Do you feel like your ADR cause 'time' restrictions?

[Ariel484]

Eating TS meals is a big part of our trips...something we really look forward to. Normally we try to get an idea of what parks we want to go to when park hours come out and then make the ADRs from there. It works for us, but it may be different for you.

Having said that, we normally only make ADRs for dinner...I imagine it's more difficult when you're making multiple ADRs on each day. :shrug:

 

[ArtieJim]

I actually find it easier to plan when you have something that is a set time thrown in the middle of the day, or evening mostly for us. When we go we tend to make our ADRs for dinner but we have no problem eating late, usually around eight or so. We find that gives us enough time to do what we want to do during the day and then catch the fireworks at the end of the night, most times. I can understand eating that late might be tough with kids, we usually go for a late lunch at a QS though. Breakfast is in the air, and we sprinkle in a snack sometime during the day if one of us really wants it. Then again, we're a couple in our mid-20's so I'm sure it's different for a lot of people.

 

[Mukta]

My question is this: For those of you that have taken advantage of the great restaurants at WDW, did you find that having to keep 'a schedule' imposing at all?

Nope. I prefer the food at the TS restaurants over the food at the CS restaurants. Since I go in September, I appreciate the air conditioned respite of a sit down meal, I like the food and I like sitting down for 60-90 mintues and relaxing. A sit down meal each day is a welcome break.
I do wish that ADRs opened at 90 days instead of 180 days. That is the only part that I find annoying.

 

[LowesChevy]

ADR Dining is part of the experience.....

Kids look forward to where we're dining each day.

If something came up while on your trip you could always cancel the ressie and opt for a walk in...

ITA. Part of the fun on going on vacation is enjoying various dining experiences WDW offers.

 

[bmarkelon]

Not for us. We have DD6, DS4, and DD14months, we go every year. I actually find that ADRs help us to be more mindful of the schedules/routines that the little ones are used to at home. The meal schedule that we have found works the best for us is this....Breakfast ADR between 8-9, we usually don't scedule a lunch, just grab an afternoon bite as needed, Dinner ADR between 5-5:30. We pick our morning park in advance to help us map out and choose our meals. We make our breakfast ADR, hit our park until roughly 12-2PM, this all depends on where the kids are at. Go back to our resort for rest time and pool time. Get ready for our Dinner ADR and then hit another park if the kids seem up for it.

 

[GeoDonJac34]

There are times when I think it would be so much easier to not have ADRs, but there are so many restaurants I haven't tried yet. Like an earlier poster said you have to eat sometime, why not just once a day make an ADR.

 

[JillC LI]

I don't find it the slightest bit of an imposition. In fact, it's half the fun! Checking park hours and deciding where we want to eat in advance is all part of the planning process with which I am so obsessed! Since we always get park hopper passes, there's always wiggle room anyway. I would hate to miss out on some of those great table service restaurants!

 

[EvilQueen-T]

i think it depends on your family dynamics and if you look at a dining experience as just eating or part of your fun. when my kids were little quick service was the way to go for us. my son was a typical kids meal diner and my daughter, 5 years younger, still to this day will try anything food wise but back then had no patience to sit through a long meal when she was young.

my granddaughter, however is in love getting character autographs and with the idea of being a chef so character meals as well as any place where she might get to see or talk to a chef is as much fun for her as being in the parks so we limit our sit down meals to those types of experiences. she's 7 and lists narcoossee's, citricos, and flying fish as her favorites.

we also plan our adr's around what park we're in so we either eat in that park or at a nearby resort to limit travel time eating up our fun time. when we go in the summer months when the parks are open super late we eat around 4-6pm for dinners and use it as a break from the heat then hit the parks again until closing. in the winter when the parks close between 7-9pm we eat late like at the end of park hours so we feel like we've extended our vacation fun not limited it. we also never do sit down meals more than once a day when traveling with kids. when i go with all adults we'll do all dinners and just a few lunches since we're not taking 500 potty breaks a day like you do when traveling with little ones lol.

 

[Foolish Mortal]

Time restrictive ? Not at all. I like knowing I am going to be able to sit down and eat as opposed to the numerous people that get turned away at the more popular restaurants. I've averaged it out, with regular dining by the time I have an entree and a desert I spend almost the same time as going into a counter service, waiting in line, ordering, trying to find a table then eating. With so many great sit down choices it's not an imposition at all. Planning out which adr's I want and jumping on the computer at that 180 day mark is all part of the fun.

 

[danpam1024]

My question is this: For those of you that have taken advantage of the great restaurants at WDW, did you find that having to keep 'a schedule' imposing at all?

Yes, sometimes...but, we love the TS meals so much that we accomodate our schedules to include them.
:wave:

Us too! Some of the best meals we have had were at WDW. Don't forget you can get great Ts lunches. Sometimes we're havin too much fun and miss our ADRs but that happens:wave:

 

[whitney37354]

We did TS for breakfast & dinner. CS for lunch. All breakfasts were character meals & all but two dinners were character meals. Yes, it takes about an hour to eat a meal, but to me it was better than standing in line in the heat waiting for a character meet & greet. We had to eat too, so it killed two birds with one stone. I planned the ADRS by my priority & time (9 a.m. breakfast & 6 p.m. dinner). I got them all within 15 mins. of the time I requested. After that, I planned parks around the ADRS, just roaming the parks & riding when we came to something we wanted to ride. We always took time after our lunch CS to go back to the room and rest for a couple of hours before heading back for dinner ADRS & more park time. We never felt a time restriction. I felt that the ADRs helped us keep a schedule for us so no one had an excuse to be grumpy from lack of rest or food.

