How do you plan your ADR's so far out?

[AutieMom]

How does everybody go about planning their trip when you are several months out? Our trip is planned for 1/24/10. We are so excited to be staying at the Poly and be doing the DDp but how doyou go about planning your ADR's when the calendar is not opened up yet? Can anyone share how they go about selecting their ADR's when you don't know park hours or show times yet?

Thanks
Stacey

 

[MariDisney]

How does everybody go about planning their trip when you are several months out? Our trip is planned for 1/24/10. We are so excited to be staying at the Poly and be doing the DDp but how doyou go about planning your ADR's when the calendar is not opened up yet? Can anyone share how they go about selecting their ADR's when you don't know park hours or show times yet?

Thanks
Stacey

Here's what we do:
1. Subscribe to Tour Guide Mike
2. If his least crowded park charts aren't done yet, I look at the year before and try and make educated guesses because we ONLY go to TGM's green park choices on any given day.
3. Have a family planning meeting and list some "must dos" for the trip.
4. Sketch out where we'll be which days based on TGM's choices and then fit the restuarants in.
5. Think about a balance of days in each park as well as schedule for Wishes, Illuminations, and Fantasmic.
6. Fit the restaurants into the almost firm itinerary.
7. Call at 90 days and make changes later as needed. Soon it will be 180 days, and I will use the same strategy.

 

[Mischa]

What we do is I make dining reservations and then plan our day accordingly.

So, for example, if I make a breakfast ressie for say Crystal Palace, then we'll spend the morning at MK and then either have lunch there or go back to the hotel for a break and then go back to the park or to another park. If I make dinner ressies at one park, then we'll spend the afternoon/evening at that park.

It works for us. Hope that helps. Have fun!

 

[Wants2Live@WDW]

They will have the park hours out before Oct. 27 (when ADR time-frame goes back to 180 days). They will definitely have them out by the first week (or so of October), b/c the old 90-day time frame would allow for that to happen.

As far as planning without the calendars with the park hours, some people use tools such as touringplans.com to follow a touring plan that is based upon crowd expectations, etc. Be aware of one thing, though...they will almost recommend going to parks other than the park with the Extra Magic Hours. I usually prefer to fight the crowds and use the extra magic hours.

I always wait for the calendars to come out and then plan according to which park is having EMH or an attractions (e.g.- Fantasmic). Then, I plan the meals and places for the ADR's (and backups).

I fill in the other non-resort ADRs based upon which days I have left over after I get my favorites planned out. Then I call.

Good luck!!

 

[mmmears]

Well, on our 2 trips in 2009, Disney changed their park hours quite a bit between the time when they released them and the actual dates. For July, they were still changing them (and adding EMH days) one week before we left!!!Oh -- and the "best days" with TGM and UOG were changing, too, since Disney was changing the EMH days and park hours...

My point is that even if you have the park hours today, you can't really count on them for your trip.

Having said that, I'm in the same boat as you with the Oct. 27th ADR date for our April trip. I'm really not counting on the park hours being set that far in advance.

We'll just pick certain parks for certain days and make the park ADRs accordingly. We do tend to eat meals at our resort as well, so that won't affect our park choices (so we can change them up to the last minute).

Also, I'm trying to take a less stressful approach to the dining -- if we can make our ADR, we will. If not, I'll cancel it and try to rebook for the day and time I want. I'm not going to let my ADRs rule my trip.

I'd rather give up my ADR than go to an overcrowded park and fight to get on a couple of rides just because of my dinner reservation...

I just don't feel like you can count on the hours coming out on time, not changing, etc. Also, I've been booking lunches since they are less affected by the park hours than breakfasts are. If you want CP before the MK opens, then they open it a couple of hours early, you're stuck eating while everyone else is riding the rides without the waits. By lunch, there's always a wait for everything. And we'll just tour the park from rope drop until the lunch ADR.

Hope this helps some!

 

[Colleen27]

How does everybody go about planning their trip when you are several months out? Our trip is planned for 1/24/10. We are so excited to be staying at the Poly and be doing the DDp but how doyou go about planning your ADR's when the calendar is not opened up yet? Can anyone share how they go about selecting their ADR's when you don't know park hours or show times yet?

Thanks
Stacey

Just make a list of the places that look good based on menus and reviews, consider which work with which park(s), and leave it open-ended for now. Jan park hours will be out weeks before you have to make ADRs.

We check in to the Poly the day before you on the DxDDP so we've got a ton of ADRs to make. This is what I have so far:

MK - 2 days
Cinderella's Royal Table (breakfast, before park opening)
California Grill (dinner, monorail)
Kona (dinner, monorail)

Epcot - 1 day
Teppan Edo (lunch)
Le Cellier (dinner)
Tutto Italia (backup)

AK - 1 day
Yak & Yeti (lunch)
Jiko (dinner, AKL)

DHS - 1 day
Brown Derby (lunch)
Kouzzina (dinner, walk/boat, Boardwalk)

Free/waterpark - 2 days
Kona (breakfast)
Grand Floridian Cafe (breakfast)
Artist Point (dinner, boat from MK)
Narcoosees (dinner, walk/monorail)

Arrival -
Ohana (dinne)

Departure -
Chef Mickey (breakfast)

I won't worry about plugging specific parks or restaurants into specific dates until park hours come out, sometime around 10/1. So we'll have 3 weeks to nail down our final list before our ADR window opens up. And for missing the whole 180 nightmare!!

