Question about my dining choices

[SShewbert]

Ok so after working on this forever and having to redo it when I realized how much driving we would be doing if I made the reservations they way I had them set, I think I am finally ready to send in my choices.

Sept 2nd- Animal Kingdom
Tusker House for Breakfast
Picnic in the Park for lunch if it is open
Whispering Canyon Cafe for dinner


Sept 3rd- Epcot
Akershus for Breakfast
Coral Reef for Lunch
Boatwright's Dining Hall for Dinner

Sept 4th- DHS
Mara for Breakfast
50's Prime Time Cafe
Hoop Dee Doo Review Dinner

Sept 5th- Animal Kingdom
Sunrise Safari which will give us breakfast
Flame Tree BBQ for lunch
Chef Mickey's for dinner (my husband and son's birthday)

Sept 6th- Taking the Day Off
Grand Floridian for Breakfast
Planet Hollywood for Lunch
Captain's Grille for Dinner

Sept 7th- Epcot
Mara for Breakfast
Liberty Inn for Lunch
Mickey's Backyard BBQ for dinner

Sept 8th- DHS
Mara for Breakfast
Havent decided lunch, am figuring some QS
Hollywood and Vine for Dinner

Sept 9th- MK
Crystal Palace for Breakfast
Tony's Town Square for Lunch
Plaza Resturant for Dinner

Sept 10th- MK
Cinderella's Royal Table for Breakfast
Pecos Bill Cafe for Lunch
1900 Park Fare for Dinner

Sept 11th- leaving
Kona Cafe for Breakfast


Ok so here are my questions.

Will I be able to make it to all of these with having 10 days on my passes? Do I need to be able to get into one of the parks on the 11th to eat at Kona? With having a Park Hopper will that allow me to go to more than one park a day? Which ones of these will I have to pay for up front besides Cinerella's Royal Table? How will I get my money back from CRT since I will be using our dining plan?

 

[skier_pete]

Are you on the Deluxe DDP? You do realize that by eating 3 TS meals a day you will be spending most of your time in the restaurants. I myself rarely do more than one TS a day, and would NEVER do more than two. Each meal takes a good 1.5 to 2 hours (with waiting to be seated. To spend 6 hours a day dining seems a bit excessive...not to mention the amount of $$$ you are going to spend. Also, the AMOUNT of food is incredible. Eating CP for breakfast, we are not hungry for another sit down meal until dinner.

But, to answer your question at the bottom - Kona is at a hotel, you do not need a park ticket to eat at the resorts. CRT requires up-front payment and Akerhaus requires a credit card hold .I think the dinner shows also require up-front payment....or they need a confirmation with a DDP.

SkierPete

 

[Artgraph]

If your staying at a disney hotel which I'm assuming you are, all you need to do to get to Kona's on your day off is take the bus to MK and from there you can hop on the monorail to Polynesian. The bus does not go from one hotel to another so this will be the only way you can get there. You don't need to be in the park to do this. As far as getting your money back from your reservation, to the best of my knowledge, they simply credit your card, however if you don't show up, they will charge your card the Hold fee. Hope this help

 

[KatMark]

Ok so after working on this forever and having to redo it when I realized how much driving we would be doing if I made the reservations they way I had them set, I think I am finally ready to send in my choices.

Sept 2nd- Animal Kingdom
Tusker House for Breakfastnever done
Picnic in the Park for lunch if it is opennever done
Whispering Canyon Cafe for dinnerone of two Disney restaurants we will never eat at again


Sept 3rd- Epcot
Akershus for Breakfastnever done
Coral Reef for Lunchit's been years, but we always enjoyed our meals here
Boatwright's Dining Hall for Dinnerclose to being the third place we'll never go to again

Sept 4th- DHS
Mara for Breakfastnever done
50's Prime Time Cafealways a good meal
Hoop Dee Doo Review Dinnernever done

Sept 5th- Animal Kingdom
Sunrise Safari which will give us breakfast
Flame Tree BBQ for lunchone of our favorite counter services
Chef Mickey's for dinner (my husband and son's birthday)very unhappy last time we went here; much prefer breakfast

Sept 6th- Taking the Day Off
Grand Floridian for Breakfast
Planet Hollywood for Lunch
Captain's Grille for Dinner
Never done any of the ones you are doing on day off

Sept 7th- Epcot
Mara for Breakfast
Liberty Inn for Lunchenoyed this immensely three years ago
Mickey's Backyard BBQ for dinnernever done

Sept 8th- DHS
Mara for Breakfast
Havent decided lunch, am figuring some QS
Hollywood and Vine for DinnerThe #1 place we will never go again--two awful meals

Sept 9th- MK
Crystal Palace for Breakfasta must do for us--our favorite
Tony's Town Square for Lunchwe prefer lunch...smaller portions and not so crowded; always a good meal
Plaza Resturant for Dinneranother must do--always the last meal of our trip

Sept 10th- MK
Cinderella's Royal Table for Breakfastnever done
Pecos Bill Cafe for Lunchdon't really care for
1900 Park Fare for Dinnernever done

Sept 11th- leaving
Kona Cafe for Breakfastnever done, but I have read RAVE reviews


Ok so here are my questions.

