Walt Disney World ADRs - Advanced Dining Reservations - Necessary or No?

If you even glance at the previous list of posts you can tell that I adore Walt Disney World. What I don't love, however, is the hype surrounding it. If you are like me and love to research and plan your vacation in advance you can start to feel a lot of pressure to create the "perfect" experience.  Websites will tell you that you must eat with Mickey or that you need to get dining reservations 180 days in advance if you are going to give your family a dream vacation.

I'm not so sure. I've made reservations. We've had numerous Character meals. It's nice. I'm just not convinced that its critical to a great Disney vacation.  Next time we go to Walt Disney World I plan to go without any advanced dining reservations (ADRs). If I decide we want to eat somewhere specific I may call in a day or two before --or even just a few hours before --since walk up tables are notoriously hard to get at most Disney restaurants.


Crowd level mid-week Magic Kingdom, first week of June

Here is my experiment with Dining Reservations in the Spring of 2013.

How to Book a Last Minute Meal
You can always call WDW-DINE and ask about available reservations. If you’re flexible about where you eat, Disney’s online reservation system makes it easy to find your best dining option, even at the last minute.

1. Start at the main Disney Dining reservations . Make sure your “Location”  remains the “No preference” to see what ALL your choices are.
2. After that, choose the date and your party size as well as the meal you’re interested in booking. To maximize your options, choose the “Dinner” (for example) rather than choosing a specific time.

If you can't find any reservations you want try the following:

• Split larger groups - a family of 4 becomes two groups of 2. Let them know when you arrive that you want to sit together.  Disney meals that include photo packages (CRT, Akershus) will provide one package to each party of  4 or less. Booking as two parties means you get 2 photo packages!
• Use your phone to get a last minute reservation using the My Disney Experience app.

What I Learned
Disney charges a per person cancellation fee for Character and Signature Dining reservations that are not cancelled within 24 hours.That means that while Kona Cafe may not have a last minute table available Ohana might. The fee is typically $10 per person so if a party needs to cancel they will typically do it a day or two before - prime time for you to snap up a reservation.

It used to be that "the" reservation to get was Cinderella's Royal Table (CRT).  It seems easier now. This may be because CRT requires 2 table service credits for anyone on the dining plan.  It  is also competing with the new Be Our Guest Restaurant. Be Our Guest was the one restaurant where I had trouble finding an opening. I scored a reservation for a party of 4 at 8:50PM just 2 days in advance.

There are only 14 restaurants with Character meals that I'm aware of. These seem to book up earlier than other restaurants.

90 days out:
I searched for mid-week dinner reservations for a party of 4 around 5:00 PM, with no particular restaurant in mind for the first week of June (not a low or high season) 6/3/2013 dinner 

• 88 available choices including
• Character dining such as
• Akershus
• Cinderella's Royal Table
• The Crystal Palace and
• Hoop de Doo Musical Review
• Signature dining experiences including
• Jiko
• Coral Reef
• Le Cellier
• Victoria & Albert's

 

60 days out:
I found 86 restaurants with availability based on the same search I used at 90 days. There were still tables available for prime spots like the Fantasmic Dinner, Victoria & Albert's, Hoop De Doo, even Cinderella's Royal Table (at 9:20 PM).

I searched midweek for a Character breakfast. I found reservations for a party of 4 at most of the main restaurants. If I reduced the party size to 2 I was even able to get reservations at Cinderella's Royal Table at the most desired time -- before park opening! That means we could have been first in line for almost any ride. I chickened out because I didn't want to put down the almost $90 non-refundable payment.

Turns out that was a big mistake! While a credit card is needed to guarantee your table it won't be charged when you make your reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table. ONLY if you are a no show or cancel within less than 24 will it be charged the ten dollars per person. When you get to the meal you can pay with dining credits, another credit card, the same credit card, or cash. However, even guests on the Disney Dining Plan need to have a credit card on file to hold a table at this popular restaurant.

30 days out:
Still 85 restaurants with available dinner seating -seven within the Magic Kingdom. There were still character meals available including an early dinner at the Crystal Palace or a late dinner with the princesses at Akershus. Fantasmic dinner packages were available as were fine dining options such as Jiko, Monsier Paul, Hollywood Brown Derby, Narcoosees and Victoria & Albert's.

Mid-week character breakfast options for a party of 4 included Supercalifragilstic Breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, Mickey & Friends at Cape May Cafe and Disney Junior friends at Hollywood & Vine - before park opening so you could be inside the park before rope drop! Can you say "first ones to ride Toy Story Mania"?

One week before:
Results were much poorer at this point. Only 1 character breakfast available, although there were 5 character dinners with available reservations.

Overall there were 85 restaurants with available dinner reservations for 4, most with perfectly reasonable times between 5:30 and 7:30 PM. Specialty meals like Ohana and Hoop de Doo Musical Review had vacancies as did many of the fine dining places.

Since we're not on the dining plan, I double checked for inexpensive restaurants. There were 54 in the "moderate price range. Considering there are only 28 restaurants total in the Magic Kingdom I was happy to find 11 restaurants with dinner seating, including The Plaza in the "$14.99 and under" category. 

