First time with ADRs- too many?

[Wyattsmom]

I've only been to Disney once. It was last year at Thanksgiving and we adored it. We didn't have any ADRs and ate quick service everywhere. I don't know if it was the time of year (holiday feasts!!) or what but I was STARVING at Disney.
This time around I'm planning our ADRs. But I'm nervous. I'm afraid I'll feel like my whole day needs to be planned around the mealtimes. If lunch is at 12, do we stop riding at 11 and walk over? Then allow 2 hours to eat? I hate thinking of missing hours at a time. I purposefully planned eating inside the parks so we don't get overwhelmed. Also we are mostly doing buffets, I think.

So far I have:
Day 1: Chef Mickey breakfast
Day 2: Early BOG lunch
Day 2: Liberty Tree Tavern dinner
Day 3: Garden Grill lunch
Day 4: Hollywood & vine?
Day 5: 8:30 Ohana dinner
Day 6: CRT Breakfast





What works for your family, as far as eating?
Big breakfast, big lunch or big dinner? Less? More?

Maybe we could eat a big breakfast some days and big dinner another? QS for lunch only if we need it? Or a big late lunch and late QS if we need it?


If you eat in the parks, what is your ideal meal schedule?

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

I like to have either a breakfast ADR and a dinner ADR, with snacks in between, or just a lunch ADR. The time isn't the issue (I dine solo and know what I'm ordering before I'm seated, so I've never had TS meals take longer than an hour) - if I eat a TS lunch I'm just not hungry for a big dinner.

 

[ellecg]

I don't think you have too many ADRs. I think meals at Disney are often as entertaining as some of the rides, plus meals are a great way to rest, recharge, and regroup during a long day. My kids could keep on going and going without a care to food-but my husband and I try to plan one sit down meal per day, we vary between breakfast/lunch/dinner depending on what restaurants/experiences are offered. It varies too with heat--when visiting last August, a big breakfast was good and we skipped lunch for some ice cream instead. On our next visit the ADRs include a few mid-afternoon meals to break up the day. Those days we may have a regular breakfast (in room or QS at resort) and then snack if needed in the evening.

One other thing, I don't see any reason why you have to dedicate so much time to your in-park meals... at BOG lunch, do the rides nearby and walk over 15 minutes before your ADR. BOG lunch shouldn't take 2 hrs either. Same with LTT dinner. You can always choose more dining in the parks than the resorts to save time if you feel like you won't have enough time. You know what works best for your family. Pretend you weren't at Disney, what would your ideal meal schedule look like? What are you trying to get from your meal times?

 

[minnie mum]

We almost always have one TS meal a day. Very occasionally we'll have both a breakfast and a dinner ADR.

WE tend to limit breakfast ADRs to pre opening ones inside a park, or a later one at a resort on a non park day.

We will sometimes do a lunch ADR as a nice mid day break to rest and relax if we don't plan to go back to our resort in the afternoon.

None of the places you have listed should take anything approaching 2 hours. Bog lunch might take 45 minutes - less if you pre order. The rest should take around an hour; perhaps a little more if the characters are slow to come around. We find that the only meals that take 2 hours are our signature dinners, which are more leisurely paced. Just plan your day so that you show up at the restaurant 15 minutes before your ADR.

One last note about H&V: if you must do this, get a pre opening breakfast. Otherwise the food is pretty awful. I think they're neck and neck with CM dinner for the worst food on property.

 

[davper]

I never do lunch time ADRs. Too much planning to be at a certain spot at lunch time. I just assume get QS wherever I am at.

Morning ADRs are easiest to fit in schedule with Dinner ADRs usually schedule late to finish the day.

I might do 1 or 2 days with more than one ADR scheduled.

 

[andiraye]

In terms of breakfast ADR's, I agree with the PP who said they are great on non-park days. We did Chef Mickey's on a non-park day on a recent trip and it was fantastic -- 9:30 breakfast, ride the monorail until, back at our resort by noon, spent the day at the pool. Perfect mix of Disney and chill vibes. If you do it on a park day and are trying to make rope drop you're going to need a REALLY early reservation, and the whole timing thing would stress me out.

I don't put the BOG lunch in the same category as the other ADR's, especially if you pre-order your food. It takes a lot less time than the other meals because it's not really table service. So I think you're fine doing a BOG lunch and a LTT dinner. You do have to be at the BOG reservation on time, though.

I wouldn't do a lunch ADR everyday because of time pressures, but once in a while it's a nice break from the heat.

Regarding H&V, we did a late breakfast there on a day when we wanted to be relaxed and we really enjoyed it. I happen to like the WDW breakfast buffets, though many will disagree.

Overall, I think your ADR's are fine. You might want to keep an eye on them while you are there in case you want to change up your plans -- there is a 24 hour cancellation policy -- but otherwise it looks like a nice mix to me, and not too many!

 

[Lucius Best]

What works for your family, as far as eating?
Big breakfast, big lunch or big dinner? Less? More?

