Just out of curiosity...

[MrsRoyale]

Restaurants are a big part of the experience for us. We usually pick our park day first, based on crowd calendar and prior experience, then any "biggie" TS, like BOG, Ohana or R&C for Illuminations. The harder to get ressies get first priority and I try to grab those right when our window opens. Then we do plan our day around those ressies. We do also try to plan visiting new restaurants each time.

That's my plan exactly. It's like you are reading my mind. So I'm assuming that plan works out good for the most part?

 

[Alice777]

On our first trip (April 2016), we did not want to waste time eating at a restaurant (wanted to do much rides as we can) so we did CS thinking we might not be back at WDW. Somehow we are going again this November and definitely it'll be our last for a long time so I'm making it up by having 2 ADRs a day to try out much of the restaurants as we can. I planned my parks according to availability of ADRs and my concern is not the "best quality" of food but "unique experience" restaurants.

 

[Lisa F]

me sort of. I look at it all together. Like I really want to do GG for breakfast so how do I best do that? I will RD soarin' right at 9 and try to ride it a couple of times and then maybe livin' with the land and then breakfast at 10 at GG. I plan it equally important as my attractions though.

 

[prprincess]

Not usually, but we're on the DP for this upcoming trip, so yes, definitely planning days around meals.

 

[loves to dive]

We are a lot like AngiTN in that we love to eat at TS restaurants but we don't plan our day around them. We actually don't plan our days period. We decide what park we think we might want to go to the next day the night before and I'll grab maybe one or two FP. When we get to the park I'll either go to GS and get them to find us somewhere to eat or at some point during the day I'll get on MDE and find us somewhere. We have PHs (I have an AP) so the park doesn't matter and we are two adults so the time doesn't matter. We enjoy trying different places so that works well for us. We will eat at QS if we are in the mood or we may just grab something at WS while walking around. We just don't pin ourselves down to anything. One of our favorite meals is QS at Morocco, if we decided we didn't want QS we would have missed that. We also enjoy the small plates at Spice Road Tables, which you can almost always get a walk up.

 

[wnwardii]

How many people out there actually plan their days around where you will be eating that day??? Do you make your meals a part of your vacation just as much as visiting the rides, or do you really not care and just grab something quick on the go?

For me, definitely. While I haven't been in many, many years, I am booking dining for my upcoming trip like I did before. I am picking the restaurants that I and my friends want to go to. Then based on that and park hours, I am making the reservations. I am including character meals as well as signature/fine dining. So we will have a wide range of meals.

Now in previous trips, I have been known to modify reservations once I start my vacation. Have no idea if that will happen in October.

Basically do what feels right for you. It is your vacation. Like other people have mentioned, if there are specific restaurants you want, book those when your ADR window opens up. Then work everything else around that.

 

[mckennarose]

That's my plan exactly. It's like you are reading my mind. So I'm assuming that plan works out good for the most part?

It has so far. I will tell you that if I want a biggie reservation I will set my alarm to wake up right when my window opens at midnight. I don't do it for every reservation, only the restaurants I mentioned. We usually go in late Sept/early Oct or late April/early May. It's been a little harder to get the big ones in the Fall and we've been going in Spring more.

On our first trip (April 2016), we did not want to waste time eating at a restaurant (wanted to do much rides as we can) so we did CS thinking we might not be back at WDW. Somehow we are going again this November and definitely it'll be our last for a long time so I'm making it up by having 2 ADRs a day to try out much of the restaurants as we can. I planned my parks according to availability of ADRs and my concern is not the "best quality" of food but "unique experience" restaurants.

Keep in mind that 2 TS meals is a lot of food in one day so try to space them out if you can. It's also a lot of $$$ and can take up a lot of time in the day.

 

[TigerlilyAJ]

Mickey is at lots of meals, in all different costumes. None are "classic Mickey"
CM has Chef's attire
Ohana Breakfast, Hawaiian attire
Garden Grill, farming attire
H&V Dinner, seasonal attire
seems like I'm forgetting one here

Tusker House - jungle Mickey

Mickey's Backyard BBQ,which is sort of square-dancing Mickey? Country Mickey? Red gingham is involved. ;-)
Does he join Minnie at her Hollywood & Vine dinner? Don't they appear at Crystal Palace, too? Lots of Mickey opportunities!

 

[AngiTN]

Mickey's Backyard BBQ,which is sort of square-dancing Mickey? Country Mickey? Red gingham is involved. ;-)
Does he join Minnie at her Hollywood & Vine dinner? Don't they appear at Crystal Palace, too? Lots of Mickey opportunities!

Nope. That's Pooh.
No Mickey meal at MK

He does join Minnie at her Seasonal meal, I believe.

I forget the BBQ. It's not a character meal per se. Isn't the only opportunity to see the characters the dancing portion before the meal? Do they actually come table by table? It's outside and holds no appeal to us so it's one we'll never do

 

[AngiTN]

Tusker House - jungle Mickey

Thanks! I knew I forgot one

 

[MrsRoyale]

Oh wow! I'm completely out of touch with Character Dining!

In your experience, which one would you recommend for a birthday breakfast with Mickey? (My son will turn 5 at Disney)

 

[AngiTN]

Oh wow! I'm completely out of touch with Character Dining!

