Dining Reservations :(

[disneytraceyl]

We have been to Disney several times. This will be our first time on the dining pland and I am really stressed out. I just don't know what places to eat at. There are so many that we would love to try. Help.

 

[kat3668]

Well I'll give you my faves......
1. Ohana
2. Crystal palace breakfast
3. Tusker house breakfast
4. Via Napoli
5. Biergarten
6. Flying fish (2 TS)
7. Yak and Yeti
8. Teppenado
Really you cannot go wrong with any of these..... With small kids I'd book a brunch 11:00 and hit the parks for a few hours then take a break and eat..
Biergarten is nice with little ones as it has a dancefloor and kids can get up and dance after they eat to the OOMpah BAND.
LOVE LOVE LOVE Ohana really gets mixed reviews on these boards but I have never had a bad meal there.

GOOD LUCK!!

 

[fromscratchmom]

The last time we got to go to Disney was 2006 and my family has never stopped talking about how much they loved Ohana and Mama Melrose's. So those have to be my top suggestions for sure. We all also really like Liberty Tree Tavern and that gets mentioned sometimes too.

 

[RobynBirdMom]

For TS, we love:
Garden Grill (Chip & Dale and good food served family style!)
1900 Park Fare for dinner (I've heard breakfast is good there too, but at dinner you get Cinderella, Prince Charming, and the wicked stepmother/sisters. I loved their desserts, and that happens to be an important factor to me.)
Sanaa (Excellent food, not sure little ones would like it as much - we're a multicultural family so our kids are adventurous eaters)
Crystal Palace breakfast (Pooh and Friends, and pretty good food. Everything has always been fresh and tasty when we've been there. Try for an early reservation before the park opens)
Cape May Cafe dinner (as long as you like the specific seafood items they serve. We love crab legs, so we liked it a lot. They also have some yummy desserts.)

If you want to do a signature, we LOVED Artist Point. My kids really enjoyed their food better than any other siganture we've dined at. The service was outstanding too, and the kids really liked the paint-your-own white chocolate puzzle dessert.

If you're on the regular dining plan, you'll have plenty of CS to use up too - here are a few of our faves:

Pecos Bill's has pretty yummy burgers and taco salads, and the toppings bar is always fresh and clean. (or so has been our experience, anyway.)

Contempo Cafe in the Contemporary Resort is easy enough to get to from MK, and has some interesting and yummy options.

If you happen to be staying there, the Centertown/Old Port Royale CS at CBR is good. I don't think it's really special enough to go to the trouble of getting there if you're not staying at that resort, but the food was always hot and tasty and they have some yummy options I didn't see just everywhere.

Oh, and a great use for a snack credit or 2: Writer's Stop in DHS. Everyone seems to rave about the Carrot Cake Cookie, which was good, but we were really wowed by the Chocolate Danish. So yummy, way better than the chocolate croissants you find everywhere else.

Have fun planning all the yummy experiences you'll have!

 

[SnipsNSnails]

Our favs so far:

Chef Mickey's (for the characters), Ohanna, Cape May, Le Cellier............

 

[canadianmom2three]

Booking for our third trip with free dining, and asked everyone what they wanted to do again. Their votes:
-Sci Fi Drive In (the kids)
-Hoop De Doo (DH)
-Crystal Palace (the kids)
-Tusker House (we did breakfast buffet)
-Ohana breakfast (everyone loved)
-CRT (DD wants to go back)

What they didn't want to do again:
-Biergarten (no one wanted to go back!)
-Sci Fi (DH didn't want to go back)

New Places we are trying
-Garden Grill
-1900 Park Fare
-Whispering Canyon Cafe
-Liberty Tree Tavern
-50's Prime Time

I guess it really depends on everyone's tastes. My kids LOVE buffet and character dining or fun themes, and they are huge breakfast eaters, so we tend to do more breakfasts, and buffets than a family that is looking for fine dining.

 

[jgplimdesign]

We have been to Disney several times. This will be our first time on the dining pland and I am really stressed out. I just don't know what places to eat at. There are so many that we would love to try. Help.

Disneytraceyl:

I just saw your note and had to say that I completely understand your predicament! Though many trips under our belt, last year was our first dining plan experience. I remember scrambling to find ADRs------and kept changing them over and over and second guessing my choices.

HA! It's a new year----and guess what? Not much has changed. I tell my husband that working our the ADRs for our trip gives me 'chest pains'.

This may just be off the deep end, but when I was narrowing down choices----I printed out some of the menus (minus the restaurant names, etc)----and gave them to my husband (he's pickier on food than I am)-----I told him to look over the menus and check off things he'd consider ordering. It kind of helped?!

And hey. . .can't do them all----have to give yourself reason to come back and try the others!

