Some scheduling help for dining experience noob

[B3rlingirl]

Hello everyone!

We are slowly but surely closing in on our trip (thanksgiving is right around the corner, isn't it? ) This year’s trip is just way more complicated than our former ones but flights and hotels were booked months ago so at least that is set in stone... But this year we will probably splurge big time...(we usually don't splurge at all and just eat QS...)This trip will be a celebration of me finishing my master's degree and a late celebration of my birthday and enjoying a family vacation together... so more than enough reasons to splurge a bit... But we've never really done it so I am a little unsure with scheduling...

So, we will arrive on Nov 27th (Wednesday) and will leave again Dec 5th (Thursday) and we'll stay at BW Anaheim Inn. We will do a rest day on Nov 28th (thanksgiving) because of jetlag and being tired after the long journey from Germany. We will have 5 days park hopper with maxpass (still haven't bought the tickets and haven't decided if I go undercover tourist or Disney to buy them...I am unbelievably anxious about such stuff so I probably end up again with buying them from Disney...) and I wanna do one more rest day during the 5 days. So that are the basics... oh, almost forget we are 3 adults my parents and I and we do open to close at the parks with maybe a quick trip to the hotel for changing clothes depending on the weather...

Things we wanna do: shopping/ exploring DTD, shopping outlets of orange, character dining (better value for us than breakfast because we get free breakfast at our hotel), F! probably with a BB lunch package, Walk in Walt’s footsteps tour and WOC maybe with a dessert party (if I can talk my dad into it... but he hates crowds so should be doable).

My rough plan looks like this for now, but I am not too sure about it:

27th (Wed) arrival day (LAX), depending on how we feel maybe some DTD time here as well​

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28th (Thur) (thanksgiving) rest day, exploring DTD​

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29th (Fri) park day​

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30th Sat) park day with lunch BB package and F!​

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1st (Sun) park day with WOC dessert party​

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2nd (Mon) rest day, shopping outlets of orange and character dinner goofys kitchen​

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3rd (Tue) park day, walk in Walt’s footsteps tour​

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4th (Wed) park day​

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5th( Thur) departure LAX​

The outlets are probably only open during the evening hours on thanksgiving (like last year) so going shopping on our first full day wouldn't work (we did that on our last trips and enjoyed it but now we have to move that to our 2nd rest day) so that leaves exploring DTD on our first full day and relaxing.. hopefully the weather is good enough for a quick swim in the pool.​

Because of thanksgiving, I don’t think doing goofys kitchen is advisable because I fear higher prices and higher crowds...even though the dinner would fit better in our schedule on Thursday than on the next rest day because we would be more flexible with going shopping if the character dinner would already be out of the way.​

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Friday, Saturday, Sunday park days... doing F! On Saturday and WOC on Sunday... (I hope that plan works out with all the issues right now of reserving dinner packages...)​

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Monday is another rest day (this year’s Monday’s aren’t as crazy as last years, are they? But it’s probably the start of full Christmas season, right? it isn't set in stone as a rest day but I think that's the best day to rest) we would go shopping to the outlets of orange on that day and doing goofys kitchen in the evening as dinner...​

Doing both really isn't ideal if I wanna sleep in and do a "relaxing day" but going to the US without doing some hours of shopping won't work either. I guess doing character breakfast (or brunch at storytellers?) instead of dinner would help a little to reduce some stress but wouldn't be as cost-effective... but if character dinner/brunch/breakfast has some kind of holiday pricing making it even more expensive than usual, doing breakfast/brunch and a cheap evening snack at the outlets instead of dinner might be the better deal...(and I could finally try out the famous Mickey waffles...)​

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Tuesday, Wednesday park days... Tuesday I would do the walk in Walt’s footsteps tour... (I don't know for a 100% that I wanna do the tour because I fear to lose to much park time... even though the tour sounds pretty interesting to me...)​

That's my/our plan for now. But I just don't know if this plan is too restraining. I know others do 1-2 dinner reservations each day but we are really not used to it and mostly wing it. Last year was the first trip with any planning beforehand and I just planed the BB F! lunch package and the "golden" morning hours... I fear having to be somewhere at a specific time so often limits us too much...But on the other hand I also wanna enjoy all those experiences because we did lots of rides last year and I fear it will be pretty crowded so having some special stuff without "fighting" crowds might be nice... (Especially because my dad doesn't tolerate high crowds as much as he used to and gets a little grumpy easily)

To add another layer of complicity, I consider checking out Oga's cantina (still have to watch the star wars movies but I am already pretty stoked to check out SWGE). If I do Oga's I probably wanna try out an alcoholic cocktail (not sure though) and because we aren't Americans we have to show our passport which I don't wanna carry around each day so that would mean to do it on the day we also do the WOC dessert party (because an alcoholic beverage is included in the package isn't it?) So that's another restraint if I do Oga's...

