Are ADRs the root cause/basis to all of the planning?

[Seeker615]

I really think it depends on what you want to do. I can only imagine how hard it would be if you were planning a once in a lifetime trip and wanted to do it all. You would need to juggle ADR's, fast passes and any other special events.

A couple of years ago we were going to do a 5 night trip to go to the Christmas Party and trying to plan ADR's schedules got to be overwhelming. We ended up going to Universal instead and took an evening to just go over and do the Christmas party.

 

[Alesia]

We only have one table service meal every 3 days, so no, ADRs are not the basis of my planning.

I plan because I enjoy planning and (more importantly) we enjoy our trips much more when there's a solid plan. Believe it or not, having a detailed plan actually makes it easier for us to be flexible and stress-free. There's nothing enjoyable about wandering around trying to figure out what we're going to do next.

 

[IrishNYC]

I think for frequent visitors like yourself, planning based on ADRs (if you choose to do them) is less of an issue. For the "once in a lifetime" or very infrequent visitor, it's much more important to get those "big" ADRs in there. Our last trip was "once in a lifetime" or so we thought. so we "had to" do CRT and Chef Mickey with our DD5. If you go two or three times a year, there are more opportunities to do those ADRs that are a big deal, or really special.

Our last trip was booked at less than 180 days out, so I had to really simultaneously decide which parks for which days, and which ADRs we would do - no more than one TS per day. We got every single ADR we wanted, all at times we wanted: PPO CRT, a Chef Mickey breakfast, PPO BOG, and a few others that aren't as hard to get. Some of them I had to keep searching for, some of them I got on my first attempt, and my TA snagged the BOG in the middle of the night.

Our next trip is 10 months away. We need to plan around which night we will go to MNSSHP, and not going to Epcot on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday because I want to avoid the F&W crowd. The only hard to get ADR we really want is PPO BOG, and we want it because we really liked the food, not to get a jump start on anything. There's nothing else on our "must-eat at" list this time, so we're a bit more flexible. We're also on a much shorter trip this time, so we can't afford to be as stubborn about where we want to eat.

While our last trip was "we're never coming back again" before we got there, this time we know we'll be back again someday, but it won't be for a while because we have too much going on, and too many other places to travel that we're already planning for.

 

[thingwithwings]

I don't personally get too married to ADRs or too adamant about getting them unless I'm really excited about a certain experience; even then, Disney dining is such that 99% of the time, you're going to have a great experience, regardless of what restaurant you end up at.

That said, because of the 180 day window, a little bit of our planning has been centered around our ADRs, but more in the sense of "oh, I managed to snag that character dinner I really wanted on this day, so we'll make sure to set aside that day for the park the dinner's in" rather than anything super serious. The rest has been more along the lines of "well, we'll be in EPCOT this day, so we might as well go to Yachtsman that night."

 

[angierae]

I have park hopper specifically because I don't want to plan around my ADRs. I make them, but we usually do a park in the morning, a CS lunch, leave at some point to go back to the resort to swim/chill, go to dinner, and then decide what to do after that - either stay in the park dinner is in, or head to a park from the resort dinner is at, or just chill at the resort.

But like others, I'm not cooking on vacation. We bring our own snacks into the park, but that's it.

 

[prprincess]

I've never planned a trip 180 days out, but it really depends on several factors. If I'm on the meal plan, I traditionally try and go for one TS a day for dinner. When we went in August, my boys were begging me to to go BOG. As you know, it's difficult to snag a reservation and so, because I couldn't I'd just based our park days on what I saw on the crowd calendars and went from there. BUT two weeks out, I did snag a dinner and ended up switching two park days and losing some "must-needed" FastPasses...mind you, the boys thought the dinner was more important than the rides, so they were fine with it. So what I guess I'm saying is that for us, I take into consideration whether or not we have the meal plan, what the crowds might be, and then unexpected changes to our plans. But when we're not on the dining plan, thing are a bit more flexible because we just do TS.

 

[Crystal824]

I think it depends on the family. We typically do our ADRs 180 days out. We rarely get the DP. We usually do a TS restaurant once every 2-3 days so not everyday, which gives us a little more flexibility. I think it is a combination of ADRs and FP that make it difficult to move things around. We leave for our trip in about a week. I need to review our schedule due to some new things happening/opening next week that I didn't anticipate when I did the original plan ie. Jingle Bell/Bam and potential for ROL. Because we don't have many ADRs that makes it a bit easier. The few we do have, we would like to do. My kids would be angry if I cancel 7DMT or the Frozen FPs so I have to work around those too. Granted there aren't a ton of FP that you generally can't switch, but there are a few that if you cancel you won't be able to get again.

