How many ADRs do you typically make?

[AndreaA]

I feel like I've gone overboard with my ressies.

We arrive Friday 10/12 late evening at AoA and I figure we'll eat every meal there until Monday except for breakfast at Tusker's on Sunday. We check in at WLVilla on Monday.

Then Monday, I have dinner at Chef Mickey's.
Tuesday, lunch at Crystal Palace, dinner at Artist Point.
Wednesday, breakfast at Crystal Palace, dinner at The Wave.
Thursday, dinner at Whispering Canyon
Friday, lunch at The Plaza, dinner at Whispering Canyon.

Too much? Not enough?

 

[sarmat1]

Tuesday, lunch at Crystal Palace, dinner at Artist Point.

Not sure what time your lunch ADR is, but are you really going to up for Artist Point dinner after a big lunch buffet? Typically, we book one TS ADR per day (dinner) with breakfast in room and QS lunch.

 

[kddisney502]

Not sure what time your lunch ADR is, but are you really going to up for Artist Point dinner after a big lunch buffet?

Agreed. Unless you have a really early lunch and/or really late dinner, you're going to be stuffed.

 

[gtpoohbear]

We generally make 3 for every day -B, L, and D. We can't really get by with skipping or combining meals, and the few times we've tried CS it hasn't gone well and we've regretted not having an ADR instead.

But I think it depends a lot on how you are used to eating at home. We usually have an early breakfast (around 7am), lunch around noon, and dinner around 8pm. So I try to stick to that schedule as much as possible when making our ADRs.

The first time we went on the DxDP, I thought 3 was too many so only booked 2 most days, and we learned our lesson unfortunately. Now I only leave us to fend for ourselves at CS if we will be at a water park.

 

[QueenElinor]

I make a ton of ressies (lunch and dinner every day) just to be able to take a break & check out the restaurants, and I don't like standing in line or fighting for a place to sit for our group of 5 with counter service.

If you get to Artist's Point, and aren't all that hungry, then just have an appetizer or split an entree. We very seldom get through any meal without doing this, which is why the DDP doesn't work for us. You're not obligated to eat a big meal just because you have TS reservations. Of course, if you are really looking forward to that ressie, this plan may not work!

Or, if you find you don't want to go, you can always cancel the reservations. I would rather book too many ADR's than too few.

 

[one2admire]

I make ADRs for breakfast and dinner only. By the time you finish lunch it will on be a couple hours before its time to head to dinner which is why we usually share CS meals for lunch.

 

[Nancyg56]

I make ADR's for at least one meal a day, usually dinner. I also add a few breakfast ADR's in. The time I tried to skip dinner because of a lunch scheduled we needed to add dinner, DH likes a sit down meal every night on vacation.

 

[Dreamfindersgirl]

We will make one dinner ADR a day, sometimes a lunch ADR instead. On rare occasions we will do a lunch and dinner ADR in the same day, but it doesn't happen often.

 

[daizieduck]

We usually do the dining plan with one counter service and one table service credit per person per day. It's just me and DH. We normally have a late breakfast or early lunch using one CS credit each per day and then do dinner with one TS credit each in the evening. Or sometimes we reverse it and do TS for lunch and CS for dinner. We find that with hot weather we generally aren't super hungry so this works for us. Also, I usually bring a box or two of granola bars from home and might eat one in our room when we are getting ready in the morning. Or I keep one in our backpack in case I feel I need a little something between meals. We mainly use our snack credits for bottles of water but sometimes one of us will get a water and one of us will get a pretzel and we'll share those if we are a little hungry and want to munch on something without spoiling our appetite for our next meal.

 

[Rozz]

We usually book one ADR per day at a non-traditional mealtime in hopes of reducing wait times and crowds. This has worked well for our family of four. The kids like to eat breakfast in the room before we head out for the Parks. I just want coffee and DH joins the kids in eating breakfast. Sometimes we go to the resort food court for breakfast. We grab a favorite snack in the park if we can't wait for our ADR. We do CS for a late dinner if we need another full meal before calling it a day.

I don't think your ADRs are too much. Just consider your kids ages, your need to rest and refuel and your touring style, and plug in ADR dining as needed. Don't forget character meals needed too. My kids never cared for character meals.

 

[WSLover]

If we don't have the dining plan we usually just do 2-3 ADRs ahead of time for places that we really want to eat. We do counter service or walk-ups the rest of the trip.

I agree with not more than 1 ADR per day. Since most TS restaurants take 90 - 120 minutes x 3 - that is a lot of time spent on meals per day. If you have been to WDW many times and are big foodies and really enjoy leisurely dining then that would be different.

Our upcoming Nov trip will give us 7 days of free dining so I made ADRs for those days. Our dining itinerary:

Day 1 Ohana - 8:40 am breakfast
Day 2 Rose & Crown - 8:45 pm - late dinner for Illuminations
Day 3 The Brown Derby 1:45 pm - lunch for Fantasmic
Day 4 1900 Park Fare 4:30 dinner
Day 5 Boma 6 pm dinner
Day 6 Les Chefs de France 6:40 dinner
Day 7 plan to use our snack credits for E F&W

We are not 3 full meals a day people so this works out fine for us.

Since there are two of us we are going to try splitting our two CS credits each day for breakfast and lunch/dinner. The last time we had the dining plan it was more than enough food and we were tempted to not do it this trip for that reason but it does save us around $300 even with being light eaters.

 

[Chelley00]

We usually done one ADR every day for dinner, and then occasionally we throw in a breakfast ADR for character meals. My kids would hate having to take away from park time 3 times a day to sit and eat.

 

[AndreaA]

Thanks for all the good advice, everyone!

Hubby and I enjoy good food, but our boys are not quite at that age. LOL! However, they're also not at the age where they can spend a whole day in the park, so time spent eating won't really matter to them.

I think that I will cancel the Tuesday Crystal Palace lunch and just do CS for breakfast and lunch that day. I did add a dinner at Yak and Yeti on Sunday so that we'll have eaten by the time we get back to AoA and can just relax. I'm guessing that the food at the AoA resort is nothing to write home about.

I'm hoping the boys will like character meals, but I'm a bit worried about that too!

 

[WSLover]

I've read from any here and other places that the food at AoA is pretty good. Not the usual food court fare. Looking forward to finding out for myself in Nov.

 

[wdwfan22]

I noticed that all of your ADRs are at or around the MK. Except I see you added a Yak & Yeti. Are you planning on spending all your days only at MK and one at AK?

Just wondering why you are not eating at or around any of the other parks? Also, I can see eating at CP twice since they are different meals, but are you sure you want to eat dinner 2 days in a row at Whispering Canyon. I do like it there also, but would not want it 2 days in a row. Not when there are so many other places to choose from. Even if you are only going to MK all of those days (I love MK, but I would not skip Epcot or HS) I would choose a different place to eat one of those dinners at.