Will I be able to make it to all of these with having 10 days on my passes? Do I need to be able to get into one of the parks on the 11th to eat at Kona? With having a Park Hopper will that allow me to go to more than one park a day? Which ones of these will I have to pay for up front besides Cinerella's Royal Table? How will I get my money back from CRT since I will be using our dining plan?

Yes, a Park Hopper allows you into more than one park a day. I'm not sure what else you havhe to pay up front for (maybe Hoop Dee Doo)

You do not need to go to a park to go to Kona. You can go to the TTC and walk to the Poly from there.

 

[SShewbert]

Thank you everyone for the advice. It is greatly welcomed. I have about a week I think left to get my choices ready to make my reservations.



The last question I have and this is because I worded it wrong the first time is.......Does a Park Hopper allow you to visit more than two parks a day. I do not see us doing this but say we went to Animal Kingdom in the morning, left and took the afternoon off, then went to Epcot, but MK was having late hours, would we then be able to go to MK after Epcot? So I guess I am asking can we enter as many parks as many times as we want to during a day with the Park Hopper?

 

[DisneyJen0504]

You have some great dining on your list!!

I do agree with the poster who said that is a lot of sit downs. Doing 3 TS a day will limit how much you will get to do and see in the parks. If that is okay with you-keep your ADRs as is.
We prefer to do 1 TS per day maybe 2 (breakfast and dinner) once or twice during trip. Otherwise it feels like we are always sitting down and eating rather than touring.

 

[Pumbaa_]

way too many meals. While most people eat 3 meals a day at home. eating out is so different. If we do a lunch buffet, we will have something light in the evening, more of a snack than a meal

I cannot eat 3 full meals a day at disney, we usually plan just 2

and it is a lot of time spent in restaurants when you can be in the parks.

To give yourself an idea, take a random weekend dayand go out and et 3 meals out. then roll on home

 

[kathie859]

FWIW, I think you've booked a whole bunch of eating! I have a really healthy appetite and I can't imagine enjoying 3 full meals a day while at WDW.

Especially while on vacation, I tend to eat one main meal a day and grab a CS sandwich or snack when I feel like it. If I ate three meals a day, I'm afraid I wouldn't have room for Dole Whips, turkey legs, popcorn, Mickey Bars, etc. And THAT just wouldn't do!!

 

[Canyon girl]

I don't know what kind of climate you live in, but with the heat and humidity in FL in Sept., you will likely NOT feel like eating that much.

 

[mistysue]

My family does eat that much, so I don't see an issue with your schedule beyond the part where you are spending a lot of time traveling to food on a few days.

I don't know what times you are scheduling food for, but I would make sure you ALWAYS have at least two in the same general place... So do either breakfast and lunch OR lunch and dinner in the same park.

I think you may find your day off very stressful. We did a lot of dining outside the parks last time and it was stressful to get to almost every time. Are you staying at AKL? (guessing from all the Mara trips) If so, why not try something there, like a Boma breakfast and a lunch at Sanaa? Then you could really have a day to relax.

I found last trip it gave us many more choices if we scheduled two meals in the same park for the day but left either breakfast or dinner open so we had a chunk of the day that was open to go wherever we wanted.

Did you specifically want the Hollywood and vine for dinner or do you just want to go there? Because I might switch that to a breakfast and then do 50's PT on the same day. Then you are "locked in" to HS for one day, but you can still go that second day if you want.

My sister's last trip she scheduled 3 meals on many days and they found that where she thought they wanted to be and the park they actually wanted to be in were often NOT the same so she was calling dining frantically at the last minute trying to get into places at the parks where she wanted to be.

We also found that we really liked the fireworks and evenings at MK and Epcot plus Epcot has a lot of great dinner locations. Why not do dinner at Epcot and watch Illuminations? Your MK days look good for checking out their evenings.

 

[SShewbert]

I rearranged some of the meals and left our lunches open so that we can go wherever we want if we feel like eating, and if we dont then we dont have to eat because we wont have reservations.

We are staying at the AKL so I figured Mara for breakfast on some days will be fine, and from what I read it is stuff we can grab and take with us, so we can grab it and let the kids eat in the car on the way to the park for the day.

We are very early risers between 6 and 6:30 and have three kids ages 5,3, and our youngest will be celebrating his second birthday while we are there. My kids also go to bed fairly early in the evenings because they wake up so early. If they do not go to bed at their bedtime then they still wake up at the same time only they are cranky all day. So that would make for a miserable day. So I plan on sticking to their bedtimes while we are there, therefore leaving the parks for dinner will not be that big of a deal.

I think leaving the parks for dinner sounds better because it will tell our kids that the day is done and it is time to wind down and eat. Then we can head back to the hotel for bathes and bed. To me it makes the most sense.

Our day off will be spent in DTD so the driving isn't a problem. We also plan on using our first day driving around in FL since we love to travel and have never been to FL. Is there much to see in the immediate area? I plan on making our 1900 Park Fare dinner for the first night if I can get it. So we would not want to go to far.

My husband is a really picky eater so therefore my choices are limited. Based on what is on the DDP and the menus I was looking at I found one place other than the breakfast that we would eat at in Epcot. I also think Mara would be the only one that my husband would eat at, at AKL.

Magic Kindgom sees the be the park that we would spend most of our time in, so I plan on making the most out of our last two days in the MK.