How do you plan your PS?

[weluvpluto]

I'm trying to come up with a plan for July, but I can't figure out how you do it????
How do you figure out which park you'll be in on each day? And if you'll still be there at dinner time? I'd hate to make a bunch of priority seatings and just end up cancelling them
We like to park hop, and we leave to take an afternoon break each day. This is the first time I'm trying to make PS's ahead of time (mostly because of having DDE) and I'm getting ideas of place we'll try, but I don't know how to decide for sure what park we'll be at and when we'll be there

Maybe I'm just thinking way too deeply on this

 

[fanofdisney]

We'll be on a 5 day trip, with 3 park days. First park day, we made ps for Donald's breakfasta..however you spell it. The dinosaur place thing. We made them for 8 am, as early as they take them. Then we can have breakfast, and do whatever. Probably hop somewhere. Second park day, we're making ps for Sci-Fi at MGM for early lunch, 11-ish. Haven't called yet. We'll have a light breakfast, walk around MGM for a while, then lunch. We'll probably hop that late afternoon/evening. Third day, we're doing MK, may be there all day. We're not sure if we're going to make ps or not. Still reading reviews!

I would suggest making them for a place you really want, then leaving the rest up in the air. If you have an "off" day with no park time, a character meal at one of the hotels is a great way to spend it with ps. Good luck!

 

[Music Mole]

I'm trying to come up with a plan for July, but I can't figure out how you do it????
How do you figure out which park you'll be in on each day? And if you'll still be there at dinner time?

We have always used the Unofficial Guide's recommendations for which parks to visit for each day and that has worked well for us (This trip I have a subscription to Tour Guide Mike's website but can't decide if I think he is worth it - won't really know till we get back.)

Anyway . . . once we know which parks we plan to be in on what day we make PS's for whatever interests us. The way that PSs were explained to me is that for most restaurants they are not exactly like a "reservation" - if you don't show up and check in then your slot is given to someone else (a walk up). So no worries if you change your mind (and you can always cancel with guest relations as well if you know in advance you wont make your PS).


HTH

 

[DanaHesson]

I am in kind of the same delimma, but at least I have a lot longer to make my decisions. I think that going later in the year (nov) it wont matter so much. BUT my current thinking goes a little like this.

Right now I am reading all the posts and reviews on the DIS that I can and formulating some initial ideas. We are there for 5 nights on the dining plan, so thats 5 table services to be chosen. Ive been reading menus at allears too.
My next step is to wait for the operating hours for my trip to come out. THATS when the real planning will begin! Ive pretty much decided that we will try Liberty Tree this trip, but pay cash out of pocket for it. I just dont think character meals are a good use of our MYW Dining credits. I am also planning to have breakfast with Pooh and paying cash for that. I am dying to try the breakfast lasagna.

Like you, I dont want to be controlled by my PS arrangements, but by the same token, I would hate to not be able to make the most of the plan, because of my failure to plan.

 

[DAWGPOUNDAJ]

This was our first year using the PS system as well, and we had a VERY hard time making decisions b/c were pretty spontaneous (as in we decide what park to go to on what day.) A few things helped us make our PS though. 1) Breakfast PS can be done for a lot of resort character breakfasts, so if you plan on eating at your resort's restaurant or any of the deluxe resorts restaurants for breakfast, you can just pick a random day of the week for that and make a PS wihtout worrying about what park you'll be at that day. Obviously if you want a character breakfast in a park, you need to decide that ahead of time. 2) Just make a few PS ressies if you want flexibility. Have you been to WDW before? Try to remember past trips and what parks you hit on each day. My DH and I did that and we realized that Epcot is always our hit for our 2nd day regardless of weather, so we made a PS at Epcot for the 2nd day of our trip. 3) Think of it this way, you can always call that morning or the day before and cancel a PS ressie if you decide to go to a different park. Have fun!

 

[GeorgiaTiggerGirl]

Is there a particular character you'd like to see? Sometimes that could factor in as well. As the time to make PS draws closer, I try to decide what parks we'll go to on each day, based on hours, fireworks, etc., and then make my PS arrangements. If we do change our minds, I try to cancel my PS so the time will open for someone else. As someone mentioned earlier, a PS is not a reservation. It will get you the first available table for your party size, so there could be a short wait. In fact, there usually is unless you've booked the early seatings. If you have a wait, it won't be long. But it never fails that on every trip I see someone upset that they're waiting at all, like a PS means immediate seating, which you might or might not get. There was a lady at Chef Mickey's one night that was furious that they'd waited a whole 10 minutes. Anyway, sorry for the ramble. Enjoy!

 

[tubachick]

Hey, we mostly wing our eating.... unless we know its a buzy time of year then we schedule 2 meals per day.

---- We do this based on the EMH days and where are must eats are. We never schedule more than 2 meals a day, unless we know its somethinge we really want. When the park hours come out, we may change some times, but usually we do pretty well. If we are eating at a resort, we do a really late dinner or an early lunch as not to get in the way of our park time.

--- I know this probably isn't too helpful.

but our meals are always work in progress and continue to change even when we arrive "home"

Good Luck

 

[juliesue]

We also do a lot of park hopping and are spontaneous. Our only rules are avoid MK on Saturday and no PS meals for lunch.

I guess you could say we let our PS run our evenings. There have been many times we left the park we were in to hop over to where our PS is. Then we just finish the day in that park. If our PS is at a resort, then we look around the resort and use that as a an opportunity to rest up for the next day.

Seems to work fine for us, but everyone needs to do what fits best for them.

 

[jenr812]

I was really stressed about this as well, since we plan to decide on our park days when the hours are released (my big pet peeve is the time line for that!). But I realized that the restaurants we're eating at will be resort restaurants. We're leaving the parks in the afternoon for a nap/swim/shower anyway, so we'll go from our resort to our dinner PS and then we'll likely head over to whichever park has EMH that evening.


We're going the week of July 4th so I wanted to be sure I had PS for each table service meal, since I have heard that people are often turned away during busy times if they do not have PS. HTH

 

[coinkc]

I just recently planned our PS's for our trip in July (this is my week to be calling!). I used TourGuide Mike's suggestions for best days as this is what I used the last two summers and had good success avoiding huge crowds.

Based on that, I decided which restaraunts were easiest to get to from whatever we were doing that day. For example, we are doing the Ohanas Character breakfast the day we go to MK so after breakfast we can just get on the monorail and get to the park. The day we go to Epcot is when I have Beaches and Cream planned, etc. I plan more for convenience than anything else and always leave days open with no PS's. (Although since we are on the dining plan this time I want to make sure we use all our credits.)


I really like having at least one sit down meal a day since we always go in the summer when it is HOT and this makes sure we sit down and actually eat some decent food instead of just stuffing ourselves with junk (which we do plenty of!).

 

[goodferry]

We use Tour Guide Mike too! Once I have decided on a rough itinerary for our trip, I go through and fill in the meals at the appropriate times based on where we are. Special things like princess meals I work in around our park schedule. One thing we ALWAYS do is visit a new resort we have never stayed at for our first sit down meal of the trip, it's a fun way to see a new resort and try different restaurants we might not have otherwise. Last trip it was Whispering Canyon Cafe, and that was an awesome way to start a trip, very fun and set the mood for the whole week! I think 'Ohana would be a good first night meal also! If we want character meals, I try to work them in early in the trip if possible so that we don't have to waste time waiting in line to see characters we would meet at one of our meals anyway.