 

[jim1051]

You do have to be a clock watcher sometimes. That said, the way we do things, is rise early, mornings at parks, QS lunch in parks, another ride or 2 then back to resort for nap, swim, etc. Then out for early dinner 6 ish, then more parks, fireworks parades etc.

This takes pressure off ts meal and makes it an event of its own.

 

[Eldon_Brasche]

No!
The only restriction I feel is the waistband on my pants after all of those wonderful meals. :slurp:

 

[flavious27]

I'm trying to figure out how best to ask what I mean to ask.

We are going to WDW Sept 23 thru Oct 1 with the free quick service dining plan. Our agent encouraged us to upgrade to the dining plan (which would have made very little difference price wise). But because ADR are required for a majority of quality table service restaurants, we chose to stick with the quick service.

We felt like to have dinner reservations every day or night for our vacation would feel constraining (especially with two kids who have never been to WDW).

Of course, this also means that any table service meals we enjoy will have to be paid out of pocket (we made one for Akershus and one for Chef Mickey's). The other down side is that we will have to miss out on some fabulous dining. Not meaning to whine; I'd rather go to WDW and have quick service all week then to not go at all, so it will be fine no matter what.

My question is this: For those of you that have taken advantage of the great restaurants at WDW, did you find that having to keep 'a schedule' imposing at all?

Thanks!

adr kind of restricts you but you do pick the restaurants you want. I look at the adrs as ways to plan out what you want to do and I think most people visit the gates in the order they opened anyway. along with that, disney does have the transportation system that lets you hop.

 

[DisneyRunner]

I do enjoy TS dining, however ADRs consume your time. One has to stop what they are doing and allow for travel time to the ADR. Also, taking into consideration Disney's "arrive 20 minutes early" policy for ADRs. So my answer is, yes.

 

[WDW 3]

I do enjoy TS dining, however ADRs consume your time. One has to stop what they are doing and allow for travel time to the ADR. Also, taking into consideration Disney's "arrive 20 minutes early" policy for ADRs. So my answer is, yes.

This is the way we feel.

 

[slappy magoo]

You can have a spontaneous, seat-of-your-pants Disney vacation, as long as you're mentally prepared for the very real possibility that, when it comes to dining, especially sit-down table-service dining, you may be extremely limited and perhaps, often, disappointed.

That's not to say that a well-planned trip with ADRs galore might not wind up going kablooey...which, in a way, may seem more annoying, as you went to the trouble of planning so things DON'T go kablooey.

As far as I'm concerned, planning reservations is part of the fun, but I do try to "plan some unplanned days" if that makes sense, to go where we want on a whim. But otherwise, I've no problem revising (most of) the plans I want to accommodate certain ADRs. If, say, I wanted to go to Hoop De Do on a Monday and the Studios on Tuesday, but I couldn't get reservations for HDD for Monday, I'll swap things around, no problemo. If I'm eating in a park, I just plan on visiting that park that day, and I'll get Fastpasses for something along the way, if possible, to my reservations so we can get right back at it when we're done dining. If we're dining at a resort, we'll plan on visiting a park closer to that resort, or we'll go back to our resort to take a nap and refresh in the afternoon, clean up, drive to that resort and then head to the nearest park AFTER that meal, either by our own car, disney transportaion or walking if it's an option.

To me, it's no more annoying than, say, making reservations at a restaurant for dinner before going to a Broadway show, OR thinking of the show itself as the reservation I have to make, so I plan my meal time accordingly. I don't go down to the Village for dinner and only give myself 10 minutes to grab a cab back to midtown and assume I'll make it; I'll either give myself LOTS more travel time or (more likely) I'll eat somewhere near the theater itself.

 

[DisneyDebNJ]

ADR Dining is part of the experience.....

I have to agree. We have so many traditional things we do every year, like Ohana for dinner our first night, and Epcot, Spaceship Earth, our first attraction and park. They kind of go hand in hand. We normally do our *must do* ADRs at the 180 day mark, then as time gets closer to our departure day, we may add a few new restaurants, depending which park we plan to visit each day. :wave:

 

[cymbaldiva]

My question is this: For those of you that have taken advantage of the great restaurants at WDW, did you find that having to keep 'a schedule' imposing at all?

Thanks!

Yes - I personally find it terribly imposing. Once I'm in the parks I don't like the idea of having to stop what I'm doing to meet an ADR. I got spoiled way back in the 90's when there were no such thing as (and no necessity for) ADRs.

I was fortunate for my last several trips; we had free dining and my BFF was kind enough to plan so that the majority of our ADRs were either for breakfast or after park closing. In planning a trip just for myself I would go relying on QS only - there's not any TS in the parks that's so important to me that it would break my heart if I couldn't get a walk up table.

 

[beanbunny]

I guess we're definitely the minority but we find TS to be extremely time consuming and limiting - most of the TS we enjoy seem to be at EPCOT so, therefore, we find we are spending too much time there in comparison to the other parks. Plus, we love the variety of CS meals available. As an extra bonus, we don't have to fork out extra tip money - not that it's a big deal, but it does add up. One final note - it can be really hot in September, and, even though you can relax in the air conditioning, we just can't eat that much. When we do, we end up feeling awful after a few days!