*** The Official August 2019 thread ***

[trackchik6]

Oh cool, I’m glad to have found this thread! I have 3 kids - currently 9, 7, and 4, though my oldest will turn 10 a few days before our trip to WDW. We will be at AKL for 5 nights, free Disney dining plan, 4 day park hopper (+ water park) during the 3rd week of August. I just booked the trip this week.

This will be my 4th visit to Disney as a parent. We did 3 nights offsite (1 day at MK, 1 day at AK) in Oct. 2011 when my oldest was 2.5. In January 2014 we stayed at the Polynesian for a week when my oldest was 4 and middle guy 2. Then, we drove to visit my ILs in FL after Christmas 2015 and stayed at the Wilderness Lodge for 2 nights and did 1 day at MK (oldest was 6, middle almost 4, and baby almost 1). We also did a Disney Cruise in Dec. 2016 (3 night/ Caribbean out of Port Canaveral). Idk whether you wanted to know all that but just trying to give some background since I am new to disboards. I have a lot to learn about the site! This is my first August trip but crowds seemed to be lower and dining was free so I decided to give it a shot! I really thought my youngest DD would enjoy the princesses so I wanted to get back!

I am going to want to post my plans here for critique but I’m not ready yet!!

 

[Tomh]

Oh cool, I’m glad to have found this thread! I have 3 kids - currently 9, 7, and 4, though my oldest will turn 10 a few days before our trip to WDW. We will be at AKL for 5 nights, free Disney dining plan, 4 day park hopper (+ water park) during the 3rd week of August. I just booked the trip this week.

This will be my 4th visit to Disney as a parent. We did 3 nights offsite (1 day at MK, 1 day at AK) in Oct. 2011 when my oldest was 2.5. In January 2014 we stayed at the Polynesian for a week when my oldest was 4 and middle guy 2. Then, we drove to visit my ILs in FL after Christmas 2015 and stayed at the Wilderness Lodge for 2 nights and did 1 day at MK (oldest was 6, middle almost 4, and baby almost 1). We also did a Disney Cruise in Dec. 2016 (3 night/ Caribbean out of Port Canaveral). Idk whether you wanted to know all that but just trying to give some background since I am new to disboards. I have a lot to learn about the site! This is my first August trip but crowds seemed to be lower and dining was free so I decided to give it a shot! I really thought my youngest DD would enjoy the princesses so I wanted to get back!

I am going to want to post my plans here for critique but I’m not ready yet!!

Welcome to the DIS, and our happy little August thread! I'm glad you found us. Feel free to share as much as you want here. You can also post your dates if you'd like, and I will add you to the roll call in the first post.

 

[trackchik6]

Hi @Tomh! We are going 8/19-8/24!!

@The13thLetter the only restaurant in HS where I've eaten is Mama Melrose (Fantasmic pkg) but my TA, who is also a friend, suggest I might want to try Sci Fi.

Ahh, ok so here is my dining story. We are staying for 5 nights, doing the free Disney dining plan - so I have 5 table service credits to use. I know from our trip in Jan. 2011 that two table service meals in one day is too much for me, and I do think all the food we get on the Disney dining plan is really going to be enough so I am really trying to be good about using it all, but not spend much additional money on food while we are there. Therefore, I am not planning on doing any two table service credit meals this trip.

Here are the restaurants where I have eaten, and I am happy to share thoughts on these if anyone has any questions about them:
Cape May Character Breakfast, Ohana Dinner (a fave) and Ohana Character Breakfast, Chef Mickey's Character Breakfast, Crystal Palace Lunch, Be Our Guest Dinner, Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast before MK opened (a fave), Via Napoli, Hoop-dee-doo revue, Mama Melrose, Whispering Canyon breakfast, T-Rex Cafe, and Monsieur Paul dinner. (By the way, this probably isn't "original" but my fave snack is the Dole Whip).

So, anyway... we are staying at AKL, where I've never been before. We are flying in - and I haven't bought the tix yet. Like others in this thread, I am also waiting to see what Southwest comes out with before buying So anyway, I'll have a little bit more of an idea about our arrival / departure day plans after I buy those tickets.