 

[Thing 1]

We have done planning a lot of different ways. We have planned trips a year out, a month out and yes once a WEEK out. Most are about 6 months out. We are going next May so I'm in planning mode now. This is our first trip with deluxe dinning so a bit more is focused on ADRs. We are planners though I wish we did not have to plan quite so much. We have already booked rooms and have set which days we wanted to be in which park. We based that on crowd calendars and EMH. We already had a list of restaurants we wanted to do and then plugged them into those days. We do mid-day breaks and hop for the PM so we basically divided the days into two parts. For the PM we often book resort ADR and then plan to go to the park closest to where we eat. For us the bigger problem is working in our FP. How to space them and still take breaks and have a chance at some PM FP. This trip is the first time we have focused so much on food so it will be interesting how it plays out. We make our ADR next week and we are going to plan ahead all but a few credits. We are leaving room for the possibility of booking a package for the new AK show, and a few lunches we just might want to grab CS. We have done last minute ADRs and there are really tons of choices left but there will be a few your will not be able to get. We had family go recently with ZERO planning. It was a disappointing and frustrating trip where they got very little done. We on the other hand are going to have every minute of this trip planned and Im not so sure we are going to be totally happy with that either. Got to be a compromise somewhere.

 

[BrianL]

I think like a lot of people I plan my park days first based on expected crowd levels (though that is so much harder to do now) , then I plan my ADR's around that. I'm not going to plan an ADR in the less optimal park, though if you book early enough you shouldn't have to.

 

[revdon64]

ADRs are a part of our planning, but not the primary driver of it. We pick out a week when we'd like to go, check our favorite crowd calendar to pick which days to do which parks, then decide what one sit down meal/restaurant we want to patronize for each day. Pretty much in that very order, so ADRs fall in priority after park days and scheduled trip, but before FP+... at least for us.

 

[Hopefully]

"Root Cause" has such a negative connotation.
That said, we plan which park which day first, based on crowd estimates EMH etc. We get the basic DDP - so we usually plan a TS dinner each night. We do a QS in the park we are in for lunch and we get a Garden Grocer delivery for breakfast items.
We stay at BCV so lots of our dinners are in Epcot WS.
Other than that, we plan an ADR in the park we are in or a nearby resort.
ADR's are not the driver of our planning, but definitely a part of it since we have favorite restaurants we want to eat at

 

[Klayfish]

Thanks for all the responses so quickly. I totally agree with many of you that have posted that it's all about priorities and what you're looking to get out of your trip, how you like to vacation, etc... I just wanted to get perspective on how ADRs play a role, because it's something that we don't do. When I read through posts, it occurs to me that our WDW experience is so different than those who stay onsite and do ADRs (again, not making any judgment call whatsoever, it's just a different experience), so it's interesting to learn about the different ways people do WDW.

We have eaten in a handful of the restaurants in Epcot, but none required reservations. We made a reservation once, about 3 days in advance, and walked into an empty restaurant. Most recently, we ate at one of the restaurants in Morocco. Food was pretty good, neat place.

EDIT - "Root cause" has a negative connotation only if you take it that way. It wasn't meant as negative. Since I don't do them, I was wondering if they're the driving factor, primary reason, whatever you want to call it for the reason people who plan a lot do it. Not at all meant to be negative, rather just a question.

If ADRs could magically go away, would it have a huge effect on how you plan your trip?

 

[piccolopat]

We do our ADRs early in the process but since we go every year or two, we've been to almost all of the TS restaurants in the parks before. I will change ADRs around to fit the FP+ that we want and have no regrets doing so. Of course, for our next trip my mom is coming and I wanted to bring her to BOG but there have been no openings so far. I'll keep checking but we have back up plans since I really want lunch and dinner at TS to give her more of a break (she's 83). This trip is much more about her since she hasn't been to the parks in more than 15 years. I agree with others that there are very few restaurants where the food or experience is so outstanding that they shouldn't be missed no matter what.

 

[Alesia]

If ADRs could magically go away, would it have a huge effect on how you plan your trip?

Not at all.

 

[WishnDisney]

If ADRs could magically go away, would it have a huge effect on how you plan your trip?

It might actually make it more stressful for me...

We buy the whole package with the middle level dining plan. My husband hates spending money. Knowing everything is paid for makes it a more enjoyable experience for us. He doesn't worry about every single thing cause he doesn't have to reach into his pocket.

I'm on vacation. Not cooking and eating out is part of my vacation. We also go in summer because our teens are in school. It's hot and crowded. We often grab our lunch back at resort at CS during our mid afternoon break. Hard touring in morning based upon crowd schedules.

A nice dinner and then a relaxed trip through a park at night. It's wonderful.

I honestly like having my plans made ahead of time. I also have no problem with adjusting things on the fly based upon how we feel at the time.

Horrors...we have come home with extra credits both TS and QS. Having taken the stress off everyone with my husband's not having to spend money while we are there is worth the lost credits. It's all psychological.

