Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Restaurant Reservations

The one aspect of this trip that worries me most is the Advanced Dinning Reservation (ADR) program at Disney World.  The program is designed to make it easier for people to make dinning reservations at popular restaurants, and up to 180 days before your trip.  While I don't mind planning out a few things before our trip, I really feel like the ADR program doesn't work with our style of traveling.

First of all we're not really sure which parks we're going to visit on which days.  There are lots of factors that go into choosing your parks, weather, extended hours, and tiredness.  Many of these factors you won't know until much closer to the date.  I don’t want to be running from one park to another just to eat, and that means if I make a reservation I have to choose that day to be at a particular park.  How am I supposed to know where I want to eat 180 days before I leave, let alone the day before?

My second problem with this plan is the fact that it's really geared towards those that travel to Disney World regularly and are familiar with the menus at the park.  I'm not really sure which restaurant is great and which aren't.  Sure there are lots of reviews to read, but so many of them are very personal, and I want to know if a restaurant is up my alley.  Most reviews I read compare these restaurants to other restaurants in Disney World, and since I'm unfamiliar with any of these restaurants these reviews are not really that useful.  This system of reservation really caters to those who travel to Disney World often, because they know more about these restaurants than I do.

I keep hearing stories of many of the restaurants filling up with reservations well in advance, and I don't want to be stuck eating just fast food.  I want a few nice dinning experiences, but I'm worried that when we get there, anything that's nice will be full.

2 comments:

  1. I've been three times, and I agree with your posts about the issues concerning reservations , but I will say to research and try to make ADRs. On my lt trip my family refused to let me book meals, so when we went to eat, all restaurants were full in the parks where there were extra magic hours or light shows or fireworks. My family regretted that we did not make reservations later.

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  2. We have a few ideas for places that we think we want to try, but just planning the day so far in advance is difficult. Our plan is to make sure we have the park hopper option, so even if we have to just run to a particular park for our meal we can.

    Do you have any suggestions for must try restaurants?

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