Here are my tentative thoughts - arrival day - just hang at resort and eat dinner at Boma. I am thinking as long as we are staying at AKL we should eat both Boma and Sanaa, so Sanaa I think would be a dinner another night. I guess I am skipping Jika, so I hope I don't regret that
Other meals I am interested in:
Biergarten (we are traveling with my parents and I think my dad would like this place)
Some kind of princess meal - Trattoria al Forno is probably my #1 choice? With maybe Akershus or 1900 Fare for dinner as backup?
I would like to do one other character meal. I have been wanting to go to Tusker House for a while - but I have slight concerns that Tusker House is going to be too similar to Boma and Sanaa on this trip? If we don't eat at Tusker House, I am interested in Hollywood & Vine with Minnie's Seasonal Dine (if I look at the website now, it looks like that will be offered for lunch/dinner. For some reason I was confused about whether Minnie's seasonal dine would be offered, but it looks like it is...??)
Then I think we will have Boma as our last breakfast before leaving and hang at resort until we have to leave for flight home... (I can pay out of pocket since this would be table service #6 - and I hope we're not overdoing it at Boma, lol)

 

[NJlauren]

Hi @Tomh! We are going 8/19-8/24!!

@The13thLetter the only restaurant in HS where I've eaten is Mama Melrose (Fantasmic pkg) but my TA, who is also a friend, suggest I might want to try Sci Fi.

Ahh, ok so here is my dining story. We are staying for 5 nights, doing the free Disney dining plan - so I have 5 table service credits to use. I know from our trip in Jan. 2011 that two table service meals in one day is too much for me, and I do think all the food we get on the Disney dining plan is really going to be enough so I am really trying to be good about using it all, but not spend much additional money on food while we are there. Therefore, I am not planning on doing any two table service credit meals this trip.

Here are the restaurants where I have eaten, and I am happy to share thoughts on these if anyone has any questions about them:
Cape May Character Breakfast, Ohana Dinner (a fave) and Ohana Character Breakfast, Chef Mickey's Character Breakfast, Crystal Palace Lunch, Be Our Guest Dinner, Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast before MK opened (a fave), Via Napoli, Hoop-dee-doo revue, Mama Melrose, Whispering Canyon breakfast, T-Rex Cafe, and Monsieur Paul dinner. (By the way, this probably isn't "original" but my fave snack is the Dole Whip).

So, anyway... we are staying at AKL, where I've never been before. We are flying in - and I haven't bought the tix yet. Like others in this thread, I am also waiting to see what Southwest comes out with before buying So anyway, I'll have a little bit more of an idea about our arrival / departure day plans after I buy those tickets.

Here are my tentative thoughts - arrival day - just hang at resort and eat dinner at Boma. I am thinking as long as we are staying at AKL we should eat both Boma and Sanaa, so Sanaa I think would be a dinner another night. I guess I am skipping Jika, so I hope I don't regret that
Other meals I am interested in:
Biergarten (we are traveling with my parents and I think my dad would like this place)
Some kind of princess meal - Trattoria al Forno is probably my #1 choice? With maybe Akershus or 1900 Fare for dinner as backup?
I would like to do one other character meal. I have been wanting to go to Tusker House for a while - but I have slight concerns that Tusker House is going to be too similar to Boma and Sanaa on this trip? If we don't eat at Tusker House, I am interested in Hollywood & Vine with Minnie's Seasonal Dine (if I look at the website now, it looks like that will be offered for lunch/dinner. For some reason I was confused about whether Minnie's seasonal dine would be offered, but it looks like it is...??)
Then I think we will have Boma as our last breakfast before leaving and hang at resort until we have to leave for flight home... (I can pay out of pocket since this would be table service #6 - and I hope we're not overdoing it at Boma, lol)

We loved Hollywood & Vine last trip, amazing character interactions. I don’t know if we got luck or what but Daisy and Minnie were with us a while. They were joking about Daisy needing a ring, a CM saw Donald so we called him over Daisy put her hands on her hips and we asked him when Daisys ring was coming, he ran for the exit. We were cracking up.

