Do I have to plan hard-to-get ADRs for later in stay?

[Sunflowers13]

We’re staying at Boardwalk on a Monday to Saturday reservation late spring. We’d initially planned on doing MK Tuesday (since we’d heard that’s a less crowded day there, it’s the park our kids—7 year daughter, & 5 year twin sons—will be most excited about, and we figured our kids would be the “freshest”/better rested). As of now, we have Epcot on Wed, AK Thursday, and Hollywood Studios Friday. It’s my kids’ first time at Disney, so I’d love to get Cinderella’s Royal Table reservations and MK dessert party reservations for that first park day at MK. These are the most important reservations to us, and I doubt we’ll be able to come back until the kids are much older. Should I swap our MK date for one of the later dates in our stay, to increase our chances of snagging a reservation? (Since I can book 60 days + 2/3 etc, and am competing with fewer reservations being made for the dates past the 60 days) Is it worth then having it be a busier day at Mk if it’s later in the week (Wed/Thurs/Fri), as opposed to a Tuesday?

 

[Sunflowers13]

Bump

 

[DonTheDuck]

You can switch your park reservations around after you arrange your dining (or park hop).

Sometimes you get lucky but Cinderella probably will not be available until later in your stay.

I was able to find and reserve several tables for the fourth day of my stay there. But I am also tracking on mouse alerts (we are a large party so combining small tables) and very little has dropped or opened up since.

 

[Kcnc]

I think you have a good plan to hit MK first. It's the main event for little ones and they very well may be tired out by the end. My advice would be to grab the first reservation you see, even if it's not for your MK day. If that happens, you can play around with the 'modify' option from time to time, sometimes I've been lucky to get times that way that weren't available as a new reservation. You can set a dining alert, because you can get lucky that some will open up in the day or hours before.

If you are unable to change it to the time you want, then you can either park hop or change around your park days

 

[Her Dotness]

I agree with the above advice.

We were once told by a resort CM never to cancel a reservation you've made as a placeholder when hoping to get one you'd rather have. Make the foot-in-door reservation, because you've a better chance of getting the desired one by modifying that one rather than canceling it and trying for the one you want.

Seconds count oftentimes when seeking the very popular restaurants, the CM explained. Canceling drops you out of the system, making you try to get back into it. Modifying keeps your place to try again if unsuccessful.

 

[Sunflowers13]

All helpful to know, thank you!