ADR's!!!

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Joined: 07/06/2014
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ADR's!!!

Okay, I'm SO excited!!! I'm also editing my original post rather than cluttering up the board with additional posts. Basically we are heading up to Orlando for a week and WDW for four days. My hubby and I are kinda foodies and I've managed to get some really great ADR's, enough to give our Deluxe Dining Plan a serious work-over.

Still, this is our first trip to WDW just us, and only our second trip ever. I've been reading all I can and many of your posts on other threads have been extraordinarily helpful. Now I'm going to need some help figuring out what snacks we should definitely try - assuming we have room - and what snacks might make good for storing and bringing home with us. We'll be staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge so we're trying to take advantage of it as much as possible and enjoy the restaurants there...

Here we go:

Arrive Sunday night, 11/30
Dinner at Sanaa @ 9:15

Monday - Magic Kingdom
Breakfast at Boma (buffet) @ 8:45
Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern @ 1:45
Ice Cream Cookie at Sleepy Hollows (snack)
Dinner at Ohana @ 9:25 (in time to view fireworks at 9:45!)

Tuesday - Hollywood Studios
Breakfast at Starring Rolls (snacks)
Lunch at 50's Prime Time Cafe @ 2:30
Carrot Cake Cookie (snack)
Dinner at Jiko's @ 9:00

Wednesday - Epcot
Breakfast at Boma (buffet) @ 8:45
Lunch at La Halles (snacks)
Dinner at Victoria & Albert's (Chef's Table!) @ 5:30

Thursday - Epcot
Breakfast at Boma (buffet) @ 8:45
Lunch at Via Napoli @ 2:00
School Bread at Kringla Bakery (snack)
Dinner at Wolfgang Puck's @ 10:30

Friday & Saturday - Universal Studios, Dinner at Downtown Disney
Friday at Rainforest Cafe @ 9:30, Desert at Ghiradelli's afterwards
Saturday at Earl of Sandwich whenever, last chance to shop

Sunday - Sea World
No plans as of yet.

Everything listed with a time already has ADR's set and ready to go - please tell me if I'm missing anything, and if so, how can I wedge it in? And thanks again everyone for being so helpful!

Magic Days's picture
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Sounds like an amazing sampling of the best at WDW.

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Is it? I'm kinda standing on the shoulders of geniuses here but feel like I might be out of my league...

I'm calling Ohana to make reservations Monday - hopefully we'll get to see the fireworks show from our table!

EDIT: That's a great picture btw.

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welcome

Right after Thanksgiving is such a great time to visit WDW! My DH and I go every year around that time. Your trip sounds great.
There are just a few things I might suggest to get the most out of your dining plan. First, Liberty Tree Tavern in MK, is a table service credit, so you couldn't use a Quick service credit there. The same goes for Via Napoli in Epcot. They are also a table service credit. IMO, Les Halles Boulangerie & Patisserie is a great choice for a Quick service credit meal in Epcot.

I would suggest if you are having breakfast at Starring Rolls in HS, most of their pastries are about $3.00. Even if you get a cupcake for breakfast~which I HIGHLY recommend, especially the Red Velvet biggrin, they are about $5.00. I'm not sure, but the cupcakes might even be included as a snack credit. If they aren't you may want to pay out of pocket at Starring Rolls and save your Quick service credit for a more expensive meal later.

I would also say that since you are both foodies, you have limited time, and you want most of your vacation to be planned around eating experiences, leave lots of time open for the World Showcase in Epcot. The WS is a foodie's paradise. There are so many options for food and drinks. My DH and I love to walk around WS and get a few snacks from several different countries, and make a meal out of the various snacks. It's our favorite way to eat dinner in WDW. If are looking for a great breakfast on your Epcot day, we love to have a pastry for breakfast from Les Halles Boulangerie & Patisserie in France in the WS. They are awesome! But, the WS doesn't open until 11:00am so if you're there earlier, I would recommend the cronut. When they are fresh, they are better than any funnel cake I've ever had. You can get the cronut starting at 9:00am.

Hope you have a wonderful vacation.

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Hello Shawna Lee and welcome to WDWForGrownups. We will be in WDW at the same time, great week to go. Some some advice though, V & A is a lot of food & the Chefs table is a whole lot of food! I would recommend not eating to much food for lunch. The Chefs Table is a 10 course, 3 hour long meal and I would not want to waste any of it.

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Hi Shawna Lee and welcome. The only piece of advice I can give is don't eat the day you do Chef's Table. Did it last year for my 50th and it is a fantastic experience but you get a lot of food and although the portions are small you get very very full. I was fine until the final dessert which was a chocolate mousse. I took one mouthful and did puffer fish impression! (Feeling fine to feeling overfull in one mouthful) We had to decline the chocolates(which they packed up for us) and waddled out of there.

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I second Les Halles for counter service! Such Via Napoli is Table Service, you may consider paying for it on your own and splitting a pizza. That is a specialty for them as they import the special water they use in mixing the dough. As Annie said, there is much food to enjoy in Epcot, and splitting a pizza will give you more room to sample other goodies! YUM!