 

[Colleen27]

Here's what we do:
1. Subscribe to Tour Guide Mike
2. If his least crowded park charts aren't done yet, I look at the year before and try and make educated guesses because we ONLY go to TGM's green park choices on any given day.
3. Have a family planning meeting and list some "must dos" for the trip.
4. Sketch out where we'll be which days based on TGM's choices and then fit the restuarants in.
5. Think about a balance of days in each park as well as schedule for Wishes, Illuminations, and Fantasmic.
6. Fit the restaurants into the almost firm itinerary.
7. Call at 90 days and make changes later as needed. Soon it will be 180 days, and I will use the same strategy.

None of that helps if park hours aren't out, though, because TGM bases his recommendations on park hours and as such doesn't get them up until Disney releases hours. I don't think guessing based on last year will work very well these days, with all the screwy things Disney has been doing with EMH and show schedules lately.

 

[AutieMom]

according to my calculations, our 90 day mark is Oct 26th!!! I day before the switch to 180 days. Its got me a little nervous and stressed trying to plan it all out. Thanks for the replies. I guess I need some sort of spreadsheet to map everything out and will keep reading the boards!!!!

 

[mmmears]

according to my calculations, our 90 day mark is Oct 26th!!! I day before the switch to 180 days. Its got me a little nervous and stressed trying to plan it all out. Thanks for the replies. I guess I need some sort of spreadsheet to map everything out and will keep reading the boards!!!!

Oh -- you're really lucky. They are going to be so overwhelmed on the 27th that many of us think their computers will be crashing all day. Hopefully you can get all your ADRs before the big mess even starts!

 

[mickeysaver]

First, I am a loyal subscriber to TouringPlans.com, which unlike Tour Guide Mike, can pretty accurately predict the best park of the day about a year in advance. That helps me to map out a basic itinerary.

Second, I look at the historic park hours listed on WDWinfo.com,
http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/hours.htm which helps me to figure out what I want to do as far as hopping versus not hopping through my trip to maximize the fireworks, parades, and such.

Third, I go on a "fantasy vacation" in my head. Along the way, I take into account what we want out of our vacation. I know what we like to eat. I know around what time that I want to eat at the parks based on things like, did we do rope drop or did we sleep in, are we going to be on "thrill rides" early or later in the day, and so on. For menus around WDW, check out allears.net. http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm

Basically, it's a juggling act. For our upcoming trip we have two MVMCP's and one day for each park. We won't be doing any hopping. We have planned for the following ADR's based on the needs laid out by our plans.

We arrive late on the 8th. We have no plans that night other than settling into our CL room at the YC resort.

Kouzzina by Cat Cora at Disney's BoardWalk Resort
Day & Date: Sunday, December 6, 2009
Breakfast

MCMCP
Day & Date: Sunday, December 6, 2009

Les Chefs de France at Epcot
Day & Date: Monday, December 7, 2009
Lunch - will cancel if Remy has left for HK

Tutto Italia Ristorante at Epcot
Day & Date: Monday, December 7, 2009
Dinner - may cancel if we do have lunch with Remy

Kona Café at Disney's Polynesian Resort
Day & Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Breakfast

MCMCP
Day & Date: Sunday, December 8, 2009

Wishes Dessert Party at Magic Kingdom Park
Day & Date: Friday, December 08, 2009

The Plaza Restaurant at Magic Kingdom Park
Day & Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Lunch

Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa - Garden View Lounge
Day & Date: Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Afternoon Tea

Wildlife Discovery Excursion at Disney's Animal Kingdom
Day & Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009
Morning Excursion

Yachtsman Steakhouse at Disney's Yacht Club Resort
Day & Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009
Dinner - "date night"

Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano at Disney's Hollywood Studios
Day & Date: Friday, December 11, 2009
Dinner

A few things were added along the way, but our plans were pretty much set months ago, like two MVMCP's instead of just one, but I get to meet a DIS friend because of it. We caught a deal on a CL room, so we added in the Wildlife Discovery Excusion, which we are very much looking forward to doing. The Wishes Dessert Party was added because it just fit into our plans on that second MVMCP night better than it would have during the one when we meet my DIS friend. We added a dinner at the Yachtsman because we decided that we wanted a "date night" at WDW and since we are staying at the YC, this will be super simple to work into our plans. We had to switch out a few of our park days because of the Pop Warner events, which made booking a dinner at DHS a nightmare. We added the lunch at Les Chefs de France, only because I so wished that I could have shared seeing Remy with my partner when I went to WDW solo earlier this year. Knowing that Remy's departure has been delayed and that there are CM's on another board posting that there is a casting call out for more people to be presenters for Remy at Chefs through the end of the year, well, that was enough to make me book a reservation even though he might still leave.

In the end, we got everything that we wanted. I can't wait! Maggie

 

[francie57]

We go with where we want to eat and put them in a list by day. We don't care about park hours or best days. We go to a park in the morning and then back to the pool. We then get ready and head to dinner. Since we have park hoppers we don't worry. We usually go mid-Aug. and this process has worked for us for years. Guess we have been enough that we don't obcess about things any more.