Good luck. . .and breathe deeply!

 

[LJSquishy]

I know how you feel! This will be my first trip to Disney in Feb and I had a tough time choosing a limited number of restaurants for our 7-night trip.

My suggestion to you is to first decide what park(s) you will do each day, then decide which meal(s) will be CS and which will be TS, and then decide on restaurants for each meal. It helped me tremendously to narrow down choices based on the type of dining (CS or TS), as well as which park the restaurants are located.

I really wanted to be able to to fit in a couple of extra TS meals, but there just isn't enough time or room in our bellies for more than 1 per day. Inevitably you won't be able to visit all of the "best" restaurants in one trip!

 

[CarolinaMomOf3boys]

it can be very overwhelming if you have never done the dining plan and are unsure of which restaurants to try. The best advice I can offer is to visit the dining link and look at all the restaurants in the parks. See what days you will be at what parks and look at the menus. IF you have time to visit the resort restaurants, go ahead and check out the restaurants at the different resorts and browse the menu(s). Keep in mind, whatever you dont get to try this time, put it on the list for next time
Good luck and have fun planning!!

 

[doclegler]

We just did free dining for the first time in June and did really enjoy it. Much less worry about costs. We only brought enough for tips with us at each meal, so it was very nicely budgeted out.
I did stress some too though. It was overwhelming beforehand, trying to think about all the logistics, but it all worked out very easily in the end. We would just keep our receipts and watch the number to be sure each meal was correct (and we had NO problems!).
It was fun to be able to try new restaurants (for free), but we did have a back up plan in case we didn't like it (like a counter service nearby for afterward if someone was unhappy). In the end, we made a few new, and a few favorite ADR's and were very happy with our meals. Some of our favorites are: 'Ohana, Garden Grill, and Boma.
Make your favorite reservations (if they are new, just do a little research first) and keep your snacks/counter service in mind, but then just go and enjoy! It will all work out just fine.

 

[nanni]

I try to roughly think of how many days I'll be in each park and work from there. So if I have 2 days in MK, 1 in AK, 1 in DHS and 2 in EP, I'll plan meals in appropriate areas for those. With kids, I think character meals and buffets are generally good (unless your kids don't like characters). As for timing, think about when you usually eat and what meals you like to have large ones. I'm not a big breakfast eater, so usually I go for dinner or the occasional lunch. If your family eats bigger breakfasts, that might be a better option (although it isn't as cost efficient). Also consider what kind of food your family likes and how much they eat. If your kids have big appetites, buffets are good because the standard kids meals are pretty small.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

Some of our favorites are:

Le Cellier
Mama Melrose
Tony's TownSquare (DH loves the chicken parm)
Wolfgang Puck's Cafe (DTW Westside)


We also like Sci-Fi for lunch but we haven't been there in a few years.

For counter service, Peco's Bill's is pretty good, Pinochios Village Haus, Safari Pizza

I want to try Garden Grill at some point

 

[pumba]

Go to the menu and restaurant selections..

Write down the ones you want to go to...

Then look at the menus and decide what you would want to eat..

Then put them in order of LOVES and LIKES..

Then go down the list and decide from there..

I remember someone doing this once and it worked for them..

Happy Planning

 

[melifeld]

We like to try different restaurants each time we go. Some of our favorites have been:

O'hana breakfast
Chefs de France
Boma
Artist Point
Coral Reef
Earl of Sandwich (I know, not TS, but still one of our favs!)

Our next trip will be our first on DxDP. Here are the restaurants we'll be trying for the first time:

Narcoossee's
Akershus
Le Cellier
Cinderella's Royal Table
Brown Derby
Sci Fi Dine In Theatre
Plaza
Crystal Palace

Since we have Deluxe this time, we figured we would try some of the signatures. And after this trip there will still be restaurants we haven't tried.

One of the things I love about WDW!

 

[pjhootch]

We have done Disney a bunch of times but not the dining plan. It looks overwhelming, but I found when actually starting to do the reservations, it isn't really that difficult.

Plan out your basic park plan so you know what days you intend to be in which park. If you have days that are questions, don't worry about those. Then go to the dining reservations and pick your park for the day, put the number in your party and basic time for the meal. The booking engine will show you what is available in your park for that time and a couple of hours after.

Don't forget to check the "show only restaurants that accept the dining plan" box before you search. Then just choose which restaurant appeals to you most that has availability.

I am a very low key Disney planner. I think a mistake to avoid is to try to rush from place to place and try to fit too much in. I see a lot of folks on the board worrying if they will have time to get to an ADR. THAT would make me stress.

We don't worry about parades or fireworks, so you might want to try and watch your reservation timing if you only have one day per park and have your heart set on something happening at a set time. It helps to be flexible about mealtimes too.