Tomorrow begins our first completely ADR-less trip...

Yes, larger parties are more difficult. That said, we were a party of 7. I realize I got spectacularly lucky with the BOG find. The other restaurants we changed to (Skipper Canteen and Teppan Edo) were easier by far.
 
Can you cancel ADRs without penalty on the day of? I didn't think that you could anymore.

There's an unpublished window in which your reservation "starts" (more than 45 minutes as I tried to modify one within the hour of being sat) where the app won't let you change it to a day when you won't get penalized and then cancel it, it will say "Your reservation has already started" and not allow you to do anything with it.

I wanted to do this because we were having such a great time at an unaffiliated lounge next to the restaurant we didn't want to go to our original reservation, but we did.
 
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We did that with our trip over Spring Break. We ate a lot of times at Flower and Garden. The only ADR I made before we left was Easter brunch at Boma. While we were there I got Homecoming a day before and BOG lunch a day before. It was just the 4 of us as opposed to the 14 of us that usually go, and we loved not having a bunch of ADRs scheduled. I don't think we could do it when it's all of us.
 
Got home a few hours ago, and here's the rest of the trip update:

After lunch at BoG on Wednesday, we decided we'd like a mid-afternoon snack, since we had EMH until 1am. I looked on the app at around 1pm, and booked an ADR at LTT for Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake at 2:50pm.

Thursday (yesterday) was our Hollywood Studios day, so I got on the app after waking up and getting ready to go. Booked a noon reservation for our party of 4 at Sci-Fi, then a 5:55 reservation at 50's Prime Time. Both reservations booked at prime times, at very busy restaurants, same day in the span of 2 or 3 minutes.

Got up this morning on check out day, and checked the app at around 6:45. There's an 8:00 'Ohana (yet another supposedly impossible to get, prime-time reservation available), but we don't have time to make it, since the rest of the bunch is still asleep. So, I picked up a 9:15 Whispering Canyon.

So, to recap, we made zero reservations more than a day in advance, and we ate at:

Sanaa at a prime dinner time
Rainforest Cafe (AK) at a prime dinner time
Via Napoli at a prime dinner time
BoG at a prime lunch time
Sci-Fi at a prime lunch time
50's Prime Time at a prime dinner time
Passed on an 'Ohana breakfast at a prime breakfast time
Whispering Canyon at a prime breakfast time, although it's not a highly coveted ADR and not very hard to get. That said, I much prefer it to the breakfast at 'Ohana...the biscuits and gravy at WC are outstanding.

We've agreed that we LOVED the freedom, and probably ate at more TS restaurants than we originally planned on eating at simply because so many reservations were available. We had no problems eating where we wanted to eat, when we wanted to eat there.

I get it that there are many out there who won't allow themselves to do a non-plan like this, and that's fine. Do what makes you happy. But, although there are many who will express anxiety over it, those people are not what this thread is about. This thread is about the ability to eat where you want to eat, without having to be up at the crack of dawn 6 months ahead of time, or trying to plan out every minute of your vacation days, weeks, and months ahead. We didn't even decide which park we were doing until the day before, other than AK (due to having a DVC preview of Pandora scheduled for that day).

Good luck however you decide to do it.
 

Love it, we do it this way as well and, also, have never had any problems getting what we want when we want.
 
I get it that there are many out there who won't allow themselves to do a non-plan like this, and that's fine. Do what makes you happy. But, although there are many who will express anxiety over it, those people are not what this thread is about. This thread is about the ability to eat where you want to eat, without having to be up at the crack of dawn 6 months ahead of time, or trying to plan out every minute of your vacation days, weeks, and months ahead. We didn't even decide which park we were doing until the day before, other than AK (due to having a DVC preview of Pandora scheduled for that day).
I see both ways as very appealing depending on what my goals are for that trip. Right now most of our ADRs are for character meals because the kids love them so much and we enjoy watching them. As those get older I could see doing fewer and fewer of those and only grabbing a few ADRs here and there. Our relatively last-minute August trip is mostly that way. We did grab an ADR for Chef Mickey's mainly because we will be skipping it in November and the kids adore it. Other than that we are going to wing it when it comes to meals.
 
I am so glad that you were able to have a great time on your ADR less trip. As I posted upthread, I was interested in your results because there will be future trips that I dont want to be locked into any specific ADR for any given day.
 
Thank you for posting this! After my upcoming trip, I will have done all my "must-try's" and am looking forward to going without ADRs for future visits. I'm almost tempted to try it this time, but I'm so exited about the ADRs I have that it'll have to wait until next time.
 
