My love/hate relationship with breakfast reservations

[disneybliss2]

How many of you make several (or at least more than one) breakfast reservations on a trip? Do you enjoy it, or have you found it cut into park touring or sleep time? I'd love to hear your take on breakfast reservations.

As I look at all the reservations I keep playing with for our upcoming trip, I keep coming up with breakfast ADRs that I want to make.

Here's the rub: we're going this summer when it will be hot and crowded. We're big on rope drops so that we can take advantage of touring the park with less people and to enjoy the park while it's cooler. Having early breakfast reservations cuts into rope drop, or causes you to get up that much earlier to have a reservation before park opening. We get up early every day while on our trip anyway; getting up that much earlier is AWFUL trying to get my girls out of bed. Though we don't stay out late touring the parks (we can't burn the candle at both ends), my girls do go to bed later than at home. Plus, with all there is to do each day, it's just tiring. My husband doesn't like the idea of stopping mid-morning for a later reservation time for breakfast either. He's afraid the girls would get too hungry before then, that it would disrupt the flow of rides or fastpasses, etc. We usually eat breakfast in our hotel room (cereal I bring from home; buy milk at hotel & refrigerate). Eating a big breakfast, lunch, and dinner is just too much food. We're on the dining plan (1 CS & 1 TS). DH would rather use the TS for dinner than breakfast.

On the other hand, both of my girls' favorite meal is breakfast. They love it! It's such a fun way to start the day too, especially if it's a character breakfast. All of the new restaurants that are appealing to me happen to be breakfast too. I'm thinking if we added another breakfast it might add to the trip, but when I look at all my cons I listed above, well...then I start thinking I'm opening a can of worms. ARG! What to do, what to do...

 

[summermac]

We had two breakfasts on our last trip, one at Tusker House at 9:10 and one at CP at 8:30. The TH ressie screwed our ENTIRE day up at AK. The CP ressie made our entire day perfect b/c we were all up & at em and ready to roll with a full belly by about 9:20.

It did stink being up earlier though.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

It is hard to get up early for a park opening breakfast but we enjoy them. We try to do one or two during a week long trip. If it's only one maybe pay oop and keep your credits for dinner.

 

[papamouse1]

We're not big on breakfast ressies, but have to say when we DO decide to do them, we love the early ones that get us in & set for the park... fun being there before the public

 

[Marshypooh]

It all depends on how long we are staying. We are breakfast lovers so we definitely make sure we have at least a few breakfast ressies per trip. A shorter trip of 7-8 days maybe only 3 breakfasts. A longer trip of 10 days or more we plan on 4-6 breakfast mornings. As you mentioned, yes, sometimes it feels as if breakfast can hold you back a bit from accomplishing a lot in the mornings. That's why we limit how many ressies we have per trip. It's nice to have a few mornings that we aren't feeling tied down to making an early reservation on time. On those days we skip breakfast we eat an early lunch. I think once we get moving and having fun at the parks, those morning hunger pains subside and we are fine until 11 or 11:30. It can get terribly exhausting anyway if you try to keep up the same dining routine day after day, so flexibility and variety are key in helping to maintain your sanity during a WDW trip.

As you said too, character breakfasts are such a fun way to start a day. It's not like they are something we experience all the time at home. If we have a buffet for breakfast, we are usually quite content to wait until dinner time for another meal. No matter how we plan our dining schedule every day, we only have two meals. So therefore, we really aren't losing that much time as far as rides and attractions are concerned.

 

[rentayenta]

We like breakfast but not until a little later, after touring for a good hour or so. I hate to waste precious park time eating. Of course we stop and enjoy some pancakes etc once everyone is hungry but we generally have a small bite in the villa before we leave.


Now that my kids are over the character breakfast thing, I don't see many morning ADRs in our future. I would like to try Boma's breakfast though some time. I've heard it's really good.

 

[Mikey'swife]

We like the pre park opening meals but we are down to 2 for 7 days because after a few days we get lazy and just want to sleep.

 

[pepe of ohio]

We have to have breakfast every day.....in room, brought from home items are not for us......character breakfast are not so much for us either (time consuming).....basically we enjoy what our resort has to offer in the am (we're usually at WL) and Roaring Fork QS dishes are just right....eggs, meat, biscuit, hash browns...orange juice and pancakes....decent priced and fast and huge.....wife and I usually share one platter easily....

It wouldn't be much different in what we ordered if we went to a TS breakfast anywhere else....why waste the time and travel and possibility higher cost.....our QS is perfect...we get there as soon as they open, before the late risers.....have a good breakfast and have plenty of time before any park opening.....but if you're after characters, you just have to take the extra time and expense and plan accordingly.....one of those is enough for us on any trip....but we'll do those on a non park, shopping day.....

