How to balance old/new?

[Pdollar88]

I’m preparing for my third trip on my AP. Planning on renewing next year.

There are so many places that I’d like to try (or revisit after many years). How do you balance eating at new places vs. old/new favorites?

 

[rentayenta]

Its been almost 6 years for us and basically our first trip without kids with makes the vibe a little different. They are generally the focus, like 99% of the time, so an adult's only/anniversary trip opened up options in regard to how we'll spend our time. The only do-over DH insists on is Raglan Road; easy enough. The rest of our TS will be new to us! I am super excited. My thinking is we will be back eventually. Also talk to the rest of your party, see what they are interested in if applicable.

I started with a huge list and have changed it up some from the start of planning about 5 months ago. Maybe look at menus, take into account the foods you can get near you, and go from there? Il Mulino was on my list the entire time until I finally got DH to look at menus and we realized, two of the best Italian restaurants we have ever been to are both about 3 miles from us. Not to asy we cannot get other foods like seafood, steaks etc but great Italian near us at not $$$$ is a slam dunk.

Almost our entire list will be new to us this trip. We have chosen: California Grill (brunch), Jiko (dinner), Tiffins (late lunch), Wine Wednesdays at Jiko, Flying Fish (dinner), BoG (lunch), Yachtsman Steakhouse (dinner), Boma (breakfast), Homecomin' (lunch). We have also added a couple lounges to the list; HBD and Nomad.

Sanaa is one of our favorites but we have been twice before so we are venturing out. Nothing says we can't eat there if we change our mind.

Good luck with your choices! Change is good.

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

We pick one new place and one old favorite and start there. It narrows it down because I usually won't do more than one TS per day (and some days there are none at all). For instance if I choose Via Napoli, then I know we are not going to any other Epcot TS unless we go to Epcot a second time, if that makes sense. From there, I typically err on the side of choosing something new. The "classics" will likely be there on my next trip (and if they aren't then at least I have the memories).

 

[Tksolomom]

We are spending 10 days at Disney and normally have 1 TS per day. We mixed it up 50/50. Some places we are going to miss this trip (CG ). New is Biergarten, Jiko, Morimoto, Yak and Yeti and Homecomin. Returning is Chefs de France, Ohana, 1900 Park Fare, 50s Primetime and Sci-Fi diner.

 

[TwinkleKS]

I try to rotate things in and out. There are a few places that I have eaten at for over 30 years (Mexico), so I keep that meal, but other than that I try to mix it up some. We went on a Le Cellier string for three or four trips, so this year no Le Cellier. I try to add two new restaurants every year that we have never eaten at ... after numerous trips we are now trying a lot of resort restaurants.

 

[liquid17]

For our upcoming trip, I had every one (5 of us) choose their top three restaurants and I chose the ones that overlapped the most. So the favorites this time were - 'Ohana. Garden Grill. Rose and Crown. Skipper Canteen. Le Cellier. We'll be there 8 nights so we needed a few more. By then I had a plan of where we would be each day and I told them that one should be in DTD, one in Epcot or HS, and the last maybe in our resort?

So we voted and came up with San Angel and The Edison. We're staying at POFQ for the first time so we figure we'll try Boatwrights. UNLESS they re-open Shutters at the CBR before our trip. We've stayed at the CBR several times and love Shutters so we would prefer to see the new Shutters - if they actually make it Shutters and not something new.

And. I planned three more meals just becasue I could! A dinner at BOG for my daughters - they want to try the new menu. It's pricey so my husband may veto it when we get there but at least we have the res. A lunch at the Plaza for everyone - we may cancel it closer to the day but I really want to eat there again and I make the reservations so I stuck it in! And someplace new, Beaches and Cream, for my daughters and me - it looks like fun and we would just have ice cream.

 

[loves to dive]

We have been going for about 33 years, at least every other year for about 20 years and lately for about the past 4 years, I've been going at least 3 times a year. When my son goes with me we try not to repeat very many restaurants, we like to try new things. Because we go often, we are able to get our old favorites in at least once a year. For a week long trip we might do 2 favorites, HBD lounge for lunch and Spice Road Tables small plates for lunch and the rest new to us places. If we are just too tired for words and just want somewhere to eat, we will repeat if there is something open at the time we are looking. We don't book in advance but just hop on MDE in the afternoon for that evening, we have park hoppers (AP for me) and are two adults so parks don't matter and times don't matter.

