ADR's w/o plan for the parks...

[BELLE1718]

Hello everyone! This board has been SO helpful to me so far! I'm a newbie, 1st trip with 2DD & DH will be in Sept. I have not developed a detailed itinerary yet. How do you make your ADR's without knowing were you will be each day? Do you plan your park visits around your meals, or do you plan everything ahead of time? I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed...I did make a ressie at CRT for our 1st night. Our flight gets into ORL at 3:30pm, we have Magic Express to WL, then ressies at 5:50. Too close? Thanks for your help!

 

[GretchGraham]

First, I plan where we will spend each day and each evening, taking into account a mid-day break. Then I plan our ADR's. We usually do a couple character breakfasts, counter service lunch, and TS dinners. I actually make a chart for each day with the morning park and evening park. I already have a list of the restaurants we want to hit, and I then fill them in where they make the most sense.

Finally, I really think you may be cutting your CRT time too close. My mother and DD did the ME from the airport last December and it took over an hour from the time they deplaned until the time they arrived at OKW. When you factor in the time it will take you to check in (a necessity if you are on the DP as your credits are linked to your room key), you can count on another 30 minutes. Then you should allow at least 30 minutes to get to MK via Disney transportation. (I always seem to just miss the bus, ferry, etc.) That gives you 20 minutes to get through security and the turnstiles and sprint down Main Street and to the castle. If your plane is late, there may be no way at all to make your ressie. If that were the situation I found myself in, my Type A anxiety may not subside until mid-week.

JMO.

 

[Janet-TX]

We pick a morning park and an late afternoon/evening park. We usually eat lunch at the morning park. We have dinner either at a resort or at the evening park.

I definitely think your CRT reservation is too close. If your flight is delayed, even by 15 min., you may be in trouble. As popular as CRT is, I don't know if you can move to later or to another day.

 

[Janet-TX]

We pick a morning park and an late afternoon/evening park. We usually eat lunch at the morning park. We have dinner either at a resort or at the evening park. We plan for downtime/pool time in the afternoon.

I definitely think your CRT reservation is too close. If your flight is delayed, even by 15 min., you may be in trouble. As popular as CRT is, I don't know if you can move to later time or to another day.

 

[BusyMomto3]

5:50 sounds too close to me. Our plane is getting in at 3:30 as well (Sept 28). I made ADRs at Chef Mickey's for 8:30. We are staying at POR. I figured that would give us plenty of time to check in, and settle down.

 

[lady_hlh]

It definitely helps to have park hopper tickets so that you don't have to limit yourself to eating your dinner at the same park or at a resort. I also think that 5:50 sounds too early for your res.

 

[bluejasmine]

I agree your CRT ADR is way to close..I do believe you need to sit and decide what parks you want to be in what days and make your ADR by that.. I always plan out my parks first and then pick my restaurants by what park we will be at..

 

[BELLE1718]

Thanks for everyone's help! I did change our CRT time to 7:30pm. I'm feeling a little better about things now that I've booked our ADR's. I've never spent so many hours planning a vacation before! Feel free to comment on our plans...

CRT
Whispering Canyon (dinner)
50's PT
Coral Reef (couldn't get Le Cellier--but I'll keep trying!)
Hoop Dee Doo
Crystal Palace (breakfast-last day)

We will obviously pay for some meals OOP, which I was hesitant to do at 1st. (we really could eat just fine without any OOP) I have a great DH who reminded me that it really is OK to spend a little on food in order to do/see what we really want. I was taking the free dining a little too far, wanting to maximize every last dollar!

 

[lilybeth11602]

Hello everyone! This board has been SO helpful to me so far! I'm a newbie, 1st trip with 2DD & DH will be in Sept. I have not developed a detailed itinerary yet. How do you make your ADR's without knowing were you will be each day? Do you plan your park visits around your meals, or do you plan everything ahead of time? I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed...I did make a ressie at CRT for our 1st night. Our flight gets into ORL at 3:30pm, we have Magic Express to WL, then ressies at 5:50. Too close? Thanks for your help!

I'm afraid that might be running it close on that ADR.It takes a good 2 hours after you get off your flight wait in line to check in,wait in line for the bus,wait on the bus for it to fill up then its about a 30 minute drive into Disney.And by the time you check in the hotel and take your carry on bags to your room I just dont think you'll have time to make it back out CRT.Thats just me.

Also I like to check the schedule for when I'm going and see which days have EMH and thats where I go that day.Then I go through the restaurants and pick where we'll go in that park to eat.That way your in the park you need to be and your not running all over Disney trying to get to your ADR.Thats just how we do it hope it helps.

 

[babywewe]

Your ADRs look great. Keep trying for Le ceiller ...best meal i'v ever had!

 

[beth_cam]

We make a best guess at where we will be but we eat a lot outside the parks like bomas, 1900 park fare, concourse steak house, ohanas so that way if we change where we want to have our park for the day it doesnt affect the dining. but it's nice to be going to mk if we are going to be at 1900 park fare for example, so a best guess is good. and except for crt and others that require credit card deposit and 48 hours notice you can always change your adrs whenever you want.

Btw we were very excited to book adrs for crt, le cellier and coral reef. We were disappointed in all of them. CRT we thought wasnt any better tasting food than say crystal palace (which we love so i'm not totally trying to knock it) and crt was so much more trouble and cost. Le Cellier and Coral Reef I there was nothing wrong with the place and service was at the very least adequate. Le Cellier even let my kids finnish their mc donalds chicken nuggest at the table. (I consider that such a huge no no but the were demanding chicken and i figured they would enjoy that more so we got that and sat down to wait since we were going in without an adr at an off time though. well before i could get to the bathroom and back the rest of the family had been seated with menus and drinks on the way.) We just really didnt like the food I thought I knew exactly what to order but it just didnt taste the way I expected and my hubbie left hungry from both places cause he just couldnt eat enough of his food to fill up.

 

[krissyh]

I used my ADRs to help decide what to do each day. Keep trying for LeCellier - it was very busy but we really enjoyed it.
50s Prime Time was a lot of fun and I have to say with it being so tied to a "theme" the food was much better than we expected! Awesome hot fudge sundae!

 

[Evil Queen]

I pick the parks that we will do for the day. Even though we have annual passes and can hop we seldom do, but this is just how we do things.

I don't plan too strict, I just basically know where we SHOULD be at a certain time.

Then I had everyone pick 3-4 must do TS's for them and go from there in making reservations.

There are 4 TS meals all 4 of my group will eat together, the other 3 ADR's we will eat separtely.

I only ended up with one night I may need to drop them off for one of their dinners and rush over to DS10's and mine dinner. I'll have my car.

The other 2 nights we eat separetly, they will catch WDW buses, because they can grab the resort bus and shoot over there on one bus (Epcot and DTD).

Those are the only TS meals that won't happen in the park we plan on being that day. Other than our 1 breakfast at 1900 Park Fair, which we will go to before hitting MK, so it's on the way.