To me a true "ADR-less" trip would mean making no ADR's, not even day of and seeing what you can walk up to or just doing QS. We (DH and I)were going to take our next trip without making an ADR for every day, but that didn't happen. I now have one for every day, mostly dinner, and one lunch. Oh well.
 
To me a true "ADR-less" trip would mean making no ADR's, not even day of and seeing what you can walk up to or just doing QS. We (DH and I)were going to take our next trip without making an ADR for every day, but that didn't happen. I now have one for every day, mostly dinner, and one lunch. Oh well.

Walk ups are few and far between, not saying it's impossible but not easy. It is possible, however, to make an ADR say at 5 for 5:30, we have done that.
 
Walk ups are few and far between, not saying it's impossible but not easy. It is possible, however, to make an ADR say at 5 for 5:30, we have done that.

Oh, I understand that. My point was that saying "ADR-less" isn't exactly what OP did. Only walk-up we've ever done at a TS was at the Plaza in 1998.
 
Oh, I understand that. My point was that saying "ADR-less" isn't exactly what OP did. Only walk-up we've ever done at a TS was at the Plaza in 1998.

Well. Kind of. She made DR's. Not ADR's. They weren't very much in advance. A little advance. Not a lot. Bahahaha!!!!

Thanks OP if me and my oldest daughter ever get to go just the two of us this is how we would do it. Wake up no plans, hop round, to where the wind takes us!
 
Oh, I understand that. My point was that saying "ADR-less" isn't exactly what OP did. Only walk-up we've ever done at a TS was at the Plaza in 1998.

The OP was not trying to go without TS meals, but was avoiding all of the stress that comes with making ADR's in advance of the trip. It is almost impossible to walk up to any WDW restaurant, the staff actually needs to see the ADR in many of them.

I agree that "technically" there were ADR's made but the OP proved that it is possible to have meals in some of the most coveted restaurants at the most difficult to attain times.
 
The OP was not trying to go without TS meals, but was avoiding all of the stress that comes with making ADR's in advance of the trip. It is almost impossible to walk up to any WDW restaurant, the staff actually needs to see the ADR in many of them.

I agree that "technically" there were ADR's made but the OP proved that it is possible to have meals in some of the most coveted restaurants at the most difficult to attain times.

I get that (we've been there more than once). We've never gone without at least a couple of ADR's but you can easily do it by avoiding most TS. I do know there are some you can walk up to and it has been done, just not the most popular ones. The title is a bit misleading that's all.
 
I get that (we've been there more than once). We've never gone without at least a couple of ADR's but you can easily do it by avoiding most TS. I do know there are some you can walk up to and it has been done, just not the most popular ones. The title is a bit misleading that's all.

I thought the first couple of paragraphs of the original post were fairly crystal clear in explaining my intent for the trip.

We wanted to wing it...make decisions no more than a day in advance. Mission accomplished.

Sorry if you're having trouble comprehending that.
 
I thought the first couple of paragraphs of the original post were fairly crystal clear in explaining my intent for the trip.

We wanted to wing it...make decisions no more than a day in advance. Mission accomplished.

Sorry if you're having trouble comprehending that.

Geez. I get it. The TITLE is misleading. You have to open the thread to see exactly what you meant. Some call that click bait.
 
Thanks for the update. I totally got the intent of the thread, and love that you didn't have to be up at the crack of dawn 180 days in advance. I am good with making ADRs on the day-of; last trip to HS, we made our dinner ADR (biergarten, 6:15pm) at about 3:30pm, day-of. It was pretty nice, to just wing it like that... although I have already made an ADR for CaliGrill this summer, for my birthday dinner, so we can see the fireworks!
 
I thought the first couple of paragraphs of the original post were fairly crystal clear in explaining my intent for the trip.

We wanted to wing it...make decisions no more than a day in advance. Mission accomplished.

Sorry if you're having trouble comprehending that.
Brilliant way of doing it! And lots of fun to see what pops up my family would love that. Thanks for posting your adventure.

No way in heck am I walking to a restaurant just to see if I can do a walk up when I can just check on my phone. That's just dumb. Never mind a time waster I don't waste vacation time.
 
Geez. I get it. The TITLE is misleading. You have to open the thread to see exactly what you meant. Some call that click bait.

Yep...you solved the mystery. Disboards is paying me for every click on my posts. Nice detective work, Sherlock. :rolleyes:

Thread has been read 3700+ times, with 57 different responses. You're the only one with a problem comprehending the point of the post. I'm fine with that.
 





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