As you can tell I am also quite unsure about our character dining experience. Doing a character dining experience is one of my big wishes since being a small kid but I don't wanna lose any park time for it, so we can only do it on one of our 2 rest days (thanksgiving or Monday(?)) there is no time on our traveling days. Doing a late breakfast /brunch (brunch would probably best if that's available at storytellers) on thanksgiving would also be an option because we plan on doing a short run that morning and we will have a big breakfast afterward anyways (at IHOP or so if we don't do a character breakfast/brunch) but I just don't know how much thanksgiving will change (cost-wise, crowd-wise and about the experience in general...) so I feel safer planning it on the following Monday. My favorite characters are Donald and Chip n' Dale so that doesn't help because I would love them to be roaming around but that's not guaranteed anywhere anyways...

So what are your thoughts about my plan? Any suggestions? comments? Do I miss anything important?
Any help and every comment is appreciated! Thanks!

 

[tsumgirl]

I haven't done the holidays, so I can't give any advice there, but I just wanted to reassure you that scheduled dining reservations are an excellent break from the crowds. I sometimes resented that I had to be somewhere at a certain time, but as soon as I sat down to eat, I was so glad I didn't have to search for a table and could just relax and enjoy my meal in peace. Especially for someone like your dad, the reservations can be a welcome thing to look forward to and may end up being his favorite part of the day.

 

[jolinda]

It's pricy, but I'd consider the Thanksgiving buffet at the Disneyland Hotel. It seems like a shame to be in the States on Thanksgiving and not have a feast, and you'd get your character meal in on a day without a lot else to do.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

We had good reviews here for the Thanksgiving buffet at Storyteller's last year. And last year there were characters! The buffet at the DLH is very festive and nice, but it is a major expense -- so that might not be exactly what you're looking for on this trip. Agree that you should think about celebrating Thanksgiving since you'll be here for such a big holiday -- such a fun thing to do on your trip.

 

[ab21au]

A few years ago we were there on thanksgiving and fir the following week. Thanksgiving weekend the crowds were heavy (we just did some things with FP and orientated. The following week the crowds were low.

We did 2 character dining's and they both were great. I would highly recommend either. Plaza Inn (on the right at the end of Main Street) and Goofy’s Kitchen. Chip and Dale were at Goofy’s. This time we will do Storyteller as we are staying at GCH.

 

[B3rlingirl]

We had good reviews here for the Thanksgiving buffet at Storyteller's last year. And last year there were characters! The buffet at the DLH is very festive and nice, but it is a major expense -- so that might not be exactly what you're looking for on this trip. Agree that you should think about celebrating Thanksgiving since you'll be here for such a big holiday -- such a fun thing to do on your trip.

I know about the Thanksgiving buffet at the DLH but my parents aren’t really interested in Thanksgiving food (don’t ask me, I don’t understand that either... I‘ve already celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada a couple years ago when I was on a school exchange and really liked it, so I guess I’ll like the US version as well). So the buffet at DLH is out for us...
I also think doing something special for Thanksgiving if you happen to be in the US would be nice. But with some quick googling I couldn’t find much information about last years offerings (only about the buffet at DLH). If it wouldn’t be that much more expensive and still included characters it is worth a thought for sure. (it also would be a great start into our vacation...)
I hope they publish information for this year a couple days before the booking opens so I can decide...I really need some time to think it through and to convince my parents.

So based on last years thanksgiving...
Goofy’s has breakfast/dinner with characters +some thanksgiving food?

What’s about storytellers? I couldn’t find much about last year actually...

I haven't done the holidays, so I can't give any advice there, but I just wanted to reassure you that scheduled dining reservations are an excellent break from the crowds. I sometimes resented that I had to be somewhere at a certain time, but as soon as I sat down to eat, I was so glad I didn't have to search for a table and could just relax and enjoy my meal in peace. Especially for someone like your dad, the reservations can be a welcome thing to look forward to and may end up being his favorite part of the day.

I know I am totally overthinking „not having enough park time and doing some special stuff will enhance our experience for sure.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

... What’s about storytellers? I couldn’t find much about last year actually...

Storyteller's buffet was much more casual than the one at DLH (therefore less expensive), but it was still nice. The addition of characters is relatively recent. People posted that they enjoyed the food and the atmosphere. You also could make a TS reservation at a restaurant in DTD -- most of the restaurants have a special menu for Thanksgiving, e.g. Jazz Kitchen.