The ultimate monorail character dining experience

[Road_Dog]

Our trip is for 5-days in March. Me and DW along with our 4 year old and 2.5 year old. We want to prioritize character dining experiences.

We're going from a Sunday (check-in) to Friday (check-out) and staying at the Polynesian. We'll probably be at MK the whole time but we might go down to Epcot one of the days. I know we can't hit up every character dining experience, but I'm hopeful my plan will work great with the least amount of "back and forth" and limit transfers (i.e. priotize monorails rides vs having to go to MK and then bus/boat to a resort).

Keeping in mind reservations that are hard to get, I'd like to accomplish three things:
- Schedule as many character dining experiences as possible
- Prioritize easy to get to restaurants
- Determine the optimal booking order (i.e. which ones do I scramble first at 6AM Eastern when the 60 day window starts?)

Our current park plans are:
- Sunday: Arrival day, should get to the resort by 1PM. No park planned.
- Monday: Magic Kingdom
- Tuesday: Magic Kingdom
- Wednesday: Resort Day
- Thursday: Magic Kingdom or Epcot
- Friday: Fly home

Here is what I have planned:
- Sunday: Dinner at 1900 Park Fare at 5PM? (unsure how hard this would be able to get at the 60 day mark... we'd want an earlier dinner at 5PM'ish and my gut says this won't be available)
- Monday: Lunch or Dinner at Chef Mickeys, either Noon or 5PM
- Tuesday: Breakfast at Cinderellas Royal Table, ideally at 10AM. We're attempting to get a Bibbity Bobbity Boutique booking for our daughter as early as possible (8AM-9AM) so I'm hopeful we can do breakfast immediately afterwards while she is in her princess outfit. Otherwise an 11AM-12PM lunch would be fine.
- Wednesday: Breakfast at Ohana, Dinner at 1900 Park Fare (if we don't on Sunday). Times are most flexible on this date since it's our resort day and we won't be trying to time things with the park.
- Thursday: Lunch or DInner at Akershus? Flexible here.

I think we'd really like to do Storybrook at Wilderness but I'm concerned it might be too complex to get there. I know it's not that difficult--just take monorail to MK and then a boat back to Wilderness, but with our kids as young as they are, I'd rather keep our options as straightforward as possible, with just one form of transportation without the need for a "transfer".

That being said, I feel like CRT will be the hardest to book, so my gut says the order of booking when the window open will be:
- 1st: CRT
- 2nd: Ohana breakfast
- 3rd: Sunday dinner 1900 Park Fare
- 4th: Wednesday 1900 Park Fare (if I can't get a good Sunday slot)
- 5th: Monday Lunch Chef Mickeys
- 6th: Whatever on Thursday

Any other suggestions?

 

[DWillowBay]

Wow! I wish you the very best of luck and that you are able to accomplish your plan. That being said, I always have a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C for what works within our schedule. Let's face it... you, me and 10,000 of our closest friends are all trying to get the same or similar reservations. For that reason, I like to have several options in terms of which restaurants and what times are acceptable. Sounds like fun to me, though. Hope you have a great trip!

 

[Marthasor]

I think it's doable. I would definitely try for CRT first and be flexible on days/times if you can't get your first choice. Consider subscribing to a dining finder website if you don't get the ADRs initially. As your dates get closer, ADRs should open up as people cancel to avoid no-show fees.

Getting to WL from Poly isn't terribly difficult and the boat can be a lot of fun, IMHO.

If you plan on spending a whole day at MK, I don't think I would leave to go to Chef Mickey's lunch - that's a lot of back and forth.

 

[Skippyboo]

You could do Crystal Palace with the Pooh characters on your MK day instead of Chef Mickey’s. Akershus is Princesses that’s double Princess if you get CRT plus 1900 Park Fare has a couple of Princesses. Garden Grill would get you Chip and Dale plus Pluto and Farmer Mickey.