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MrHub wrote:
Hello Shawna Lee and welcome to WDWForGrownups. We will be in WDW at the same time, great week to go. Some some advice though, V & A is a lot of food & the Chefs table is a whole lot of food! I would recommend not eating to much food for lunch. The Chefs Table is a 10 course, 3 hour long meal and I would not want to waste any of it.

Sally-Ann wrote:
Hi Shawna Lee and welcome. The only piece of advice I can give is don't eat the day you do Chef's Table. Did it last year for my 50th and it is a fantastic experience but you get a lot of food and although the portions are small you get very very full. I was fine until the final dessert which was a chocolate mousse. I took one mouthful and did puffer fish impression! (Feeling fine to feeling overfull in one mouthful) We had to decline the chocolates(which they packed up for us) and waddled out of there.

I absolutely agree with these comments!! We've done V&A several times and going in with a healthy appetite is a must!! I would recommend a hearty late breakfast, high in protein (eggs, etc) and then a light snack only if you really need it in the mid afternoon! That breakfast will get you through your day and set you up to be really ready for dinner!! Victoria and Albert's is an experience you don't want to waste!!

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Ollie wrote:
MrHub wrote:
Hello Shawna Lee and welcome to WDWForGrownups. We will be in WDW at the same time, great week to go. Some some advice though, V & A is a lot of food & the Chefs table is a whole lot of food! I would recommend not eating to much food for lunch. The Chefs Table is a 10 course, 3 hour long meal and I would not want to waste any of it.

Sally-Ann wrote:
Hi Shawna Lee and welcome. The only piece of advice I can give is don't eat the day you do Chef's Table. Did it last year for my 50th and it is a fantastic experience but you get a lot of food and although the portions are small you get very very full. I was fine until the final dessert which was a chocolate mousse. I took one mouthful and did puffer fish impression! (Feeling fine to feeling overfull in one mouthful) We had to decline the chocolates(which they packed up for us) and waddled out of there.

I absolutely agree with these comments!! We've done V&A several times and going in with a healthy appetite is a must!! I would recommend a hearty late breakfast, high in protein (eggs, etc) and then a light snack only if you really need it in the mid afternoon! That breakfast will get you through your day and set you up to be really ready for dinner!! Victoria and Albert's is an experience you don't want to waste!!


Yeah I would not even eat a lunch that day, maybe a late breakfast and a snack like Ollie suggested .

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Magic Mirror wrote:
I second Les Halles for counter service! Such Via Napoli is Table Service, you may consider paying for it on your own and splitting a pizza. That is a specialty for them as they import the special water they use in mixing the dough. As Annie said, there is much food to enjoy in Epcot, and splitting a pizza will give you more room to sample other goodies! YUM!

Exactly what I was going to say. I think our "serves 2-3" pizza was $31 and we ate half and took half home for dinner that night. Of course, maybe you want not pizza, in which case, it's a bit pricier, but still reasonable relative to other table service meals if you have to do it out of pocket. While I love La Cantina (taco fanatic), I agree that Les Halles is about as good as it gets for World Showcase counter service. They have a very extensive menu and their new location is SO much better for traffic flow and efficiency.

Also, even though your trip will be food-centric, you happen to be visiting during one of the most beautiful seasons on property! If you can make it work with your touring schedule, try to get back to DHS in the evening after dinner to see the Osbourne Spectacle of Dancing Lights. Also, the hotel lobbies are decorated particularly beautifully at AKL/Grand Floridian (where you'll already be), Beach Club, Boardwalk, Contemporary, and Wilderness Lodge. If you can make time, check them out. Be sure to grab a times guide at EPCOT. After Thanksgiving, Holidays Around the World begins at EPCOT and they are both fascinating and fantastically delivered! Each story is about 10 minutes long, but the schedules are different for each country and there are some overlaps and break periods on the schedule. In one day, you won't be able to catch them all, but based on our experience, I would prioritize in this order: Italy, Morocco, Norway, Germany, UK, France. Japan and Mexico were ok, but if you have to give them up to see the others, do it. I would skip US and Canada (not terribly well done last year) and even with three days at EPCOT, we missed China, so I can't comment on that one.

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December 2013: 10th Anniversary, 1st DVC Stay | April 2014: Birthday on the Boardwalk | May 2014: Star Wars Weekend, Navigating WDW with a wheelchair | August 2014: Villains Unleashed | September/October 2014: MNSSHP, F&W, Tower of Terror 10-miler | March/April 2015: Disneyland and California Coastal Cruise | November 2015: Wine & Dine Half, Food & Wine, 1st Disney Cruise | February 2016: Presidential Classic Gymnastics Meet | March 2016: "Work" Trip, Tours, F&G Festival | April 2016: Conference at Disneyland | Fall 2016: Festive Fall Fun | January 2017: Festival of the Arts | May 2017: AbD Backstage Magic | July 2017: AbD San Francisco | Sorry I had to give up doing trip reports. Too many time commitments right now.