I love Akershus, but my daughter loves salty food so there buffet is a huge hit with her!

Biergarten was on my possible list too, I’m just worried it will be to heavy for the August heat!

 

[NJlauren]

Oops, misunderstood.
I still think they will start Food & Wine earlier, and that it will be announced earlier as well.

No apologies necessary, I was just commenting that I was wondering/thinking about that. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t been announced yet! Since the Halloween parties are on sale already!

 

[dnllmz]

Hi @Tomh! We are going 8/19-8/24!!

@The13thLetter the only restaurant in HS where I've eaten is Mama Melrose (Fantasmic pkg) but my TA, who is also a friend, suggest I might want to try Sci Fi.

Ahh, ok so here is my dining story. We are staying for 5 nights, doing the free Disney dining plan - so I have 5 table service credits to use. I know from our trip in Jan. 2011 that two table service meals in one day is too much for me, and I do think all the food we get on the Disney dining plan is really going to be enough so I am really trying to be good about using it all, but not spend much additional money on food while we are there. Therefore, I am not planning on doing any two table service credit meals this trip.

Here are the restaurants where I have eaten, and I am happy to share thoughts on these if anyone has any questions about them:
Cape May Character Breakfast, Ohana Dinner (a fave) and Ohana Character Breakfast, Chef Mickey's Character Breakfast, Crystal Palace Lunch, Be Our Guest Dinner, Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast before MK opened (a fave), Via Napoli, Hoop-dee-doo revue, Mama Melrose, Whispering Canyon breakfast, T-Rex Cafe, and Monsieur Paul dinner. (By the way, this probably isn't "original" but my fave snack is the Dole Whip).

So, anyway... we are staying at AKL, where I've never been before. We are flying in - and I haven't bought the tix yet. Like others in this thread, I am also waiting to see what Southwest comes out with before buying So anyway, I'll have a little bit more of an idea about our arrival / departure day plans after I buy those tickets.

Here are my tentative thoughts - arrival day - just hang at resort and eat dinner at Boma. I am thinking as long as we are staying at AKL we should eat both Boma and Sanaa, so Sanaa I think would be a dinner another night. I guess I am skipping Jika, so I hope I don't regret that
Other meals I am interested in:
Biergarten (we are traveling with my parents and I think my dad would like this place)
Some kind of princess meal - Trattoria al Forno is probably my #1 choice? With maybe Akershus or 1900 Fare for dinner as backup?
I would like to do one other character meal. I have been wanting to go to Tusker House for a while - but I have slight concerns that Tusker House is going to be too similar to Boma and Sanaa on this trip? If we don't eat at Tusker House, I am interested in Hollywood & Vine with Minnie's Seasonal Dine (if I look at the website now, it looks like that will be offered for lunch/dinner. For some reason I was confused about whether Minnie's seasonal dine would be offered, but it looks like it is...??)
Then I think we will have Boma as our last breakfast before leaving and hang at resort until we have to leave for flight home... (I can pay out of pocket since this would be table service #6 - and I hope we're not overdoing it at Boma, lol)

How was the Cape May breakfast?

We have done the Bon Voyage breakfast, Akershus dinner & 1900 both meals. 1900 was amazing. Food was great & the character interaction was incredible. It is by far the best character dining experience we’ve had. The Step Sisters & Evil stepmom really make the experience amazing. This would be my number one choice.

Bon Voyage was very good. Food was excellent. Interaction was good. Flynn was fun. I would do this one again too.

Akershus we did dinner & I was the only one that liked the food. The character interaction wasn’t very good. The princesses felt rushed. I would like to try breakfast one trip but my son really likes Garden Grill & that’s his pick every trip.

So Minnie’s seasonal changes theme throughout the year. The Halloween theme starts Aug 26th. Before that it’s summer themed. I’m just bringing up in case that matters to you because I want to do the Halloween one & looked it up for myself.

