Dining stress!

[Ciorsdah]

Last year DBF and I had a lovely relaxing 2 week trip on the QSDP. I spent my pre trip time planning days and looking at maps on how to get from A to B along IDrive etc.

Now I find myself getting a bit flustered with trying to work out ADRs and times for eating etc. I've got 2 months until the window opens up to book, but I'm trying to decide where we want to eat and research menus (I've got allergies and he is just blumming fussy!)

I've got 14 days worth of TS credits each, and with staying at the YC I think we will make use of its close proximity to Epcot - but my goodness its stressful.

Does anyone ever feel a bit overwhelmed with the percieved challenge of ADR booking so far in advance?

 

[orangetiggs]

Have a look on allears for menus, its fab and gives you an idea of what does what

I love planning ours but then we visit the same places for my twins like crystal palace etc

We start with a list of places we like the look of thier menus then narrow down from there, we try and get a few new ones each year

 

[ChipnDaleRule]

We stayed at the YC last year and found it ideal for so many different restaurants on the BOardwalk and EPCOT.We made our initial list way before the 180 days and changed it I don't know how many times.We actually found this the fun part.Have you been on the Disney food blog and Allears.net.These are great sites to help you with your research. I would suggest make your ressies on the 180 day mark,but remember you can change them at any time,as we did several times.Dont get stressed because any booking you make can be unbooked up to 24hrs before.Happy planning

 

[darthtatty]

I know, its a pain to try and imagine what you want to eat in approx 6 months time.
The best thing to do is to plan a rough itinery of what youll be doing on your days there. That then gives you an idea of roughly where youll be on each day. Once youve got your days sorted, look for the restaurants nearby check out the menu and make your ADR's that way.
Obviously things may change and you may want to change things around.
Your ADR's arent set in stone and you can change them up until the last minute. Depending on availability and remember some restaurants charge for non shows.
Read a few food reports and youll probably decide on what you want to order too (although dont as ive done that before and then the menu has changed )

relax and have fun planning.xx

 

[scoobydooby]

I think it's worth asking yourself how you want to prioritise things. That is. Do you intend to plan your trip around your ADRs, or do you intend to plan your ADRs around your trip? There is a difference.

For us, food is an important but secondary issue, although we always have the regular dining plan.

I do this. Draw a table with all our holidays days on it split into morning/afternoon/evening/breakfast/lunch/tea.

Then I allocate early start days and sleep in days. We tend to follow a pattern of two early (rope drop) starts followed by a later start. Then I work out how many rope drop days we have and how they are shared between the parks. I use Touring Plans best days and re check once EMH are out and rearrange accordingly. I then allocate our activities/parks for the sleep in days. We usually do Disney plus two or three out of Disney days. So this year over a 15 night trip we have Disney/Sea World/Aquatica and Discovery Cove to cover.

Then and only then do I deal with dining. There are four of us so we all choose 4 restaurant meals and see if and where three each can conveniently fit in around our park/activities/rest days plans. Generally we can easily fit in at least three quarters of our choices to fit our park touring plans. We re-evaluate the gaps and choose again where needed. It took me a few trips to refine this approach but I find it works well for me and means while there we never tend to feel hostage to ADRs.

I hope this helps you

 

[Claire Bear]

I have just done mine for the first time. I found it so daunting at first, I much prefer to do what I want when I want rather than planning in advance. I started by reading the reviews and also reading the Disney restaurant thread on disboards, I then created a list of all the places I fancied. I went through menus again and then reduced my list. I then started by making a rough table of where we would be each day, including which days we wanted to see fireworks etc using the touring plans and slotted them all in. It was quite stressful but fun at the same time!

 

[WizardLarz]

If you have planned any of your Park days, think about dining at a near by Resort, rather than in the Park. It makes for a easy way to destress a little from the hurried pace in the Parks. A leisurely boat or Monorail ride can have you at the Contemporary, Grand Floridian or Polynesian.

 

[2Tiggies]

Once you have a list of the restaurants you would like to eat at, make a rough itinerary of what parks you plan to visit on what day. The park hours are released before the 180 day window for ADRs which helps. Then work your restaurants in according to the parks you will be visiting so that you aren't criss-crossing back and forth for reservations as the traveling takes a good chunk of time out of your day

 

[Ciorsdah]

Thanks everyone for the kind hints and tips

So far I have my spreadsheet ( which I used last year) and I have a rough idea of which days we will be spending where.

We will be having a day at Busch Gardens and also taking 3 days to cover all the Universal/Sea world things. I've also allocated 2 days "out of park" for shopping etc.

The rough plan so far is to do a buffet breakfast in the YC on the "out of park days" to use the TS credits, and just grab food when we are out and about.

The other park days I will save those 3 TS (6 between us) credits and perhaps put them towards a signature on my birthday (thinking Citriccos or Yachtsman) and a "double dining day" of breakfast AND dinner

I honestly just think I'm so excited by the sheer choice that it makes it hard to narrow down. However, approaching it from an other angle - Eliminate what certainly doesn't appeal to us and take it from there - might work.

 

[pascalstongue]

I wouldn't stress too much about it. I made our ADR's at 180 days out and I have had no trouble changing some of the reservations recently and we are a party of 7. So far CRT and BOG have been the only two I have not seen any free slots for.