 

[Sweet Melissa]

We have problems with breakfast reservations, but not the same problems that you do.

We are not early risers when we're on vacation. We may wake up at 7 or 7:30 and not leave our room until after 9. We don't care about being in the parks at rope drop because doing the E-ticket attractions first thing in the morning isn't our biggest priority. We love breakfast and like to do a couple table service breakfasts while we're on vacation, but find that making reservations for them is too much of a hassle. We like to tour Disney in a style that can best be described as moseying.

When we were in the habit of making breakfast reservations, we found ourselves arriving late more often than not. We've learned that we just can't be counted on to be anywhere any earlier than 9:30. Since we don't patronize the most popular breakfast spots (we never dine at buffets or character meals), and we don't vacation during peak season, reservations really aren't necessary for us.

 

[Celestia]

If you don't breakfast before park opening then it will definitely cut into your park touring time. We usually do one breakfast during our 7-10 day trip on a park day and then have a late breakfast on our departure day. That way we can get up, get backed and have one last disney experience before we leave. Our other breakfast is either a pre-park opening ADR or the last possible seating for breakfast.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

We are BIG on breakfast ADRs... Specifically...character breakfasts.

While it helps that we are early risers due to work schedules and school schedules, we've found that it actually helps us with touring the parks.

The first key is getting the earliest seating of the day. Chef Mickey's opens at 7am...we actually ate breakfast and made it to Epcot rope drop. When we did Crystal Palace and Tusker House- we were exiting the restaurants just as the crowds were being let into the parks- so really, no time lost there either. When we did Hollywood & Vine breakfast- we actually got out w/5 minutes to spare...saw the end of the show and I was able to work in with the crowd to get TSMM fastpasses. 'Ohana and Cape May both offer slots before 8am, so you can totally make it to the closest park's opening with those. 1900 Park Fare doesn't start seating until 8a so you'd be running maybe about 5-15 min behind rope drop at MK with the first seating based on our experiences. CRT and Akershus are ones we haven't done for breakfast, but based on our lunch and dinner experiences- those take a little longer so we've never done them for breakfast.

While it helps that we're good at getting up- we find that ultra early character meals have another time saving park touring benefit. All that meet and greet experience during breakfast kind of cures our girls of wanting to get on character lines- at least for a good 3-4 hrs...so we get to spend more time playing.

The other time saver with it- we're usually full enough from a nice TS character breakfast to be able to last until dinner with just light snacks.

 

[whitney37354]

We had breakfast ADR's every morning @ 9. We left the parks everyday between 12 & 1 for an afternoon break, then back to the parks after 6 p.m. dinner ADRs.

If I made all the decisions, I'd eat a Pop-tart in the room at 7 a.m., then tour the parks until I needed a QS lunch. I'd just keep going until I was hungry for dinner, then I'd probably head back to the resort to crash after dinner.

DH needs a hot breakfast & I didn't want to have to rush to breakfast, so I just made sure we left the resort by 8:00 a.m. That's 30 minutes later than we leave home every morning, so we really just kept a schedule as if we were at home & everything worked out.

 

[mcd2745]

To me...my daily breakfast ADRs are the most important ones for my trip. I love a big breakfast, and it's my favorite meal. I have no use for lunch as I prefer to just grab a snack or two during the day before dinner. I always make early breakfast ADRs either at the resort where we are staying (usually for DHS, Epcot, and water park days) or at/near the park we'll be touring that day (Tusker House for AK, Chef Mickey's or Crystal Palace for MK) . We're not early risers by nature, but at WDW, we feel it's a must.

 

[angierae]

What we're doing on our next trip is doing RD on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (so one day at each park) and then our breakfast ADRs are on Thursday and Friday, on days we're going to take a little slower.

 

[ARS123]

We used to have a lot of the same problems with breakfast ADRs you've mentioned, but we really wanted to try at least one. So, what we do now is make a breakfast ADR on the day we're planning to head to one of the waterparks. We don't really worry about being at the waterpark at rope drop, so it's no problem for us. Make an ADR at Ohana for 9:00, finish eating by 10:00, and be in the wave pool at Typoon Lagoon by 10:30 - works for us.

__

 

[scrappinginontario]

We book about half of our ressies for breakfast but normally later. One this trip is 11:00!

We're still at the parks for rope drop and grab FP's to popular rides, go on some rides and then head off for breakfast.

We quite enjoy this and it gives us full bellies until supper so sometimes cuts down on the amount of food we purchase.