We have only done Tusker House 3 times. We do late breakfast so the picky eaters get the breakfast food & I can try some of the lunch offerings. Food & interaction is always great. Service is always good too. The breakfast food was similar to Boma’s. Boma had better food but we prefer TH due to the characters. My daughter is really into the characters still. But if we were staying at AKL we’d probably do Boma.

Talking about all this food is making me hungry.

 

[trackchik6]

@NJlauren thanks, I think we will probably try to check out H&V this time. I am cool with summer seasonal theme, but I think I prefer the Minnie characters over the Disney Jr ones so need to do lunch or dinner there which is fine. I am probably going to overeat everywhere, including Biergarten, so I supposed I am not more concerned about that place than anywhere else I think a few pages ago you mentioned Via Napoli being owned by a company that owns some other restaurants by you. I live in VA now, but I am from NJ so I looked it up. I used to work near Grand Central in Manhattan and it turns out the same company owns a lot of restaurants near there and I have eaten at many of them, including an Italian one called Naples!

@dnllmz thanks for the tips! Would the stepmother / step sister Cinderalla characters be at the dinner there? If so I agree that might be fun! I will see if I can work it out. I'm not sure I've ever been to disney during free dining (I've never gotten it myself before, but when I stayed at the Polynesian in Jan. 2014 I know I got 30% off the room), so I wonder if reservations will be harder to get this time or what.

If you haven't been to Cape May breakfast I think it's worth checking out sometime! It's the first one I went to as a parent with one of my kids. I like beach theme generally To me, the food seemed roughly similar to the character breakfasts at Chef Mickey and O'hana (but that may be because I always eat the same type of things, such as Mickey waffles... ). We had the breakfast there on a non-park day, on our way out. I didn't book too far in advance (maybe a few weeks in advance, if that) and I know it was one of the only options available which is why we took it - but we were happy with it.

 

[Newsies]

Forgot to update here-- our new dates are Aug 18-24, still at the Poly! We're excited to do the MNSSHP on August 20.

 

[NJlauren]

@trackchik6 yeah we do over eat the whole time we are in wdw too! I did mention that, yup my husband frequents some of the NYC spots for work meetings. The food is consistently pretty good! But I just can’t bring my self to eat the exact food I eat at home, and I mean almost exact!

 

[Tomh]

Forgot to update here-- our new dates are Aug 18-24, still at the Poly! We're excited to do the MNSSHP on August 20.

Roll Call has been updated.

 

[Newsies]

Roll Call has been updated.

I appreciate it!! Thank you!

 

[Tomh]

I appreciate it!! Thank you!

No problem. It is what I am supposed to do since I created the thread

 

[han22735]

Update---I was able to book our last day this morning so we are officially booked 8/18-28 at BWV

 

[The13thLetter]

First time booking a bunch of ADRs because usually I am lazy and we would play a lot by ear (pun intended) when it used to be just me and DW. But with the larger group this time (and DS being about 16 months old this trip) I thought it was a good idea to do a few but not too much that I overload my parents and in-laws:

Beaches and Cream Dinner
Sci Fi Dine In Dinner
Plaza Lunch
Trattoria al Forno Breakfast
Il Mulino Dinner
Le Cellier Dinner
Tusker House Breakfast
Art Smith Brunch

Ok updated several of the meals after some heavy discussions this weekend with the misses hahaha (see above in bold if you're curious what we switched to). We decided that we are staying at the Beach club for the convenience so why not use that to our advantage for our meals when we are not in the parks.

Also we are now officially 8/16-8/24 at the Beach Club (I am fairly certain this is not changing unless the AP discounts make Yacht Club a better deal when they are announced).

 

[dnllmz]

@NJlauren thanks, I think we will probably try to check out H&V this time. I am cool with summer seasonal theme, but I think I prefer the Minnie characters over the Disney Jr ones so need to do lunch or dinner there which is fine. I am probably going to overeat everywhere, including Biergarten, so I supposed I am not more concerned about that place than anywhere else I think a few pages ago you mentioned Via Napoli being owned by a company that owns some other restaurants by you. I live in VA now, but I am from NJ so I looked it up. I used to work near Grand Central in Manhattan and it turns out the same company owns a lot of restaurants near there and I have eaten at many of them, including an Italian one called Naples!