Maybe we could eat a big breakfast some days and big dinner another? QS for lunch only if we need it? Or a big late lunch and late QS if we need it?

If you eat in the parks, what is your ideal meal schedule?

One ADR per day is not too many. That's probably what we average on our trips. I can understand the feeling of not wanting to eat quick service for every meal: it's too many burgers, chicken fingers and fries and eventually I start craving a sit-down meal with some real food.

My advice is to plan your park days, your park touring strategy, and then fit your ADRs to that. Our priority is rides first, food second, and it changed over time. For example, we used to go in January a lot and park hop. Due to the shorter park hours in January, we would end up in Epcot for dinner most nights of our trip. Then we did two free dining trips in early September, it was hot, we planned a lot of lunch ADRs on those trips in order to get out of the heat in the middle of the day. More recently our tastes have changed, we've been eating more dinners at resorts, but it's very helpful to have a car if you want to do that. Also, with FP+, our strategy changed to not park hop, we wanted to use our 3 FPs as early as possible and then get a 4th FP at kiosks, we would do that and grab lunch at whatever QS was most convenient. Most of our ADR dinners were at resorts near the park we were visiting.

Agree with a previous poster about breakfast. We'll ht a grocery store and stock up on bagels/granola bars. Once or twice a trip we'll do a breakfast ADR, either in the park at 8am before park opening, or later (10:30am or so) on a day we're not going to the parks (although on trips now with FP+, we will visit the parks every day).

As far as time goes, a lot of Disney restaurants seem as though you are sitting on an assembly line, you can easily be in and out on one hour. Most places we plan for 60-90 minutes.

 

[StirlingSilver83]

Our family usually does 3 sit down meals per day. We don't like quick service and my older son needs a break from all the people in the park. We count on those sit down meals to recharge, rest, and regroup. So from what I am seeing I don't think you have too many ADRs. Usually if we have an ADR thats in the same park that we are in and its at 12, we will stop around 11:30 and walk over. I like to get to the ADRs 15 minutes prior to my ADR. Usually they say to allow 2 hours per meal, but honestly most of our meals from the time we sit down til the time we leave is usually a little over an hour. Yes you have to plan out your FPs around your ADR but it can be done. Honestly you have to plan out so much when you go to Disney anyways, so whats 1 more thing to plan around, lol

 

[hsmamato2]

Op it doesn't look like too many... but only you know if your family will start to grumble about showing up 'on time' daily for those meals..... We tend to eat mostly QS,and if anyone here thinks "ugh,too many chicken fingers and fries" I encourage you to go look at all ears . net menu section...... We rarely eat that junkfood,and usually eat QS, Disney has some really,really good QS foods.... You just have to plan ahead and look at menus. For us, a TS every single day is too much - too much planning, too much 'we have to be there instead of here' it just never works well. Over a week, we may eat TS twice, if that.there are multiple threads on the dining board detailing all the great little QS places around property to try..... that said, a daily (early) breakfast,or a nice dinner is not overly much if you like that kind of touring.(my DH hates being told to be somewhere at a certain time every day)

 

[bpadair32]

I never book ADRs for breakfast or lunch, unless it is a character breakfast that we usually do once per trip. I book a dinner ADR for every day of the trip at a nice(er) TS.

 

[ELSA711]

We always do 1 or 2 TS meals per day. Always dinner and sometimes breakfast.
We always have to have Tusker House breakfast. This trip we also scheduled a Bfast at BOG, 1900 Park Fare and Kona.
Think I will drop the Kona one though. Food looks awesome but it is kinda taking us out of the way a bit for our plans.

 

[disneydreaming80]

Personally I try to avoid ADR for Breakfast on park days. I feel like the morning is the best time to see the park and get on rides before the park gets crowded! So if we had breakfast during that time I think we'd lose out on some great park time. I prefer to have breakfast at our resort, or something in our room and use ADR's for lunch or dinner. I don't think 1 a day is too much!

 

[loves to dive]

We have been going to WDW for loads of years so we've learned to just take it easy, even where eating is concerned. Generally we do some sort of QS breakfast, I like eggs for bfast so I'll eat a kids meal, DS (adult) will just grab a muffin or some sort of sweet something. Lunch we just do what suits us at the moment. Sometimes it's grab a snack at a QS, sometimes it grab a meal at a QS, sometimes it see if we can grab a walk up at a TS. We will make ADRs for TS at night but only the day of. We usually just go to GS at whatever park we are at in the morning, ask what is available for that night, doesn't matter what park since we always have PH or even if it's at a resort. Because we are two adults (or sometimes I go solo) the time doesn't matter either. 5 pm, fine. 8:30 pm fine. We just go with it. We make FP+ but they are more of a suggestion for us, we don't mind standing in line since we have been going since any of the FP came about so we might be walking by something and decide, hmmm, let's ride that and hop in line. I realize this kind of park/ADR plans don't work for some, but for us, it works. Note: We did this when he was small too. We are on vacation, you want french fries for lunch and nothing else, go for it.