Dining Reservations: Where, When and why?

[clb79]

Coming up on our 60 day window. There are plenty of threads about favorite locations and food items.

What I want to know is why you choose to book the times that you do at particular locations?

What is your overall game plan for the day and how does that affect your dining reservation choices?

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

I usually choose a late lunch because typically prices are less and plates may be less. I want to eat one relatively nourishing meal and not depend on snacks. If I eat a decent breakfast, I'm usually hungry by afternoon. I can then concentrate on fun things to do while other guests are dining. So, my meals are usually around 3/4pm. If I eat at a restaurant, like Jazz Kitchen, I like to eat right at 5 when they open for dinner, so I can eat early and then spend the rest of the evening enjoying the parks/shows. If I plan on going to a dessert party (rare, but it happens), I eat earlier in the day otherwise I'm too full for the dessert plate. I also (when on vacation) make one reservation a day so that we're guaranteed a lesser wait. I've spent too many times with "what do you want to eat?" "I don't know... what do you want to eat?" So by the time we go to a restaurant, the wait is too long, and then we're going from place to place looking for a shorter line, getting crankier, and wasting more time. (I've joined up with enough family & friends to have experienced this a few times).

 

[clb79]

Thanks MaryJo that is exactly the type of response I was looking for.

Do late lunch times conflict with FP return times, especially on a MM. For example we were thinking of Cafe Orleans on our MM. We don't want to waste part of the precious morning hours by booking too early, but since FP plays heavily into MM strategies we didn't want to book too late and have a conflict either.

I guess if you have a dining reservation then you just work your FP strategy around that by tracking estimated return times on the app before running across the park to pull a pass and find a conflicting time...

 

[tlovesdis]

We do a very light breakfast (Starbucks) each morning so we usually make our lunch ressie for 11:30 and then have dinner around 7.

 

[figment_jii]

My family usually eats a very light breakfast (at the hotel) before heading to the parks. We typically aim for the first lunch seating (e.g., 11:30 am) so that we will typically have a short wait and have the best chance at having a table requests honored (e.g., waterside at the Blue Bayou, rail side at Cafe Orleans, patio at Carnation Cafe, etc.). We then plan to have dinner around 7:00 pm because that normally gives us enough time to finish eating before heading out to see fireworks (or Mad T Party when it was still playing). Having a later dinner also, often, means we can have a light snack (e.g., funnel cake at Hungry Bear or something at Jolly Holiday) in the mid-afternoon.

 

[amyg1975]

We ususually make lunch reservations, because we have a daughter that needs to nap after lunch. It is a nice time for us to sit (around 12) to get her nice and full and then fall asleep after her lunch (she is 4 and naps in her stroller). We often make dinner reservations in the warmer months so that we have an indoor place to cool off after a day of walking in the heat.

 

[HydroGuy]

My family usually eats a very light breakfast (at the hotel) before heading to the parks. We typically aim for the first lunch seating (e.g., 11:30 am) so that we will typically have a short wait and have the best chance at having a table requests honored (e.g., waterside at the Blue Bayou, rail side at Cafe Orleans, patio at Carnation Cafe, etc.). We then plan to have dinner around 7:00 pm because that normally gives us enough time to finish eating before heading out to see fireworks (or Mad T Party when it was still playing). Having a later dinner also, often, means we can have a light snack (e.g., funnel cake at Hungry Bear or something at Jolly Holiday) in the mid-afternoon.

We are similar. Light breakfast of an apple or banana or bagel. Then early lunch at 11:30. We usually go for an earlier dinner at 5:00 or 5:30 to be there before crowds. And we do not reserve every lunch and dinner. Maybe one day I will have both but other days it is one or the other.

Blue Bayou is something we often do and we always go for 11:30 so we have the best shot at a waterside table. We arrive at 11:10-11:15 and check-in and request waterside. It almost always works.

 

[DahliaRW]

We absolutely love the breakfast at Carnation Cafe, but don't want to waste morning hours when the park is empty eating. We usually do the latest breakfast seating on the day we are using our MM. We have something quick at the hotel, hit DL, and then when we're getting tired/hungry and the lines are growing we take a break for breakfast.

 

[Mamato4boys]

We typically only do QS/CS meals at the parks, so no reservations. However, we are splurging on a visit to the Surf's Up character breakfast on our next trip. So far, my plan is to make a reservation for opening time (I think it is 7, but I don't know if that varies depending on park hours or not), then (hopefully) get to the park in time for rope drop (going Nov 14-18, and estimating/hoping mid-week will have an opening of 9).

 

[Nevada Jen]

I try to reserve a late lunch at carthay circle towards the end of our trip. Is really the only restaurant that I am not willing to miss. But as a general rule, I do try to reserve one sit down meal a day. Otherwise we just consume a bunch of junk food! But I generally do that reservation in the morning of each day.

 

[Disney_Alli]

I like a lunch reservation at about 1-130 to take a nice A/C break. Also being a person who can completely forget to eat when I'm busy and who doesn't like to eat when I'm hot I find a sit-down lunch means I eat at least one real meal per day.

 

[JMHDisney]

I like to look at what time we will likely be leaving the park and then make a reservation for dinner in downtown Disney for then. I find we usually snack during the day and aren't hungry for dinner until a little later but there can be crazy hordes of people in Downtown in the evening.

Last time we were there, we had planned to leave a little early around 7pm but it started raining so a lot of people were leaving at the same time as us. We waited about 15-20 mins even with our reservation but they were quoting 2+ hour wait times to drop ins (this was at Tortilla Joes).