 

[MomOTwins]

We do mostly old favorites because nostalgia/family memories are a big part of why we love returning to WDW. We are trying three new restaurants on our upcoming trip; the rest are oldies.

 

[gharter]

We go about twice a year. Each trip, we have a few restaurants that we always like to do. We always try and add a few new ones to the mix and then fill in with ones we've have't been to in a while.

 

[GillianP1301]

I struggle with this and each year there are fewer new places because we end up with more and more favourites. We do a lot of TS dining (about 20 - 24 usually on our 10 day trip), so we have lots of opportunities to try new stuff. I'd say we are at about 25% old favourites and 25% new. It's just my son and I so I usually start with asking him where he most wants to eat and then go from there.

 

[CynBeth]

We visit every few years around holiday time. My family members have food allergies so we pretty much have all 3 meals at TS and have favorites we must do every trip and then some we alternate between. We usually try to do 1 new. We find the time spent at lunches and dinners is our time to relax and recharge.

 

[Burgundy Rose]

We just ended our first trip but I've already started making a list of all the places we didn't have a chance to get go and that I desperately want to eat at!

WILL DO AGAIN NO MATTER WHAT
Skipper Canteen
Peco's Bill
La Cava del Tequila
Nomad Lounge
Satu'li Canteen
Kona breakfast
Yachstman Steakhouse
Sanaa
Jiko
Boma breakfast

MUST-DO FOR THE FIRST TIME
Spice Road Table
Tiffins
Yak and Yeti
The Wave breakfast
Todd English's bluezoo
Shula
Trail’s End breakfast
Grand Floridian Café
Citricos
Narcoossee’s
Olivia’s Café
Trader Sam’s
Most of Disney Springs

I guess that makes it 60% new or more. I'm sure once we'll have hit all those places we'll mostly revisit old favourites so this number should go down.

 

[Oneanne]

I generally try to shoot for 50/50, and the 50% of must-dos changes from trip to trip because new must-dos keep coming out of the 50% of new choices. For my fall trip this year I'm going to mix it up and do mostly lite bites at the lounges. And there may or may not be some alcohol consumed...

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Every trip I aim to try at least one restaurant that is new to me. As others have said, there are some favorites I do on every trip, and other places I re-visit once in a while.

 

[DisneyHardin]

It's so hard!!! We have so many favorites. I try to add in at least one new one each trip. This year we are doing Homecomin' totally new and Whispering Canyon for Breakfast (we've done dinner before).

 

[Farro]

It seems we do new ones each visit. The only constant is Via Napoli because we like the pizza and it's our go to Epcot restaurant. That said, next trip we are trying Chefs De France and La Haciencda De San Angel instead.

Then we go to anything that has opened since our last visit. Since we plan to stay at Yacht Club, that will be the new Ale and Compass restaurant (I think that's the name). We didn't get to Homecomin last time, so we will go there.

We don't do in parks restaurants much (besides Epcot). But we may try Boma on our Animal Kingdom Day.

We liked Spice Road Table in 2014 and plan to go again next trip.

Maybe Boathouse,...who knows what else, I've got some time.

 

[bluejasmine]

It really is hard bc your more comfortable going back to the places and foods you already like and know.. This trip we decided to do deluxe dining so we could try more places while keeping some of our old, we have our go to places like Ohana, Biergarten, LTT,Trex, Le Cellier, SCi Fi, Boma Breakfast but this trip we added new ones Skippers Canteen, Jiko, CG Brunch, The Wave Breakfast, Home Coming, and Rose and Crown while returning to a few we haven't been to in awhile Via Napoli, Chefs De France, Narcossee and Cape May and BOG breakfast

This isn't a normal trip for us but normally we strive to try 1 to 2 new places.

 

[gillep]

It is difficult. I would be happy trying only new restaurants but DH would be just as happy only ever going to old favorites so we try our best to do a little of each. I find it particularly hard to try new places because most of the new to us places are at Disney Springs and we just don't make it over there every trip.