 

[mollies_mum]

We were there in October and managed to make/change some of our ADRs while we were there. I was surprised at how much availability there was at such short notice. I always like to get my priority ADRs made well in advance mainly for the character meals, the rest I'm more relaxed about and I make when I've decided what parks we will be in on what days.
It's easy to say but try not to get too stressed about it x

 

[Shazzie B]

I do this. Draw a table with all our holidays days on it split into morning/afternoon/evening/breakfast/lunch/tea.

Then I allocate early start days and sleep in days. We tend to follow a pattern of two early (rope drop) starts followed by a later start. Then I work out how many rope drop days we have and how they are shared between the parks. I use Touring Plans best days and re check once EMH are out and rearrange accordingly. I then allocate our activities/parks for the sleep in days. We usually do Disney plus two or three out of Disney days. So this year over a 15 night trip we have Disney/Sea World/Aquatica and Discovery Cove to cover.

Then and only then do I deal with dining. There are four of us so we all choose 4 restaurant meals and see if and where three each can conveniently fit in around our park/activities/rest days plans. Generally we can easily fit in at least three quarters of our choices to fit our park touring plans. We re-evaluate the gaps and choose again where needed. It took me a few trips to refine this approach but I find it works well for me and means while there we never tend to feel hostage to ADRs.

I hope this helps you

This is exactly the way we do it too - does take more planning with DDP to get all ADRs in and I can understand why some people find it odd that you plan where to eat 6 months in advance - we tend to choose restaurants where there's numerous things on the menu we all like, we all like the buffets so that helps too. Good luck

 

[joolz1910]

I was overwhelmed last year and changed my 'must-do' list several times before my ADR date. At the 11th hour, I decided I wanted to book Chef Mickey's and 'Ohana - neither of which had been on my original list. I managed to get ADR's for both and they turned out to be our favourite meals of the trip!
Chill, it will all come together in the end.

 

[Magic Megadegs]

We have done ours for the first time, on the phone I add quickly as online was temperamental at best! We've gone for the following places:-

Breakfasts: Chef Mickey's; Crystal Palace; Tusker House

Lunches: Biergaten; Akershus; Sci Fi Diner

Dinner: Coral Reef, Teppan Edo, Hacienda de San Angel, Olivia's, Cinderella 1900 Park Fayre, Maya Grill, Garden Grill, Mama Melrose Fantasmic

Bit of a spread. Spent time reading reviews and looking at menus including the pretty horrendous kids menus and came up with our short list that way x

 

[Tinkerbell1989]

For our October trip, I noted down all my choices from reviews, trip reports and the "I-just-want-to-try-it", got DBF to do the same, then looked more closely at the menus. We tried to have one TS in each park; where we'd choosen the same place, we marked that down as a definate!

Then once the park hours came out, we tried to match possible choices with a rough itinerary of where we'll be on what day.

It sounds like far too much work, but I really enjoyed it! Once we'd booked our ADRs, I didn't know what to do with myself haha!

xx

 

[joolz1910]

These were our choices last year:

Breakfasts: Crystal Palace, Tusker House
Lunches: Le Cellier, Mama Melrose Fantasmic, Akershus, Olivia's
Dinners:'Ohana, Hoop de Doo, Saana, Rose and Crown, Chef Mickey, Rainforest Cafe (AK), Garden Grill.

Happy to answer any questions.

 

[Cyrano]

I had mixed thoughts when I saw others planning meals 6 months out. Envious of the options and choices, not envious of stressing out and planning 6 months out.

However when we went last year with the dining plan we picked restaurants that we would not go to out of pocket. This strategy worked well for us.
Then we worked out where we would like to be each day and then see if we could get an ADR

 

[zippy99]

I was daunted for my first time - but now it is a breeze.

We take a relaxed approach to Disney and book our restaurants first - most of our ADRs are dinners so we pick and choose our destination park according to the weather, what takes our fancy and even which bus arrives first! And the head to our dinner destination later.

Our park strategy has always been key attractions for mornings and then we visit the shows and quieter attractions in the afternoon. Personally we don't like to overplan parks - rain on a waterpark day or Rock'n'roller being down on your Studios day - we play it by ear I think this is less stressful than trying to amend plans when the unexpected happens

 

[Ciorsdah]

Well, I've taken all the advice and we have ruled out the places we certainly wouldnt eat, and both took a look at things we would both like..

The list looks like this..

No breakfasts (!) but I would like to try and get CRT for my birthday morning

No lunches (!!)

Dinners:

Yachtsman Steakhouse
Via Napoli
Ohana
Teppan Edo
Rose and Crown
Be Our Guest
Jiko
Nine Dragons
San Angel Inn
Cape May

So thats what I'm looking at so far. 10 places, 11 if you include CRT but there are some in there that are 2TS credits each.

No doubt this list will change...!!

 

[zippy99]

Great choices - we prefer dinners too less impact on our day plans!

Do try to get Rose and Crown for 7.30. We did this last year and there was a wait to be sat (which helped our timing) and we got a table on the lower patio - had starters (OOP), mains and dessert arrived just as Illuminations started - it was an amazing view sat in the warm floridian heat at night, drinking our wine, eating great food and watching an amazing fireworks show...

One of the highlights of last year's holiday - better still we secured this reservation on a Saturday night just 4 weeks before we travelled!

It was top of our list for this August!