My ADR's - need opinions!

[BabyBug]

I'd love to get opinions from all of you Disney dining experts!

I made ADR's for CRT (dinner), Chef Mickey's (dinner) and the Princess lunch in Norway for our trip in January (7-14). My gang includes my DH , DD (5) and DD (9) . This is our FIRST trip to WDW and I really want to enjoy it. I didn't want to spend everyday worrying about getting to a reservation on time. Plus the thought of having a set place to dine everyday is too structured for me. Our main goal is to see the park - not much emphasis on the food we eat.

Breakfast will be eaten in our villa (we might venture out one day). Are there plenty of places to grab a quick lunch and/or dinner (not requiring reservations?) Did I miss a place that my girls would absolutely love to go and I'll be kicking myself later??

Thanks in advance!!

P.S. Our last night there is my 39th birthday....any suggestions where to celebrate? I'd love a cake from Mickey!! (of course - my hubby will totally forget it's my birthday - men!)

 

[cwnhokie]

This is what we did last time (our first time) and will be doing again. We had dinner at Chef Mickeys on the night we arrived. We got there in the afternoon and didn't want to waste a park ticket, but did Chef Mickeys to get in the mood and watched Wishes from the Contemporary after dinner. Then we had breakfast at CP the morning we did MK early before the park opened so that we could walk down main street alone, pretty cool. I have DS3 and DS4. We also did lunch at the castle but it wasn't a character one when we did it, but we did see Cinderella in the lobby, but neither of my boys would go see her. The rest of the time we ate in our timeshare. This time we have added Fantasmic dinner package and Whispering Canyon. This time we are going with DH's whole family and renting a pool home, I'm trying to make it extra special for the neices and nephews. You definately can't go wrong with any of your selections, after all it's WDW, your kids are not going to obsess about the food. Have fun!

 

[Hopefully]

First of All Welcome to the DIS BabyBug! You will find all kinds of information to help you plan your vacation here.
Your choices sound great for your family. You didn't mention whether or not you were on the Magic Your Way Dining Plan or not, and what time of year are you going?
You did say that your primary focus was on the theme parks and not on eating, so you probably do not want to spend a lot of time at TS (Table Service) restaurants. A TS meal will take an hour or more of your time. There are lots of good Counter Service (CS) places to get something to eat in all of the parks.
If you are on the Dining Plan, you may want to think about choosing a restaurant for your TS meal each day. Depending on the time of year you are going, it can be difficult to get into a TS at the last minute. You do not want to find yourself in the situation of having paid for something you can not use.
Take a look at the restaurant menus on allearsnet.com, they may help you to decide where you want to eat.
Have fun in all of your planning.

 

[crisi]

How many days total are you going for?

For me, that's a lot of character meals. But I'm not that fond of them. One every trip is a must with Mickey, and we did a second this year because my daughter is Princess age - but just her and I went.

If you want to maximize park time, character meals may not be a great choice. It isn't unusual to spend 90 minutes in a character meal, the last 20 waiting for the last character to cycle to your table after you've finished eating. They also seem to be the worst for us in terms of getting seated far past our ADR time.

However, there are lots of people who LOVE character meals and think its a wonderful use of your time.