Question about Dining

We do it all the time. We usually plan to be at the park that's closer to the restaurant we are eating at that night. If we don't go back to our room mid afternoon, then we just go as we are. Of course, the signature restaurants have a dress code, so if we are going to one of them, we'll either head out later in the afternoon and be dressed for dinner, or we'll head back to our room mid afternoon. We're not "at the park all day" kind of people, so it works for us.

We never rent a car and rely on the Disney transportation. You need to leave at least 90 - 120 min to get to your destination, especially if you are going back to your resort and then headed out to dinner. We've also used a taxi if we need to get someone quick.

We use taxi's a lot in WDW. Bell services will call one for you that will normally arrive very quickly. We find that the few dollars they cost is worth it to us. We use Disney buses to get from Resort to park but taxis for resort to resort.

We focus on the restaurants at or near the resort where we're staying. When at Animal Kingdom Lodge we tried Sanaa and Jiko; at Wilderness Lodge we tried Whispering Canyon and Artist Point as well as the Contemporary's California Grill, just a short boat ride away. Otherwise, we would schedule resort ADRs for restaurants that didn't require stopping at our room to change.

If I was going to book a lot of ADR's at other resorts, I might opt to stay at Contemporary or Saratoga Springs because they are within walking distance to a place where you can catch a bus directly to another resort. From Contemporary, you can walk to the MK bus loop and from SSR, you can walk to the bus stop at DTD Marketplace. You'll save time and frustration by not needing to bus to DTD or a park, get off the bus, and wait for another bus to transfer to the resort.

We usually bus or boat over to the nearest park to our eating destination and hop the bus to that resort. The wait times for buses has never been to bad and it works out great. To get back to our resort we sometimes take a bus to DTD and transfer there or grab a cab. The cabs between resorts are cheap and fast. Some of the best Disney restaurants are at the resorts.

Great point!

When we have done this we normally allow about an hour and half to get from our resort, to another park (we usually just take the first bus that comes which might not be the best strategy but has worked for us) and then hop on the bus to the resort. If we get there early we just take the time to explore the resort. There has been a couple of times where we've been running a few minutes late and we've never been turned away for our ADR.

I think it's a great idea, Allie. I've gotten stuck in the trap where I decide to wait for the most efficient bus and it rarely seems to work out. We were at Beach Club trying to get to Contemporary, so MK was the most efficient. In that time, three other park buses came by. I'm sure it would have been faster that day to take any of those buses.

We usually wind up with dinner ADR's in Epcot every night. By mid-afternoon, it's usually time for a break and coffee so we'll return to our resort around 3:00 or so, which always leaves us plenty of time to relax a bit, freshen up for dinner, and get back to Epcot in plenty of time for a dinner reservation, usually between 7 & 8. It helps to be creatures of habit!!

We are mid-day break kind of people so it's not usually an issue for us. We usually plan our break so that we have time to get back to the resort, take a power nap and get to the park where our reservation is. I'm always refreshed and ready to eat by the that time and then when we're done with dinner we head back out to the parks. We've only done one signature restaurant and we probably wouldn't do it again on a night we plan to go back to the parks after dinner because of the whole changing thing. It was inconvenient and added a bit of stress to the night.

I think the smart thing to do is to plan ADRs at resorts that are nearby or have close proximity to a park. So if you're planning to dine at Poly, Contemporary, Grand Floridian or even Wilderness Lodge, it's probably best to visit MK that day. Yacht Club, Beach Club and Boardwalk, you'd probably should spend the day at Epcot or the Studios. Otherwise, book the resort ADRs on half-days or, in an even better scenario, on off-days when you have no plans to spend the day in the parks so that the time crunch isn't so cumbersome and overbearing.

The key in my book is to have a transfer point that won't take a lot of time either going to or from a resort and is easily accessible in many ways. It's kinda tricky when the only mode of transport for some resorts is bus exclusively, like all of the value resorts, moderates and Animal Kingdom Lodge though Port Orleans is accessible by watercraft to and from Downtown Disney. You might have to use Animal Kingdom as a transfer point (This works best if you have interest in seeing the Animal Kingdom Lodge or values as they are the closest to.) or Downtown Disney/Disney Springs either because of AK's early closing hours or if you happen to have plans for a long day at Downtown Disney/Disney Springs.

That's all I can really think of in terms of how to properly plan resort ADRs without having to resort to paying money for a taxi and whatnot.

We have found that using the Disney transportation to go from a park to a resort is fine, but it is terribly inconvenient to go between resorts. You have to allow time to transfer at one of the parks or
Downtown Disney, which usually means leaving your resort, at the very least, an hour before your reservation. Usually what we do is go to the parks when they first open in the morning, and stay until about 1 or 2. Then we go back to the pool, spend a few hours there, shower, change and take a cab to the restaurant. On the way back, we use the bus system, which will drop us off at one of the parks staying open later and then take a bus back to our resort.

Preview	Attachment	Size
	107.jpg	125.88 KB