@dnllmz thanks for the tips! Would the stepmother / step sister Cinderalla characters be at the dinner there? If so I agree that might be fun! I will see if I can work it out. I'm not sure I've ever been to disney during free dining (I've never gotten it myself before, but when I stayed at the Polynesian in Jan. 2014 I know I got 30% off the room), so I wonder if reservations will be harder to get this time or what.

If you haven't been to Cape May breakfast I think it's worth checking out sometime! It's the first one I went to as a parent with one of my kids. I like beach theme generally To me, the food seemed roughly similar to the character breakfasts at Chef Mickey and O'hana (but that may be because I always eat the same type of things, such as Mickey waffles... ). We had the breakfast there on a non-park day, on our way out. I didn't book too far in advance (maybe a few weeks in advance, if that) and I know it was one of the only options available which is why we took it - but we were happy with it.

I’m not sure how free dining affects August ADRs but I know when it’s offered in Nov & December it makes it hard to get ADRs. I’ve gone in July a few times. Never had a hard time getting ADRs for those trips. But even for November trips things always open up.

1900 dinner is the Cinderella characters. Breakfast is good too but the characters aren’t quite as fun. Breakfast is Alice, Mad Hatter, Mary Poppins, Tigger & Pooh.

Thanks for the Cape May info. I think we’re going to do it. Characters in beach themed outfits sounds cute to me.

 

[Tomh]

Update---I was able to book our last day this morning so we are officially booked 8/18-28 at BWV

Roll Call has been updated.

Ok updated several of the meals after some heavy discussions this weekend with the misses hahaha. We decided that we are staying at the Beach club for the convenience so why not use that to our advantage for our meals when we are not in the parks.

Also we are now officially 8/16-8/24 at the Beach Club (I am fairly certain this is not changing unless the AP discounts make Yacht Club a better deal when they are announced).

Roll Call has been updated.

I’m not sure how free dining affects August ADRs but I know when it’s offered in Nov & December it makes it hard to get ADRs. I’ve gone in July a few times. Never had a hard time getting ADRs for those trips. But even for November trips things always open up.

1900 dinner is the Cinderella characters. Breakfast is good too but the characters aren’t quite as fun. Breakfast is Alice, Mad Hatter, Mary Poppins, Tigger & Pooh.

Thanks for the Cape May info. I think we’re going to do it. Characters in beach themed outfits sounds cute to me.

We have noticed in prior years that during free dining, ADR's are a bit tougher to come by. I'm not sure whether to expect it to make that much of a difference this year or not. I know it means a lot more people will be eating in the parks. However, most of the free dining plans are going to be quick service unless the guest pays to upgrade to the full dining plan, and I still feel that bookings are down for the summer, and may very well stay down, as people chose to either go to California to see Galaxy's Edge there, or chose to wait until fall, or next summer, to see Galaxy's Edge in Disney World.

 

[cmarsh31]

I have a couple friends going in July, during Free Dining, and they had no issues making ADRs for anything.

 

[Spencer Wright]

We are looking for different dining options this year, especially near MK. Thoughts on Crystal Palace lunch?

 

[Glam]

We are looking for different dining options this year, especially near MK. Thoughts on Crystal Palace lunch?

We've been to Crystal Palace for lunch & breakfast. I preferred their breakfast. The main draw for lunch was the characters for us. After 1x at lunch, I felt like we were good with that and probably won't do lunch again. There was nothing wrong with the food- it was standard buffet fare. It's just so crowded and each time we've been we ended up missing a character because the rotation just took too long. That's just my 2 cents.

 

[Glam]

My DS (age 4) and I will be headed to WDW Aug 29 - Sep 3.

We'll be at Coronado Springs at the new tower. This will be our 2nd stay at CS, but obviously 1st at the tower.

We've always stayed at deluxes on our Labor day trips, but got a great deal at CS. However, being tied to bus transportation on our Veteran's Day trip this past year was a pain due to the holiday crowds, so I may rent a car.