Time to Make Dining Reservations

[MissViv]

Tomorrow is our 180 mark and we will be making our dining reservations. Hope I can get what we want.

We are a party of 4 , Nana, Mom & (2) Adult Sons (20 & 24). We are staying at the Pop Century (2 rooms). We have made this trip together several times but never had the dining. We are going Halloween Week so no free dining. We have the regular dining plan not the deluxe. How are my selections?

AK - Tusker House for Dinner

HS - Mama Melrose for Dinner

MK - Be Our Guest for Lunch
Crystal Palace or Liberty Tree for Dinner??

Epcot - Garden Grill

I'm going to try for Be our Guest first since it seems harder to get.

Good Plan???

Any Tips???

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Tomorrow is our 180 mark and we will be making our dining reservations. Hope I can get what we want.

We are a party of 4 , Nana, Mom & (2) Adult Sons (20 & 24). We are staying at the Pop Century (2 rooms). We have made this trip together several times but never had the dining. We are going Halloween Week so no free dining. We have the regular dining plan not the deluxe. How are my selections?

AK - Tusker House for Dinner

HS - Mama Melrose for Dinner

MK - Be Our Guest for Lunch
Crystal Palace or Liberty Tree for Dinner??

Epcot - Garden Grill

I'm going to try for Be our Guest first since it seems harder to get.

Good Plan???

Any Tips???

I think there are much better food options than Garden Grill at Epcot for dinner, but it's not a bad option if you really want that meal to be character dining.

Everything else looks good. Definitely Liberty Tree over Crystal Palace. Ask about getting Mama Melrose as the Fantasmic dining package, which is essentially a meal plus FastPass for the show that night.

 

[belledream]

Definitely go for BOG first since it’s the hardest to get. You should be pretty good with the others! (All of which I thoroughly enjoy by the way). I’d say between Liberty Tree and Crystal Palace, I’d go with Crystal Palace just because Liberty Tree is a lunch place to me. The all-you-care-to-enjoy Thanksgiving fare is not appealing to me, but the normal lunch menu (and Ooey Gooey) is. Crystal Palace is standard buffet food but it’s a beautiful place to be and meeting the characters is a nice bonus. You do have a lot of character meals planned, just know that you’re paying for the experience moreso than high cuisine in most of those circumstances. Have fun!

 

[drwadadli]

I think you have good selections. I agree with @CaptainAmerica that there are better choice for dinner in Epcot than Garden Grill. If you want a character meal but not be swamped with characters then yes I think Garden Grill is a great choice. My wife and I did it so we could enjoy dinner with light character presence. That being said, for us we more prefer Biergarten or Rose & Crown or Le Cellier (harder to do without deluxe dining plan) for dinner and leave Garden Grill for lunch.

I agree with @belledream that if you haven't done BOG then do it. We have only done dinner so I have no opinion about lunch there but we think dinner is very good. I agree with the idea of doing Liberty Tree for lunch instead of BOG.

Some restaurants we always do on out trips whether on the plan or not that you may want to think about....Boma for dinner (especially since you will be at AK plus we have never done Tusker House), eat outside of HS (to Mama Melroseis just a simple Italian restaurant but if you are doing as part of Fantasmic! dining package then may want to consider Holywood & Vine), and Raglan Road Irish Pub (a great way to dine and drink at DS and then after listening to the music you can walk around DS.

 

[MissViv]

Made our reservations. Halloween night was the problem with the MNSSHP at MK.

10/30 Tusker House - AK (now hoping we can get fast passes for FOP)
10/31 Tony's Town Square - not our choice but Crystal Palace & Liberty Tree were sold out
11/01 Be Our Guest - Lunch MK
11/02 Garden Grill - Epcot
11/03 Boma - Breakfast

Will keep checking for Crystal Palace or Liberty Tree on Halloween night but not too hopeful. Everything is sold out for 10/31 now.

