You may have heard...I am going to Disney World next month!
In the last Disney post I mentioned that you need to plan ahead for Disney. One of the major planning points is booking dinning reservations (ADRs) 6 months in advance.
Ok, ok I hear you. How do I know what we are going to want to eat on which day for a vacation 6 months from now?! Well that's the tricky part.
What people used to do (I never did this but I have read about it) is make multiple ADRs for mealtimes and go to the one they felt like. Well Disney caught on. Now they don't allow your ADRs to overlap, plus the popular places now charge a no show fee of $10 per person if you don't cancel your ADR at least 24 hours a head of time.
So what to do? Well You can over plan, like we did in 2009. I made an ADR for every meal, for every day of our trip. It was miserable. Especially since one of A's panic attack/fit triggers is noisy crowded restaurants, where he doesn't know what kind of food they serve. Of course we didn't know this at the time.
So I learned from that for this trip. This go round, I planned out my days better. First I checked out touringplans.com for their best park for each day of our trip. It's pretty cool, they compile data from past years, they factor in tour groups or events in the area, plus I think they even factor in the weather that week.
Once I had that info, I planned one sit down meal or dinner show per day. Now we are going during the Free Dining promotion, so we have a meal plan. We upgraded to the Deluxe version of that plan, and we get 3 meal credits per day, and 2 snack credits per day. Most meals cost 1 credit, but the dinner shows cost 2. For sit down meals we get 1 appetizer, 1 entree, 1 dessert, and 1 non alcoholic beverage per person, and for counter service meals (fast food) we get 1 combo meal or 1 entree plus side and a non alcoholic beverage.
The meals I didn't plan for we will wing it. Just grab something at the resort's food court, or if the kids see a restaurant they want to try we will go there.
I prefer the dining plan because it allows us to pre-pay for all of our meals, excluding tip and any alcohol we drink. I prefer to make at least one reservation per day. It makes sure we don't have to wait too long for that meal (walking up to a table service restaurant without an ADR is tricky, sometimes you have to wait 45 minutes and longer, and sometimes they have no availability!).
Some of the places we are going to eat at...
I have made ADRs to eat at Hoop Dee Doo Review- a GREAT dinner show, vaudeville style show and they serve fried chicken, BBQ ribs and fixins'...
Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show-another great show that features fire dancers and such while you feast on traditional Luau foods like roasted chicken and pineapple pork...
Cinderella's Royal Table- Dine in the the castle while Disney Princesses and Princes visit your table!
Liberty Tree Tavern-this restaurant is themed like colonial America, my husband loves this restaurant because the dinner is just like traditional Thanksgiving...
50's Prime Time cafe-Very cool restaurant! Feels like you are dining in Mom's kitchen from the 50s and 60s...they serve the BEST fried chicken!..
Rose and Crown Pub-English food, I love this place for the fruit and cheese plate, the stew and Woodchuck Cider on tap!
See at Walt Disney World eating isn't just something you have to do, it becomes an experience.
Now that we have a plan, what can we do to help A, who doesn't like strange restaurants? Well Disney is very accommodating. I will be able to email and call someone in the dining department and explain our situation. They will contact the chefs at each restaurant and let them know that our child has eating issues due to his Asperger's and they will try to make some of his foods available. For instance at the Hoop Dee Doo, the chefs will make A a pepperoni pizza or a grilled cheese. I would not have known this if it wasn't for planning, and I wouldn't know which restaurants to contact if I didn't make my ADRs back in March!
So it is worth it to book your ADRs 6 months in advance if you can!
No comments:
Post a Comment