Dinner Reservations - Early or Late?

[tinawv]

I was wondering what time of the day do you usually make your dinner reservations. My sister and I are going to WDW September 20-25, and I have made all of our ADR's later in the evening (7:30 p.m most nights) with the exception of our Fantasmic Package at Mama Melrose in which I couldn't get a later time. My reasoning is that we can spend more time at the parks this way. Last year with my family I made all of our ADR's between 5:30-6:30 p.m. The reason this didn't work for us was first we weren't hungry that soon after eating lunch, and second by the time we got out of the restaurant which was usually around 7:00 or 7:30 p.m., we didn't have much time left in the parks if any.

I appreciate your comments.

 

[Mickey1122]

We have found that it depends on the restaurant. For Epcot and Resort Area restaurants for example, we usually time it earlier to be just in time for Illuminations: Reflections of Earth. Our thing is really to have a snck breakfast, do the parks, get a lunch either at the park or at a resort TS, then hit the pool for a couple of hours. We find that we like to eat at around 6:00-6:30 to have some time in the parks.

 

[tinawv]

Thank you Mickey1122 for the info.

 

[heatherlynn444]

for my family, it was better to eat lunch around noon and eat a later dinner. he had ADR's for 5 or 5:30 every day, and quickly learned we needed to change them to anout 7 or 8 b/c we were still so full from lunch (and we would sometimes get snacks after lunch) that we were not hungry at 5. also, if we did eat at 5, we were so stuffed after the meal we didnt want to ride anything, just go relax, so we did everything in the park first then ate, then left to relax at the hotel. good luck!

 

[MickeyNicki]

We always have breakfast at the resort, usually just food court stuff. DH loves to have a nice big relaxing dinner so we try for 5-6.....we dont do lunch, we snack and share so we do not get filled up and we get to sample a variety of things.

This December we are doing things a little different. We are getting the first seatings for big breakfasts and having dinner after 6.....the only logic I can think to explain this is that we want to try Boma (breakfast and dinner but not the same day lol), 1900 Park Fare (breakfast), Le Cellier and Kona Cafe (breakfast).

I guess we are piggies the next trip.

 

[tinawv]

Thank you MickeyNicki and heatherlynn4444. We are leaning more to sticking to lunch around noon and eating dinner around 8:00 p.m. As MickeyNicki stated, you can spend the better part of the day in the parks, enjoy a nice dinner, and then relax at the hotel or do some shopping at DTD.