 

[larandtra]

Id consider eating earlier and going to a monorail restaurant and you would still make it in time for the Halloween party. Tonys is atrocious. Tusker and Boma will not let you down. Im not a fan of BOG but for the experience, lunch is the better option. The food wont impress you at dinner and lunch is at least a step up. As others have said GG is an ok meal if you want characters and such but at WS I can think of numerous other places which are not sig restaurants you could eat at.

 

[randomsoulshine]

Made our reservations. Halloween night was the problem with the MNSSHP at MK.

10/30 Tusker House - AK (now hoping we can get fast passes for FOP)
10/31 Tony's Town Square - not our choice but Crystal Palace & Liberty Tree were sold out
11/01 Be Our Guest - Lunch MK
11/02 Garden Grill - Epcot
11/03 Boma - Breakfast

Will keep checking for Crystal Palace or Liberty Tree on Halloween night but not too hopeful. Everything is sold out for 10/31 now.

Have you looked into The Plaza Restaurant in Mk instead of Tony's?

 

[MissViv]

Everything is booked at WDW on 10/31 except Liberty Tree at 3:30 p.m. and we were not planning on using our base tickets for MK that day. Planning on going around 4 to 5. It's five months so I will keep checking in hopes of moving the Tony's reservation.

Would they let you in at 3:00 p.m if you had a dining reservation and tickets for MNSSHP?

 

[DarthVader]

MK - Be Our Guest for Lunch
Crystal Palace or Liberty Tree for Dinner??

I did a lunch years ago at BOG, I'm not sure if they changed but the experience was underwhelming. We chose our meals from a kiosk, it was not what you would have expected. Again I want to preface my comments in that they may have changed things up.

I like Liberty tree Inn and I recommend that, but I'd recommend using your meal credits for dinners and not lunches. Sit down lunches can consume time that you may want for park stuff.

Epcot - Garden Grill

I heavily recommend Tutto Italia Ristorante in Epcot over the Garden Grill, its a fabulous place to eat and enjoy.

 

[Tuvalu]

Would they let you in at 3:00 p.m if you had a dining reservation and tickets for MNSSHP?

Nope. The earliest you can enter MK with a MNSSHP ticket is 4 pm. Valid admission is required to dine at any theme park restaurant.

 

[MissViv]

I did a lunch years ago at BOG, I'm not sure if they changed but the experience was underwhelming. We chose our meals from a kiosk, it was not what you would have expected. Again I want to preface my comments in that they may have changed things up.

I like Liberty tree Inn and I recommend that, but I'd recommend using your meal credits for dinners and not lunches. Sit down lunches can consume time that you may want for park stuff.


I heavily recommend Tutto Italia Ristorante in Epcot over the Garden Grill, its a fabulous place to eat and enjoy.

Thank you for the recommendation for Tutto's. We have cancelled the Garden Grill and made one at Tutto's. My daughter has had gastric by-pass and needs meat (protein) as her main food source and I have been checking the restaurants for steak or chicken that she would enjoy. The 12 oz. Ribeye sounds delicious!

 

[nickys]

Everything is booked at WDW on 10/31 except Liberty Tree at 3:30 p.m. and we were not planning on using our base tickets for MK that day. Planning on going around 4 to 5. It's five months so I will keep checking in hopes of moving the Tony's reservation.

Would they let you in at 3:00 p.m if you had a dining reservation and tickets for MNSSHP?

Have you signed up for the Touring Plans rservation finder? No subscription required, just the free basic access.

 

[slipperalwaysfits]

What about The Wave at Contemporary or Kona Grill at Poly? Those late lunches would allow you to get to the parks by 4!

 

[larandtra]

Kona used to be one fo my favorite places but I can no longer recommend it. The quality has gone way down since they changed the chefs. once again, Take what was the perfect little place to eat that noone really followed since there were more "attractive" places to go and turn it into a place not worth going to.