 

[VACamm]

For me the over planning is mostly driven by my love of Disney and thinking about it 24/7! I like to plan my vacation in the months before my actual vacation so that I can 'think' of and 'be doing' Disney stuff. To be honest, a LOT of my planning is thrown out the window when we actually get there. While we were in WDW this past September, I actually moved around a lot of our FP+ attractions and times because we wanted to do something different or because we wanted to hang out at the pool longer. We even park hopped to different parks after dinner a few times that were 'not on the schedule' but decided it would be fun! We do stick to the meal ADR's though for sure. But everything else us up for changing and moving around.

So yes., while I do plan a LOT prior to leaving for WDW, but we literally don't always follow that plan.

 

[IrishNYC]

If ADRs could magically go away, would it have a huge effect on how you plan your trip?

How I plan? No. Our level of enjoyment? Possibly. DH doesn't do restaurant waits. He would rather drive 40 minutes to another restaurant where he will be seated immediately, than wait 30 minutes where we already are. I wouldn't bother me to wait a little.

I do think if ADRs were done away with we would find people camped out for hours for popular places like BOG dinner. I think the the volume of visitors needs some sort of reservation system, but the time period needs to be shortened. The current system encourages reservation hoarding.

 

[Alesia]

I think the the volume of visitors needs some sort of reservation system, but the time period needs to be shortened. The current system encourages reservation hoarding.

About 7or 8 years ago they shortened it to 90 days and it was a disaster. Call volume was ridiculously high and they couldn't keep up.

 

[AngiTN]

Thanks for all the responses so quickly. I totally agree with many of you that have posted that it's all about priorities and what you're looking to get out of your trip, how you like to vacation, etc... I just wanted to get perspective on how ADRs play a role, because it's something that we don't do. When I read through posts, it occurs to me that our WDW experience is so different than those who stay onsite and do ADRs (again, not making any judgment call whatsoever, it's just a different experience), so it's interesting to learn about the different ways people do WDW.

We have eaten in a handful of the restaurants in Epcot, but none required reservations. We made a reservation once, about 3 days in advance, and walked into an empty restaurant. Most recently, we ate at one of the restaurants in Morocco. Food was pretty good, neat place.

EDIT - "Root cause" has a negative connotation only if you take it that way. It wasn't meant as negative. Since I don't do them, I was wondering if they're the driving factor, primary reason, whatever you want to call it for the reason people who plan a lot do it. Not at all meant to be negative, rather just a question.

If ADRs could magically go away, would it have a huge effect on how you plan your trip?

No, since I don't really make them during the planning process.
Now, I would hate to see the reservation system go away as I don't want to wait an hour to eat, or whatever it would be if everyone was walkup. I love making reservations, we do even when we assume they aren't needed, because it never hurts to make one. But if they took away the option to make them more than a day in advance it wouldn't bother me at all. Just don't take them away totally

 

[ElsasFan]

As I've posted before, we stay off property and pack all of our food. So we have no experience with ADRs. We also do a bare minimum amount of planning, far less than a lot of people here. We only map out what park we're going to visit on what day so we can get our FP+ 30 days out. We don't look at crowd calendars, consider what day of the week we'll be in what park, or anything else. Our park rotation is purely for variety. We even switch those plans and FP+ last minute probably 20-30% of the time. We don't do rope drops anymore, we don't typically wait in lines more than 30-40 minutes. That's the style that works best for our family.

Before anyone wants to jump all over me, I realize that's just a personal preference, and there are many right ways to plan your trip. I'm not implying at all that our way is THE right way, or is better than anyone elses. Not at all. My question is around ADRs, because when I read threads...specifically around planning...a lot of the discussion seems to center around them. It's an honest question, since we literally have never done them.

I've read how ADRs need to be made 180 days in advance if you want to get the restaurant you want at the times you want. If that's the case, I can definitely see how that can really lock you into having a certain plan and having to stick with it.

For those who do extensive planning, is the ADR the center/genesis/root cause of it? Do all your plans circle around the ADRs you make? When you're on the dining plan (which again I know nothing about), do you chose to make all 3 meals as ADRs or do you do some QS so that you can have flexibility? If WDW could sprinkle pixie dust and make ADRs go away, would it change how you plan? Again, it's not a critical question, it's purely out of interest in knowing, because I have no experience with it.

For me, making sure that my family has fun is the root cause of all of my planning. We define fun as staying ahead of the crowds and not standing in lines any more than possible. We almost never stand in 30-40 minute lines--we just don't enjoy it. We all get grouchy when it is hot and crowded, so I do my best to figure out when to go where so we can avoid those things. ADRs figure into it; we have to figure out which park we are going to 180+ days out, but that is sort of an add-on to my thinking.