 And that's my definition of "poor choice" ;)

RESULTS

My opinion based on this admittedly informal research:

If you desperately want to eat at Cinderella's Royal Table or Be Our Guest, by all means put WDW-DINE on speed dial 180 days out and call, call, call until you get the table of your dreams.   Another almost impossible reservation to get is the Tomorrowland Terrace Dessert Party - call 180 days out if this is a MUST for you. 

If you aren't as specific in your dining desires you can definitely let it slide.

Princess character meals seem to book up faster than other character meals. If your little darling wants to dine with the princesses I'd suggest making reservations at least 60 days out.

I'll follow up with day before & day of reservation results.

Backyard Woodland Play Area

We recently cleared most of our back yard. It was heavily wooded with 80-90 foot pine trees. The ground was covered with a thick growth of English Ivy.

In the South heavy ground cover is an open invitation to snakes. And, in the South we have several species of poisonous snakes. Needless to say we never walked back there. We had the ivy cleared last year and I loved having access to more of our yard.

The trees were top heavy and so close to the house that they represented a potential threat. Over the winter three of the massive trees in the front yard fell. Kevin gamely got our his chain saw, cut them into sections and cleared them away. However if any of the trees in the back fell they were almost guaranteed to hit the house - and one of the girls' bedrooms. I decided that they all had to go.

We had the town arborist come out and evaluate the trees. With the exception of a few very old trees and one or two specimen trees he agreed that they could all come down.

We left one corner of the yard wooded. It had several large trees to accommodate Danielle's hammock and zip line.

I wanted to make this area her woodland wonderland. But, how could I draw her across the dry creek bed to play in that area? The giant remaining logs became a natural bridge.

Since it was a shady corner I wanted to add some color. I spent $10 on metal flowers from Dollar Tree to create a whimsical year round flower garden. The kids can move them around as they see fit.

I painted a piece of left over plywood with chalk board paint and leaned it against the back fence. I hung a bright plastic colander of chalk next to it.

 

We spent a week playing back there, creating our fairy gardens.

 

 

As we played other things moved into the area. Soon her balance beam was back there, as were some child-sized lawn chairs and an outdoor coffee table that had been on the deck. Perfect for picnics or woodland tea parties!

And if you are going to have tea parties, then you clearly need a kitchen. So we assembled a mud kitchen - or mud lab, depending on its purpose on any given day. Again, we made this from recycled materials, including a piece of scrap lumber and some cinder blocks. We moved forgotten play kitchen toys, thrift store items and the sand box next to it.

We had an art area. I wanted some musical instruments as well. We have several sets of wind chimes around the yard. I pulled one set apart and hung them from the fence for a xylophone. Danielle has a set of bongos she loves, but I don't want them left outside.  We made a taiko drum from an old tire and $3 worth of duct tape. The tire had been a swing but my neighbor was having fits about mosquitoes breeding in it even though I had drilled holes in the bottom to prevent water from accumulating in it.

Taiko Drum made from an old tire & duct tape

I used some inexpensive (10 cent) tiles to create a tic tac toe board set into the ground. We used rocks for the markers.  I painted the Xs and Os with nail polish.

Studies show that what children most want in their natural play spaces are: water, vegetation, animals, insects, and sand. We had trees, birds, squirrels and insects already. I moved the sandbox over (empty) and filled it with clean sand. All I needed was water.  I really wanted a rain barrel with a faucet so they could have "running" water to play with. It was a little expensive so instead  I made a small water garden with a few goldfish. I bought a plastic "whiskey barrel" for $15 from Big Lots and a $18 solar pump from  Harbor Freight Tools. Add gravel few water plants and fish (to keep the mosquitoes down) - viola!

water gardening in the rain...

Children need things to sit on, in and under. They want places that provide privacy, shade and shelter.
We had the various trees, but as a landscape it was fairly barren. Danielle really wanted a tree house, but that is beyond my construction abilities. I used a Dollar Tree hula hoop and a thrift shop sheet to create a princess-like pavilion that we hung from a tree branch. I can put up our tent out there on sunny days.

They also want different levels, nooks, crannies and places to hide. Unfortunately in the South nooks and crannies are often home to snakes, black widows, brown recluse spiders and scorpions. Not the type of animals and insects I want kids playing with!

Finally, kids crave things that can be changed. They want loose parts that they use to build and create their own inventions. Think of how many kids love Legos, for instance. The desire to create is hard-wired in most of us. That's why I added some open ended items like the metal flowers, baskets, buckets, lengths of rope, etc. I'd like a pallet or two as well. The kids can move things around depending on their mood and the day. There are a few stumps for balancing stones, seats and general construction, but most were just too heavy to carry across the dry creek bed.

I had wanted to create a path from logs, but sawing logs to the correct thickness was harder than I thought it would be. Instead I bought some stepping stones ($3 each) and painted them bright colors for a path. Since these are plastic the kids can move them and incorporate them into their games.

Most of the things in the new play space were moved from other parts of our house or yard. A fair number (like the tire drum) were created from recycled objects. All together I spent less than $75 on materials for this newly developed play area.

 

The zip line is up and we still have one large tree without a purpose. It's just crying out for a swing. I know I have some a 2x4 and some rope somewhere...