How many PS's are too many????

[WDWorld2003]

I've never made PS's before as our last trip we didn't stay or eat on site other than counter food.

This time I've made a few - we're doing the Hoop Dee Doo one night and I've made a reservation for a dinner at Ohana's our first night and 1 night at CRT.

Should I made one for every day? more than 1 meal? Will we drive ourselves crazy trying to get to a PS from a Park????

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[becka]

Make as many as you feel comfortable with.

For a 7 day trip we usually make a minimum of 9. We try to do a sit down meal at least once each day (lunch or dinner) and then usually two days we will do a sit down for two meals (often breakfast and dinner). I don't mind being on a little bit of a schedule and I don't let it stress me out if we are late (which we have been a time or two).

We enjoy trying the different restaurants and we have had good luck and have only had 1-2 meals that we did not enjoy. Some people hate to spend valuable theme park time sitting in a restaurant so for them 1 PS may be too many.

 

[Cameo]

You didn't mention if you have kids or not. That seemed to make a difference for us. I love trying all the different restaurants, but on our last trip we had too many PS's. It was hard to be someplace for dinner when the kids were still napping. I did feel guilty if we would have not shown up so we went to all.

I think my kids (4 and 2) were overwhelmed with characters at the meals. They didn't eat much when the characters were around.

I would say one per day is the most I would do and for our next trip, we are trying to cut down to one every other day.

There's always the cost to consider also. It's a lot of money to spend if your kids are distracted and cranky.

Whatever you decide, try to relax and have fun!!

 

[grinningghost]

We are an "dining out" family. We often eat at restaurants at home and think nothing of missing some park time to sit down and enjoy a meal. I think it depends on your idea of fun. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to your question. Of course, if you do want to cover every inch of the parks, waterparks and DQ, you might want to limit your PS's to one per day, or maybe every other day. That way you're not strapped to a schedule. It's not much fun when you've been waiting in line for something and realize if you don't leave right away, you won't make your PS. Watch out for that. Have fun.

 

[WDW2000]

I think anything over 1 a day is too many. Personally I will never use PS again. My first trip I had PS for 3 meals a day times 10 days and it seemed we had ended up cancelling almost all of them. It's really hard (for me anyway) to decide months in advance what and where I will want to eat, cause once you're there it's really hard to stick to a set schedule. Since then I have never used PS and have never had trouble getting in any restaurant without one. I'd say, do it for any "must-do" or "hard-to-get" meals like "HOOP DE DOO" or CINDERELLAS CASTLE other than that I wouldn't bother.

 

[Eeyore1954]

My DW and I do a PS for a lot of our meals. We like having the opportunity to snag the first table that will seat 2 -- which is just about any table! But we do some research on the popularity of restaurants. For example, we love Restaurant Marrakesh in Morocco, but never do a PS there. It's never been crowded at lunch so we just wander in whenever we want.

On the other hand, Le Cellier almost always requires a PS. Same for 50's PTC at MGM (another fav of ours).

A lot depends on where we want to eat and if we want to be "free" or "bound" by a PS. Having too many can be a hassle sometimes -- on one trip we felt like we were just running from one PS to the next.

Our general rule of thumb: character meal -- do a PS! Popular restaurant or show -- do a PS! Lunch -- we usually wing it unless we want a popular restaurant like 50's PTC, Crystal Palace, etc.

 

[crisi]

Really good advice here.

I like one sit down meal a day - breakfast, lunch or dinner. And I like to make a PS for it. Some people seem to have better luck with walk ups for meals than I do - I've been turned away too many times to have confidence in walk ups (and not necessarily at the hard to get places or at crowded times - we were turned away from Sci Fi, Teppenyaki, and Whispering Canyon in early Feburary and watched people be turned away from San Angel Inn on the same trip).

A really good idea is to call the day of - even an hour before - if you change your mind and want to eat somewhere else.

We've always just park hopped to Epcot in the afternoon for dinner - or made dinner plans late at our hotel or a hotel in the vicinity of our hotel or the park we were going to be at that day. It really isn't a huge deal to get from Epcot to Spoodles or from the MK to Narcoosees.

But traveling with kids makes a BIG difference. Our last trip had far fewer sit down meals in it because it was hard to plan around a 2 and 3 year old. Also the priority you place on eating. . . .commando style touring does not fit with lots of long sit down meals.

 

[danicaw]

Depending on what time of year we go we make about 1 a day.
On our last trip (Sept 02) we made only 1 PS Ressie ahead of time - Boma breakfast on the day we arrived. The rest we made once on property the day before or the same day. And in most cases the crowds were light and we didn't really need them.
I plan to make 1 a day on our next trip. We are going with extended family and this will be the group meal each day. Since its will be more than just the 2 of us I am more comfortable making the PS Ressies ahead of time.

 

[jdads2]

I would second the advice about making PS's for hard to get shows or events...Cindy's, Hoop-Dee-Doo, Liberty Tree tavern during a holiday party. You may also want to make them just to make sure that you'll get a PS on a specific day. Maybe you want to go to Boma on the day you visit AK (remember that Boma is at AKL, not AK). You can make PS's when you get into the parks by visiting guest relations or by locating a guest services phone. I always felt it was easier to cancel than be dissappointed by not getting what I wanted.