Newbie needs tips on planning our ADR schedule

[chinabound123]

Can you all give me tips on how to plan our ADR schedule? I feel overwhelmed with trying to coordinate it all, especially without park hoppers. Where do I begin? We are staying onsite; do I schedule ADR's in the parks on days with EMH? What about planning around the parades? Help!

Laura

 

[mrs_incredible]

Can you all give me tips on how to plan our ADR schedule? I feel overwhelmed with trying to coordinate it all, especially without park hoppers. Where do I begin? We are staying onsite; do I schedule ADR's in the parks on days with EMH? What about planning around the parades? Help!

Laura

Trip planning can be overwhelming, if you let it. First get a general idea of which parks you are going to visit on which day. Dining at resorts cna give you the freedom to change park plans at the last minute if need be and still have a meal no matter where you end up. Parades are usually around 3 and fireworks shows/ spectro parade are at night around park closing times. Plan a lunch or breakfast on days when you think you will see fireworks or the night time parades. EMH's are nice and if you need to leave the park to eat, you can still come back to catch the evening EMH. YOu'll be fine. This board is a great source of information. Don't stress, enjoy the planning!

 

[Mama Lo]

Hi Laura, so you going to Disney World!

I remember planning early trips and feeling totally overwhelmed. I got and liked the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World which I read nearly cover to cover. If you buy the book you will have access to their online crowd calendar so you can see which parks they recommend as the best to visit.

Are you more then 90 days out? You didn't mention who you are traveling with. When I was 20 we would go to am EMH and still be there at close but couldn't do that now with my 5 and 7 year olds.

As for the ADR's, first figure out which restaurants you want, even that is a job. Then try to plot out your days and plug in the ADR's you want to make when. Try to figure out which places you really want and go for those first. You will be able to tweak your plan later, I am 30 days out and still contemplating changing things around. The online reservation system is wonders for considering the possibility of other options.

It can get very crowded on the EMH days so if you aren't going to hop you will be in the company of many others. You can however go to EMH, take a break at the hotel and then revisit that same park.

Remember it is vacation so go easy on yourself. It will be fun no matter what.

 

[pennst8r]

Just make sure you take advantage of booking your ADRs at 90 days.

 

[natalielongstaff]

have a good look at the dining boards and see where you would like to eat

 

[Faldred]

Here's the way we did it (with Deluxe, and without Park Hoppers)...

First things first -- we put together a list of our "must do" restaurants. Making the ADRs for them was the first order of business, and based on when we got those, we planned our park days around them. Then, we filled in any additional ADRs around the park schedule we worked up.

Without park hoppers, I strongly suggest skipping EMH whenever possible. You'll be dealing with heavy crowds much of the time. If you must do an EMH park, prefer the AM EMH park. Get there at EMH rope drop and go full-bore until about noonish, when the park starts to get packed. Collect, but do not use fastpasses throughout the morning as best as you can. Do your lunch (note that CS places will be packed from noon to 2:00 or so), then spend the afternoon using your fastpasses, any ride that has minimal to no line, taking in the parades or other shows, shopping, etc. Or you can take some of the afternoon off for a rest, swimming, etc. Your dinner can then be scheduled early enough so that you can return to the park in time for fireworks.

 

[MarinaAndCharlie]

Here is a list of menus for each eating establishment in WDW:

http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm

You may have to cross reference with the DDP PDF that says which restaurants are counter service and which are table service.

I would go through the menus and do a search on Flickr.com for pictures of restaurants that sound interesting to you. Then make a list of the top 15 or so. You can either plan your days around your food or your food around your days. If eating at Le Cellier is more important to you than visiting Epcot on a specific day then do you a search (or call) and see if you can find any ADRs for Le Cellier on any of the days youre visiting. Do this with each restaurant in order of importance. If youre using TourGuideMiKe or touringplans.com to pick the best days to visit each park due to crowd level, you'll have to narrow your possibilities to whats available on that day in that park. In that case, say youre going to Epcot on Friday, make a list of Epcot restaurants in order of importance and run the search that way.

Make sure to shoot for ADRs at off eating times like 11:00 or 2:00 for lunch, as those will be less filled time slots than 12:00 or 1:00. If youre wanting to see the afternoon parades, an early lunch is always safer as you'll need to stake out your spot a good half hour or so before the parade begins.

 

[chinabound123]

Thanks for the pointers so far. I am traveling in December with my dh and two daughters, age seven and five. We are planning to only do half days in the parks; either a.m. or p.m. I doubt we will return after we leave at mid day. We will relax at the resort the rest of the time or visit downtown Disney.

We have selected the restaurants we want to do table service meals at. It's just figuring out the logistics of what days and times to visit the ones that are in the parks. And then, my fear is that I will finally get it all worked out in my head, but due to lack of availability, I will have to rework the whole plan.

Laura

 

[Faldred]

If you're only going to do half-days in the parks, then by all means get there in the morning! You can get pretty much as much done by noon (especially on an EMH morning) than you can from noon-close.