EMH & ADRs?

[dizcrazy]

Can anyone offer me some advice on how you are planning your meals/adrs? I wouold like to coordinate my meals the best i can - for example, plan on doing a MK character meal on an extra magic hour dat at MK. Anyone else trying to strategically plan their days? If so, advice? I went on the disneyworld site and checked out the calendar, but is there anything else I can do?

 

[dzorn]

I tried to schedule a late lunch to go with EMH. We are not big breakfast eaters so I did not want TS for breakfast. We will grab lunch at food court or even in the room before heading to the parks. Plan on getting there before opening and eating a late lunch 1:30 then heading back to resort for rest and swim. I will be traveling with 4 & 7 year old as well as DH and Dsis. The head back to the park in early evening for a few more hours. Two in our party have Developemental Disabilities so I don't plan to squeeze everything in.
The only day I did not do this is for the fantasmic dinner package. That night our TS will be an evening meal.
I have read about how magical it is to get ADR before park opening to be able to walk down main street deserted. I was tempted to change, but currently have not.
It all depends on what your family likes to eat and at what times. When I grew up my dad worked afternoons and we always had our big meal before he went to work. Especially in the summer when schools out. So I given a preference keep the big meal in the middle of the day.


Denise


Have fun planning and be sure to look at the menus!!

 

[dawnball]

I know that my pre-schooler can only handle about 5 hours in a theme park without a long break. She also eats about every 2 hours or becomes a cranky tyrant. So looking at my notes for the fall trip..

We plan to attend MK EMH and I booked dinners around 5:30 at monorail resorts. So we'll plan to arrive at the MK around 7:30 and stay until midnightish. I'm planning to pick up at least one CS meal for the 2 pre-schoolers to share. It might end up being a snack instead - but the most likely is that we'll get a bunless hotdog and fries at Caseys. One can eat ketchup with fries and one can pull the innards out of the hotdog. Then they can decide they both hate crackerjack.

We have an AK EMH too - Since it comes the day after MK's evening EMH I don't expect the little ones to be awake for it. Their grandparents will go though and the kids, my sister and I will meet them for a late breakfastasaurus (10:30 I think). Then we'll spend some time doing trails and generally having a low-key AK day.

We also planned meals around MK's morning EMH - park opens at 8am to on-site guests, and I think that by 11 it will be jam-packed. So I made 11:30 ADRs for Crystal Palace. We'll stop and eat on our way out for a mid-day rest. I'd get a mid-morning snack somewhere too - but the pickings are really slim for that - so it will probably be snacks from the diaper-vest of doom.

I didn't bother planning meals around Epcot's EMH - other than that I assumed if we did Epcot morning EMH we'd take an early break and planned an earlier than usual dinner. Hrm, no - I'm wrong. I do have an Epcot evening EMH on here - and it says we'll eat at Coral Reef at 5:30 - presumably on our way in for a late evening. I'd give 50/50 odds that we actually make that meal though.

I don't like interrupting park touring for a TS meal. Between getting to the restaurant a little early, waiting for a table, having a leisurely meal, etc - it takes 1.5-2 hours. That's generally long enough for me to realize how tired I am if we've already put in a few hours at the parks. So I try to schedule major meals either on the way in or the way out.

 

[carone0318]

One thing that I took into consideration this year because I learned from last year was I learned that my kids would much rather be in the parks later in the evening and an 8am ADR doesn't cut it. So for any breakfast that I have planned the earliest time I have scheduled is 9:30. This will allow my kids to sleep in a little.

When putting together my schedule this is how I do it. I look at park hours and decide what park I want to go to and on what day (factoring in EMH). Once my schedule is set on where I want to be I then make a list of where I would like to eat on impending trip. I then coordinate the restaurants with the parks and then make my ADRs right at the 180+ slot and then I'm done. If I choose to change something, that is fine, but I will never be one of the people on these boards complaining that I didn't get the time that I wanted or the place.

Once I am there, I am flexible too. If we decide not to eat somewhere, as long as there is no fee for cancelling, I cancel. We are fortunate though in that when we go to Disney we always have the next trip booked already and if we miss something, we'll just catch it next time around.

 

[Angela Kay]

I planned my ADR's for the parks that don't have EMH's. I've heard the evening hours can be very busy at times...this way we won't be tied to that park if it is busy. I do plan on checking the EMH's out though.