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Thank-you everyone for your responses! I'm already filing things away to look into.

Turns out that I was a little confused (surprise, surprise) on a few things - even though we'll only be spending three days in the park we'll be spending four nights at AKL, so all told we'll have four of each type of credit to spend. I assume that I won't be able to use the credits after we check out of our hotel? Also, the advice to eat light on our last day at Epcot is probably very good, considering V&A's, but is there any place you'd rather less 'eat light' in than Epcot?

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My understanding is that your credits can be used up until midnight on your check out day.

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Miss Mikki wrote:
My understanding is that your credits can be used up until midnight on your check out day.

That is correct.

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Well, good news and bad - we were able to get reservations at Ohana for 9:15 which should position us well for the 9:45-10:00 start of Celebrate the Magic... but we weren't able to get seats at Cinderella's Royal Table for breakfast on any morning of our stay. To be honest, I had to do a lot of juggling with ADR's - and that during what I was led to believe was one of the least busy periods at WDW too. For future reference, would there be a better time of year than in the week or so after the Thanksgiving break (Dec 1-7 for us this year)?

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Some restaurants you must, must, must reserve as soon as the 180-day window for making reservations begins. Even at a time of year when crowds are low. That's probably why you couldn't get Cinderella's Royal Table and had to do some juggling with some of your other ADRs.

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Consider it a lesson learned. This is the first trip I'm actually planning and I was sure the smaller crowds might let me sneak into the 160 or 165 day window instead of the 180. mad

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CCP's assessment is spot on. Some places are booked within an hour or so at the 180 mark, but what does happen is that during the slower times, you may luck into an opening if someone has to back out of their reservation for one reason or another. For example, one of the hottest tickets in dining is Be Our Guest. Last December during the same week that you are traveling, I was checking for a last minute same-day ADR for Tony's and Be Our Guest popped up as available for that night. So keep checking for Cinderella's Royal Table. You may get lucky!!

Another thing to note is that the traditional "slow seasons" are rapidly disappearing off the calendar as Disney adds more special events. Aside from mid-week (which was so amazingly slow that I walked-on nearly a dozen MK rides in less than 3 hours on a Tuesday morning), we found the first week of December to feel more crowded than the last week of August, which is a typical time for us to take a trip. Thanksgiving was late last year, so we hit the end of Thanksgiving and the Pop Warner kiddie football/cheerleading thing was the following weekend, so we ran into large groups of scantly supervised adolescents. That being said, we have also been in MK on New Year's Eve when the park was at capacity at 10am. Relative to that, the first week of December was practically empty. Incidentally, we also somehow managed to score a walk-up for Cinderella's Royal Table that day. (Of course, it was our honeymoon, so that might have been Disney magic.) But you never know. Don't count yourself out just because you miss an ADR at 180 days.

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Trip Reports:
December 2013: 10th Anniversary, 1st DVC Stay | April 2014: Birthday on the Boardwalk | May 2014: Star Wars Weekend, Navigating WDW with a wheelchair | August 2014: Villains Unleashed | September/October 2014: MNSSHP, F&W, Tower of Terror 10-miler | March/April 2015: Disneyland and California Coastal Cruise | November 2015: Wine & Dine Half, Food & Wine, 1st Disney Cruise | February 2016: Presidential Classic Gymnastics Meet | March 2016: "Work" Trip, Tours, F&G Festival | April 2016: Conference at Disneyland | Fall 2016: Festive Fall Fun | January 2017: Festival of the Arts | May 2017: AbD Backstage Magic | July 2017: AbD San Francisco | Sorry I had to give up doing trip reports. Too many time commitments right now.

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I agree with the others - keep trying if it's something you really want.

I have also found that how you search for a reservation matters. On more than one occasion, a search for "dinner" reservations comes up empty, but a search for "7:00pm" reservations comes up with options within an hour either way.

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That's good advice, everyone, I'll keep trying - thanks!

We've definitely decided to sneak in an extra day, so now it'll be four days at Disney (an extra full Epcot day) and then two days at Universal with a final day at Sea World. I'm considering one of those Candlelight Processional meal packages at Epcot on the second day - does anyone have any experience with that?

I've also updated and will continue to update the original post rather than add to board clutter.

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Is there anywhere in WDW where I can get a chocolate chip cookie sundae? The ones at DL look delish!

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Shawna Lee wrote:
Is there anywhere in WDW where I can get a chocolate chip cookie sundae? The ones at DL look delish!

The Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop at DTD has some amazing sundaes. Several sundaes have cookies in them. If you like really rich, filling sundaes, they are #1 biggrin

If you are in MK and you want a cookie ice cream sandwich, Sleepy Hollow's are great. They are two big cookies with ice cream in the middle. awesome

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Its on the list (newly updated) and already one of my highlights clapping

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Beaches and cream also do nice sundaes! And you can use your dining plan in there

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Storybook Treats at MK (Fantasyland) also has a cookie sundae. It was good awesome

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That looks incredible, Spook! awesome