Reservation planning...........

[wcw57]

this may be in the wrong forum....

we will be in Kidani.....

how do you guys plan your dinner/lunch reservations...?
we only need to make a couple of 'em but how do you base your park and eating timing?

also, Whispering Canyon for lunch or dinner on our "day off" from the parks?

any and all input would be helpful

THANX!!!

 

[nklooz]

this may be in the wrong forum....

we will be in Kidani.....

how do you guys plan your dinner/lunch reservations...?
we only need to make a couple of 'em but how do you base your park and eating timing?

also, Whispering Canyon for lunch or dinner on our "day off" from the parks?

any and all input would be helpful

THANX!!!

I first decide which parks we will be at on each day, whether we will be doing any night time entertainment, etc. I lay out an itinerary for the entire week, then, I add in dining based on what will be fun and good food but also work conveniently w/in my itinerary. We make lots of ADRs and love character dining, but I don't let them dictate to what day we go to what park, etc. I always assume 1 1/2 hrs for a TS, though they don't always take that long. I'd fit in WCC on a day you're going to be at MK. If it's a half day at the park, take the boat over to WL after the park for lunch, if a full day, take the boat over after the park for dinner. Doesn't matter either way, just don't go through the hassle of doing lunch and then heading back over to the park. Only do lunch if you're planning the half day at the park.

 

[mickeynut1]

We decide which restaurants we're going to eat at and I make the ADRs and we just work around where our dinner is when we get there. We never plan ahead of time which park we will be at which day.......we just do what we feel like doing each day when we get up and get to where we need to be for our ADRs when the time comes. I love planning our ADRs, but other than that, we don't concern ourselves with which park we'll be at daily or who has EMH....we just go with the flow and take it easy .

 

[Missyrose]

I think a lot depends on whether you have park hoppers. If you have them, then you can plan as much or as little as you want because you're not bound to a single park during the day.

Say on Day 2 of your trip you have a lunch ADR to see Remy at Le Chefs de France, but you end up wanting to make that day a MK day. If you have hoppers, you can zip over to Epcot for lunch and then head back to MK. If you don't have hoppers, then you either have to change the ADR or change your park plan to make it an Epcot day.

I like to look at the crowd calendars (either touringplans.com or easywdw.com) to get an idea of which parks are best on which days BEFORE I make my ADRs.

 

[dvcHammer]

As a rule, we don't make ADR's unless it is for a larger group or a special occasion.

My goal on a trip is to eat where where ever we are when we get hungry.

So it depends on how many are in your party, if you have kids with you, if you like TS or CS food, etc...

Make your park plans and then fill in dining around it.

 

[wcw57]

so far so good!


make sense to me...........

 

[sndral]

We rely on Disney transportation, so I want my TS dinners to be in or near a park that will be open after my dinner is done so that I can bus back to my resort w/out doing the DTD transfer.

 

[Missytara]

We rely on Disney transportation, so I want my TS dinners to be in or near a park that will be open after my dinner is done so that I can bus back to my resort w/out doing the DTD transfer.

I do the exact opposite, since I stay at POR. I always take the bus from the resort I am eating at back to DTD and take the water taxi back. It is a nice way to end the evening.

 

[ReneeA]

I use touringplans.com to plan my park days - what parks have the lowest crowd levels, what each parks hours are, and which ones have EMH for the day. I figure out how many days we want to spend at each park, and then sit down with a calendar and write out an itinerary for the stay. From there, I decide what restaurants we want to eat at and plug them into my calendar taking into consideration the fact that we are not a hopping family, and we don't like to waste alot of time on transportation...so we choose restaurants close to our chosen park for that day.

Last year, we stayed for 11 days during a slow time of year, so I decided to do less planning and be more spur of the moment. I thought DH and the kids would like to have more choices and for our trip to be a little more flexible. Let's just say it didn't work out as well as I had thought. Every morning we got up, and they all looked at me like, "What are we doing today?" When told it was up to them, and that most of our meal reservation were at resort restaurants so we could be flexible, nobody was happy. They liked having plans made for them, crowd levels and hours figured out ahead of time, and reservations in the park or really close to them made.

This year I'm making an itinerary again.

 

[Missytara]

I only make ADR's when I am traveling with a group and we are doing the dining plan - to get the best bang for our buck.

When I go alone, I mostly sit at the bar and eat at different times, and for good company, so I don't need ADR's. I also like to eat say a salad and an appetizer, so I can get dessert, so I don't necessarily need to stick to the dining plan.

It is good to make at least a few (especially during free dining weeks), to get in some special meals.

 

[Lynne M]

I'm going to move this over to the Dining Reservations board.