Having trouble with timing

[Gorechick]

I'm having trouble with timing my ADR's. This is our first trip with kids and although they eat 3 meals a day with a couple of snacks, I'm not sure how WDW will affect them. My main concern is scheduling dinners, especially evenings when we'll visit MK and Epcot. I have an O'Hana dinner scheduled for 5:15 so we can visit MK after or should I switch it later and go to MK for a few hours before? Since Epcot closes at 9, should I make early ADR's around 5 and tour after dinner or later ADR's around 8 and tour before? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[RJMC]

I'm having trouble with timing my ADR's. This is our first trip with kids and although they eat 3 meals a day with a couple of snacks, I'm not sure how WDW will affect them. My main concern is scheduling dinners, especially evenings when we'll visit MK and Epcot. I have an O'Hana dinner scheduled for 5:15 so we can visit MK after or should I switch it later and go to MK for a few hours before? Since Epcot closes at 9, should I make early ADR's around 5 and tour after dinner or later ADR's around 8 and tour before? Any advice is appreciated.

This is a great question, and I don't think there is any right answer. It does depend on your own preferences, your own eating habits, and weighing that up against your schedule.

We tend to be led by our schedule though.

We have kids aged 9 and 7 on last visit, and we tend to do an early morning park visit followed by a relax at pool in afternoon, then a nice dinner about 7pm,and an evening spent at a park including something like wishes or illuminations.

So We may do
Early at Magic Kingdom - Pool In Afternoon - Dinner about 6:30pm and then go see wishes in MK

Or if we had an early start the previous day, we may do
Morning at the resort Pool - Afternoon at Downtown Disney & Water Park - Evening spent at Epcot, with a dinner before illuminations about 7:30pm

Whatever happens, we do tend to have dinner though before the main event or activity of the evening.

For lunch we usually just do a counter service or snack type thing. On days we are trying to get to rope drop, breakfast is a grab and go kind of affair, and then we have another snack mid morning. Focus for us is really on having nice family dinners, and just snacks/small things in day.

Our forthcoming trip schedule is this
Day 1 - am MK - pm pool - dinner Ohanas 6:30pm -Wishes & Electrical Parade
Day 2 - am EPCOT - pm pool - dinner T Rex 7:30pm / Downtown Dis
Day 3 - am pool - pm Typhoon Lagoon - dinner Hoop De Doo 7:15pm
Day 4 - am HS - pm pool - dinner Via Napoli 6:30pm / EPCOT
Day 5 - pool day / relax - dinner Chef Mickey's 4pm / MNSSHP
Day 6 - am pool - pm Blizzard Beach - dinner 7pm Raglan Rd / Downtown Dis
Day 7 - am AK - pm pool - dinner 7pm Boma / Animal Kingdom Lodge
Day 8 - am pool - pm EPCOT - dinner Biergarten 7pm / Epcot Illuminations
Day 9 - am MK - pm HS - dinner Sci Fi 5pm / Fantasmic

Hope this helps - somehow?

 

[Cafeen]

I typically go with the average of 60-90 minutes for meals at TS restaurants, and Ohana notoriously runs behind in seating (at least, it used to). Though with a 5:15, you're going to be at one of the first seatings, so it shouldn't be too bad on that side.

With my rough estimates, you'd probably be out of there by 7, leaving a couple hours to enjoy MK (depending on when it closes).

 

[TiggerTrigger]

I don't think there's any right or wrong way to do this...just what's worked for you. Our kids are on school schedules during the week, but on the weekend... we tend to eat based on how it fits with our plans for the day. We do the same at WDW.

So, while they may normally get breakfast at 7amCT and dinner at 6pmCT... they may get breakfast at 7amET-11am ET while at WDW and dinner any time between 4:30-9:30pmET ...depending on park opening, fireworks, adr avail., etc.

So basically, we plan our ADR times based on park schedules, show schedules, and ADR openings at the restaurants we want. It may mean our girls don't eat at their normal times, but it's pretty easy to keep them happy with snacks. If anything, I think it's helped cut down on meltdowns since the girls know that each day will be a bit different and there's no "but we always eat now" from them.

Like I said- it's whatever works for you. This works for us, but some kids are so engrained in their routines that our way of doing it could be a disaster. You could also try to condition them for it too. i.e. if you know when your adrs are, you can start gearing your kids up for that schedule or flexibility.

All in all- it will all work out.

 

[Gorechick]

I decided to switch our ADR's around a llittle bit, making some ADR's around 5 so that we will have more time in the evening to leisurely tour parks.