In your experience, which one would you recommend for a birthday breakfast with Mickey? (My son will turn 5 at Disney)

Chef Mickey's.
It is the only meal on property that will for sure acknowledge a celebration.
They provide a yellow napkin for the person who is celebrating something and there is special "napkin dance/twirling thing" done periodically during the meal. Your DS will have the yellow napkin so everyone will know he's celebrating something.
Any other acknowledgement is at the discretion of the CM and can be hit or miss. They may do nothing, they may give him something. At least CM does a little something for sure.

 

[Alice777]

Keep in mind that 2 TS meals is a lot of food in one day so try to space them out if you can. It's also a lot of $$$ and can take up a lot of time in the day.

Yes, thank you. That is why my plan is to share appetizer (or soup/salad) and one main course. We are not dessert people so we won't be ordering any desserts and probably just drink water. Most of our meals are around 6-7 hours apart.

When we did CS in April, we wasted alot of food and had alot of snacks left so end up bringing home alot of candies we really didn't need.

Since we live close to Disneyland, we are not concern about rides (since we did 85% of it in April)...just few we missed in April and this time we have hopper tickets so it helps.

 

[LBlovesM&WDW]

@MrsRoyale I start off by choosing my restaurants, then look at the crowd calendar (easywdw) to find the best days for each park and have our plan ready to go and book at 6:00am 180 days before. Yes, meals/restaurants are important and we rarely eat on the fly.

There are so many character meals your son might enjoy. Others have listed all the Mickey meals, but there is a Disney Jr meal at H&V or maybe Pooh and friends at CP your son might enjoy. Not sure if you know, but you can add his birthday to each ADR (reservation) and he can wear his pin and celebrate the entire vacation. He may or may not (up to the discretion of the CM) get special treats throughout your trip, confetti and streamers on the table or even a card signed by the characters.

 

[LowesChevy]

Since ADRS are made 180 days ahead of time, yes it usually does steer much of the planning. I generally start with a rough day to day schedule of which parks we will be visiting and then plug in restaurants to the plans. We like to eat a table service breakfast nearly everyday, so it is usually at The Wave, Kona, or Captain's Grill depending on where we are staying (monorail resorts or Epcot resorts) Lunch I prefer to eat at the park before we head back to the room for a break or some place along the way back to the resort. Dinners are usually 6-7 PM and it is either a destination like Artist Point that we drive or boat to, then we explore the resort a bit, check out the gift shop etc. Or dinners can be at Epcot where we have planned to hop to in the late afternoon anyhow.

FP+s can then be added around the reservations, but usually we have the 3 passes used come lunch time.

 

[jsk61006]

Chef Mickey's.
It is the only meal on property that will for sure acknowledge a celebration.
They provide a yellow napkin for the person who is celebrating something and there is special "napkin dance/twirling thing" done periodically during the meal. Your DS will have the yellow napkin so everyone will know he's celebrating something.
Any other acknowledgement is at the discretion of the CM and can be hit or miss. They may do nothing, they may give him something. At least CM does a little something for sure.

Oh wow! I didn't know about this! We'll be there Monday night and we'll be celebrating our twins' 5th birthdays. Hope this happens!

 

[nursejackie]

Our plans revolve around EMH and ADR's. We always have our staple meals (2 character breakfasts, Be Our Guest, Via Napoli, GF Café, Narcoosee's) but always try to vary our choices each year, trying different resorts too. This year Disney Springs has so many new ones to try but it's not our favourite place so we will probably miss out on most of those.

 

[nursejackie]

On our first trip (April 2016), we did not want to waste time eating at a restaurant (wanted to do much rides as we can) so we did CS thinking we might not be back at WDW. Somehow we are going again this November and definitely it'll be our last for a long time so I'm making it up by having 2 ADRs a day to try out much of the restaurants as we can. I planned my parks according to availability of ADRs and my concern is not the "best quality" of food but "unique experience" restaurants.

We feel the same about some of our ADR's. We always have dinner at Be Our Guest as we love the west wing in the beast's castle, and of course meeting the beast, but it's not our favourite food place. This is also true of breakfast at Garden Grill, we had a booth at 8am in this revolving restaurant, and got to meet the characters twice while checking out Living with the Land, and arrived at Soarin' queue before the park fully opened, but the platter delivered to the table did not excite us at all.

AND YET WE HAVE BOOKED BOTH AGAIN FOR THIS YEAR!!

 

[cluvsdisney]

We sort of pull the whole thing together at the same time. We'll pick park days based on EMH then we'll decide on which ADRs to make for in park dining. The rest of the meals/adrs are based on what we think we might want to do (if we want to see Bob Jackson, then we'll hit Boatright's for dinner, etc). Then we fill in the gaps with counter service, places that more easily take walk ups like ESPN, Crew's Cup, etc. or go off site to grab something. The dining part is not the biggest deal to us, it's just that we need to eat something.

 

[AngiTN]

Oh wow! I didn't know about this! We'll be there Monday night and we'll be celebrating our twins' 5th birthdays. Hope this happens!

They should ask when you arrive if you are celebrating anything. If they don't, mention it.
And if you are seated and they don't get yellow napkins, mention it.
And someone, please correct me if I'm wrong and CM has stopped the yellow napkin thing. It's been a while since we ate there but they were doing it as of April (our CR room overlooked CM and we saw it several times).