Hate having to make ADR's

[nmanning19]

Anyone else hate to have to decide what they plan on doing weeks before your vacation. I am beginning to hate this trip because I feel like I have to wake up early, get a character breakfast in before I go to a park and then figure what time I want to eat dinner, etc. Run from this place to that place just so I can sit down to eat. What happens if I wake up on Monday and planned on going to AK and then it is 95 degrees out and I want to stay by the pool all day, what a pain!!

 

[TDC Nala]

Me too, I just don't make them unless I absolutely want to go someplace with friends. My mother wants Citricos in September and Sanaa, so I will need to make some ADRs for that.

If it's just me, I will stick with eating at the restaurants' bars and lounges or go to Bluezoo.

 

[daisygirl902]

We make all of most of our ADRs for around 5 or 6 pm. We go to the parks in the morning for park opening, and back to the hotel to swim in the afternoon...then we head off to our chosen restaurant...this way we don't have to pre-plan our parks, and can sort of play it by ear a bit...the other thing we normally do is do at least on Signature Dining while on the DDP, so that leaves at least one night free...

 

[tami82]

I originally had a small park plan but after making my ADR i realized i was better off just being tied down to one park and that was Epcot for the princess dinner. I dont know what i want to do from day to day (also figure if it rains, then what? you miss a day somewhere. We have 4 nights so i am trying to concentrate on the MK mostly and maybe epcot once. Im not even sure about the other 2 parks at this point. My other 3 ADRs i made at the resorts to make this easier. I have chef mickeys at contemporary, ohana at poly, and 1900 park fare at floridian (all on the monorail route as we are staying at Contemporary so all very easy and convenient to get to). You can find some nice places to eat at the resorts especially if you have kids. Im very happy with my decision to not be tied down and got all the ressies i wanted. Luckily the only late one was Ohana at 8:10, the others are very reasonable, i got lunch at Chef Mickey this way i can go to parks, go lie down at hotel and then eat at 2:15. After that we can swim and go to the parks at nights and gives me much more freedom.

 

[RMulieri]

It honestly does not bother me...I make adrs for dinners because I know that we are going to want a sit down dinner.If i find that I get to the evening in question and we don't want it,I cancel and we eat CS.Plain and simple. But then again I don't plan which parks on which days, what times for what rides...we go with what we want to do.Different strokes for different folks.

 

[zaksmom]

We don't make ADRs with a couple of exceptions. We make a Boma breakfast when we are not scheduled to be in a park in the morning (check-out, late night out before, etc..) We also make a reservation to eat after an Animal Kingdom day since it closes early. This time it was Sanaa. By the way...excellent food! Sat by a window and even in the rain saw many animals. We like to eat when we are hungry and just see where we are. Our trip was 5-22 thru 6-2-09. We walked-in to Biergarten, Toyko Dining, Rose and Crown, Plaza, Yak and Yeti, and Garden Grill Character Dinner. I think that was all the TS places. Didn't need ADRs. So that's 8 TS restaurants and 2 ADRs. Everything was wonderful and relaxed. By the way -- the two ADRs we did make were 2 weeks in advance and we got the day and time we wanted. There are 3 of us. Don't know how the size of the party affects getting tables. Just wanted to report our experience. Have fun!

 

[francie57]

We make ADRs but after that we really don't do much more planning. We use the hopper option on the passes and go from there. We go to the park that we want, head back to the pool and then go to have a great dinner. We have been to Disney enough that we take our time and do whatever we feel like doing and have enjoyed that much more than having everything planned out.

 

[grimley1968]

We, too, are people who would prefer not making ADR's. Unfortunately, we always have to go during Fall Break for our schools, and that is always timed with the tail end of free dining. We don't always get free dining, but even if not, the free dining people call as soon as that ADR window opens up for them, and book all the ADR's, and in many cases, never even show up when the actual time comes, because there is absolutely no disincentive for people not to book restaurants at which they never arrive.

So I feel the pressure to get ADR's, though without the free dining package I would not. Still, we're almost always able to just walk up to most TS places we like and get a table within 30-45 minutes, even if it was a place "booked solid for the week" when we called 3 months before.

It is a badly flawed system and it is abused, which surprises me, given how well thought out and effective many of Disney's other uses of technology are (fastpass comes to mind).

Even if we go during free dining this year, it is most likely that we'll make an ADR for Hoop De Doo (this has a credit card hold and I've never not been able to get this), and maybe one or two other dinners throughout the week at "must eat" restaurants. Other than that we'll just walk up at whatever park we're in and hope for the best (more often than not this works well for us), or find a handy CS place.

 

[Silver Queen]

No,this system really doesn't bother me. I like knowing that we definitely have a table service reservation for dinner and don't have to worry about deciding where to go, trying to get in or possibly running around trying to find a restaurant that can accommodate us. We always get park hoppers so that's not a problem and never make ADRs for lunch. We've been able to get a walk-up table at places like Kona Cafe, Grand Floridian Cafe (best Cobb Salad on the property) or Turf Club. Many times we will just go to a CS for lunch so we don't eat too much.