First time on DDP-what time do you normally make dinner ressies for?

[frannn]

I'm hoping people with past dining plan experience can offer advice. We usually do a few character/table service meals each trip, and I have always made the reservations based on which park we will be in, and what our evening plans are. This has never been a problem, since it was only 3-4 meals we had to plan (timewise) for, and only one is normally dinner. Now that we have the dining plan included, I am making dinner reservations for every one of our 11 day trip (except the last). This is wonderful, as we have been to WDW almost annually since '99, and can stand to take it a little easier than normal. But, I find myself confused as to whether I should make the ADR for early in the evening (like 5-ish) so we can do a few rides after, or later (like 7-ish or later) so we can do most everything before dinner, even stopping back at the hotel. We are taking DD3, who is pretty good about going with the flow, and even doing some late night hours. I'm just concerned that if we make the dinners early, we'll still be stuffed from a large counter service lunch (I'm considering getting 2 instead of 3 meals each day), but if we make them late, we'll be missing a lot of good park time. Yeah, I know, everyone should have these problems .

 

[Jaxs27]

I made ours all around 7:00

 

[bleeps]

Of course there are a million variables, but one thing we have "generally" found true that for early dinner ADRs, we get seated right on time. For later (7 p.m. and on) ADRs it has not been unusual to have to wait (even as long as 30 minutes) for our table. It makes sense, of course -- more people in the place, more people mid-meal at 7 than at 5. So, just bear in mind that your little one may be pushed pretty far past reasonable limits if you aren't getting your food until almost 8....

Depending on your family's style, you might think about our approach -- we'd do big CS breakfasts (even used some TS credits on character breakfasts) and then have lighter (or pay OOP for) lunches, and then have our bigger dinners early....

 

[kldmom2000]

All of ours are between 5-5:30.... we usually get to a specific park for opening and stay until about 1pm at which point we go back to the hotel to swim/nap/etc... and then head into whichever park we have our ADR at around 4pm since the parks tend to close earlier when we go off-season. We eat first and then enjoy the rides Makes for less grumpy little ones too!!!

 

[angel's momma]

We usually shared CS breakfast & lunch. Had TS dinner between 5-6.

 

[kristenhh]

We ate a light breakfast (Poptart) in our room or on the way to the bus. Then we had a CS lunch about 11:00. Our dinner ADR's were usually 6:00 - 6:30. We were not too full and the schedule seemed to work well for everyone.

 

[formernyer]

If your ADRs are in the park, the time really won't matter as long as you space it at least 3 hours from your last meal.

If your ADRs are at resorts or DTD, I'd recommend making them a little early so that you have time to be back in the parks by 9pm for fireworks. I'd probably aim for 5pm to 6pm reservations if I planned to eat outside the park.

We were at WDW last week and it was a kind of last minute trip so most of the good ADRs were taken for the restaurants we wanted. We ended up getting a 7:40pm ADR at Crystal Palace, which worked out great for the fireworks/parade...we finished eating just in time to see them.

Our other meals we ended up with lunchtime ADRs. I was disappointed at first, but they worked out GREAT! We ate light breakfasts, stuffed ourselves until we were sick at lunchtime, and then split one or two CS dinner in the evening. It made it easy to conserve credits for breakfast via meal-sharing, because at dinnertime we were still too stuffed from lunch to want to eat a lot.