Parks

Unlike on the WDW side where questions are asked in the Theme Parks forum, we ask just about anything about DLR on the main "Disneyland (California) forum. This one is for Legoland, SeaWorld, Magic Mountain, Universal Hollywood, etc etc; the "other" Southern California theme parks.

 

[Cagirl767]

You don't have to make ressies at all if you choose not to. It just depends what you want to eat. There is always walk up service in DL and CA and plenty of food carts around. But if you want a sit down meal in DL at Cafe Orleans, Carnation Plaza or Blue Bayou, then making a reservation might be a smart choice, although you aren't going during a peak time so they shouldn't fill up.

Also, if you want to go to a character breakfast buffet, that would need a reservation. Goofy's Kitchen is a character breakfast in the DL Hotel. If your girls want to go to Ariel's princess breakfast, that is in CA.

You can review all the menus for DL and CA and also Downtown Disney at Allears.net. That might give you a better idea of what you all might like to eat and if you'd like to make a reservation. i.e. our family usually eats one sit down meal a day at DL, so I usually make a reservation in DL for Carnation Plaza just so I'm assured we have a sit down meal. No biggie if we don't get a reserved time, we still check in there to see if they can accommodate us and if not, we just eat somewhere else.

If you have picky eaters, I'd bring a print out of the menus with you to the hotel, so you all can review them in the morning before setting out. It may save you a lot of walking around time, searching, for a needle in a haystack when you're hungry.

 

[MyYearWithTheMouse]

In my experience, the only restaurant I've been turned away from because I didn't have a reservation was the Blue Bayou. I'd make reservations for character meals just to be sure, but honestly even at peak times I don't think it's much of a problem. You can stop by that morning and see.

 

[BCRose]

Thanks everyone!

That gives me a bit of relief knowing we don't need to be so structured each day with reservations. We like to wing it but I will certainly take your advice and reserve at least one sit down a day.

Anybody try the room service at Disneyland Hotel?

Cheers,

 

[DisSarahK]

We will be there at the same time. Mid-September is our favorite time of year to visit. This year we're staying at the DLH for the first time.

Here is my plan. I do not make breakfast reservations. We will either eat in our room (I get groceries delivered from Von's) or we will pick something up in Downtown Disney. My children get up EARLY though and like to much as they watch the Disney Channel and wait for Disneyland to open.

For lunch we do a sit-down meal and I make a priority seating reservation. This will either be a character meal or at a place like Carnation Cafe--we LOVE Carnation Cafe and likely will eat here at least twice. You don't have to have reservations (in mid-September) for places like Carnation Cafe, but the reservation allows you to jump the line of people waiting for spots and will help you get a spot in the shade as (currently) Carnation Cafe is outdoor seating.

Sometimes our lunch reservation technically is a "late breakfast" according to the Disney folks--such as the Minnie and Friends Breakfast, but we treat it as a lunch since we eat breakfast pretty early. It works great for us!

We typically eat dinner outside the park. On our last trip I did not make any reservations at places like Rainforest Cafe or ESPN Zone and when we tried to just "drop-by" with hungry children in tow, they all had 45-75 minute waits. That didn't work for us at all! This year I will be planning ahead, even if it is something as basic as having their numbers with me in the park and calling them in the afternoon to see about reservations.

A quick serve place we like (no reservations) is Whitewater Snacks in the Grand Californian and we'll definitely be utilizing them again this year. I wish they were in the Disneyland Hotel as I know we would use them even more! Still, we're going to take advantage of the dedicated entrance into California Adventure and use them a few times this year.

I hope this information helps. Don't feel that you need to make three reservations a day, but my suggestion is to go in with some sort of a plan. For our family, I know that my children need to be able to sit down in shade (preferably air-conditioning) at least once a day--so I plan and make reservations accordingly.

 

[RedRosie]

You can definitely wing it at Disneyland. We like to make one character meal reservation for the trip and then plan out where we may eat dinner each night, but are not locked into that. If the kids are having fun or lines are longer or shorter than expected, dinner can be later or earlier. What is really cool is that you can easily hop over to DCA (or vice versa to DL) if you are in the mood for one restaurant in particular. WDW planning scares me to death! It seems like too much pressure. DLR is easy. Have a great trip!

 

[RedRosie]

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2744544


You asked about ride closures in another thread. I found HydroGuy's thread about closures, upcoming changes, etc (gotta love that HydroGuy! ) but now I can't find your other one, so here is the link.

 

[BCRose]

Thanks again everyone! What a great place for info!

Wow...lot's of refurbs in September

 

[skiingfast]

Thanks again everyone! What a great place for info!

Wow...lot's of refurbs in September

Keep in mind that even though HM and Space will be down for there regular downtime to put in the Halloween overlays, the others are unofficial. So those dates may change or not even happen. Don't plan on the worst because of unofficial reports, hope for the best.