142 days to go, and finally our Disney World dining reservations are all done. I’ve been wanting to share our ADR’s with you since the 180 day mark. Saying that, I’ve done so much tweaking, changing and rearranging, that I decided to write this post once all is set and done.
There are still two dining experiences that haven’t been booked yet, awaiting release dates for the Star Wars dessert party and the Frozen ever after dessert party.
So, here we go, this was the process of making all of our dining reservations:
The 180 day mark
Saturday July 7th, 7:59 pm (5:59 am Orlando time), one minute to the 180 day mark. Sitting on the sofa, laptop on my knees, waiting to leap into action. Truth be told, I was actually sitting there in that same position for at least an hour prior to that, but never mind that…
I wanted to book several ADR’s for our 14 night stay at Disney World. Amongst them were a few that are known to be hard to get, such as Be Our Guest and Ohana,
I also wanted to book the Wanyama Safari, now available not only to Animal Kingdom Lodge guests.
8 pm, and I go to work. First thing first, I look for availability at Be Our Guest. Success. I book an ADR for 8:15 am. Yeah.
I keep on going, and everything is fitting right into plan. No problem getting every single ADR I want. And then I try to book Garden Grill. No tables available. I try again, still no table available. How could that be? I try the next day, and the next day, but nothing. What’s going on? At this point I’m pretty frustrated, because we really wanted to try this one.
So, I come to terms with it. No Garden Grill for us.
Then I hit another obstacle. Because of our split stay the system isn’t allowing me to book our reservations for the second part of our stay. So sad. I am actually really stressed out about it.
Now I have to wait, not very patiently, for next week to complete our reservations.
In the meantime, I spoke with Stephanie, our Travel Agent, and enlisted her help with booking the Wanyama Safari. Within minutes our Safari was booked. Thank you so much Stephanie for doing that for us.
While waiting for the next 180 day mark to open, I keep trying to look for availability for Garden Grill, and a couple of days in, their bookings open up. What I later discovered was that although reservation booking opens at the 180 day mark, not all restaurants release availability at that point.
The lesson learnt, which I will repeat over and over in this post, is never to give up. If you don’t succeed, try try again.
173 days to go
173 days to go, and 180 days to our split stay reservation. 8 pm, I’m on it to get all our preferable dining reservations. Ohana (Breakfast) tick, Kona Cafe (Breakfast) tick, Yak & Yeti & The Wave (Breakfast) all done. Amazing. I feel so lucky, that I actually succeeded in getting all the dining reservations I planned to.
You may think that is the end of my story, but it isn’t.
A few days go by, and I receive an email from Touring Plans. Disney has changed park hours for January 7th and added Extra Magic Hours in the morning. That was the morning Garden Grill was booked for breakfast, and we planned to take advantage of being allowed into the park before opening hours. Bummer. On that day we actually had two ADR’s – Garden Grill and Ohana for dinner. The next day we planned to visit Hollywood Studios with an ADR for 50’s Prime Cafe.
Could I maybe swap the two days around? 50’s Prime Cafe and Ohana are pretty popular, so that may be a problem. I decided I’ll give it a try, starting with Ohana. Amazing, I managed to swap the two days, no problems at all.
At this point I decided to review our reservations. Were they really suitable for our plans? Should any of them be cancelled? As I was reviewing them, I started reading up about the new dinner menu for Be Our Guest.
To start with, we weren’t interested in dinner reservations for Be Our Guest. Our last experience there was not the best. We loved the castle, and that is why we made the breakfast reservations, but the food at dinner was really nothing to write home about. But now, it seems, they had made changed to the menu, and I really wanted to get to try it for myself.
One little problem. We are now approx. 150 days to go, and there is no chance under the sun that I can get us a dining reservation for Be Our Guest. I tried to book dinner reservations for each and every day we are planning to be at Magic Kingdom. No success. I remind myself of the very good advice on the different forums – don’t give up. Try, try again and again.
And that I do. Day after day, sometimes a few times a day. That went on for at least a week. But I didn’t give up. And lo and behold, a dining reservation for 4:55 pm for 5 is available for one of our Magic Kingdom days. I actually can’t believe it. Even though we have a reservation for Trail’s End for that day, I quickly cancel it and make the reservation for Be Our Guest. Woohoo, we actually managed to do it. Swiping around a few more of the plans and reservations, and we are all set.
As an end result, these are our reservations:
Homecoming – Dinner
Be Our Guest – Breakfast and Dinner
Crystal Palace – Dinner
Raglan Road – Lunch
Garden Grill – Breakfast
Ohana – Dinner and Breakfast
Kona Cafe – Breakfast
Tusker House – Lunch
Yak & Yeti – Dinner
Liberty Tree Tavern – Lunch
Trail’s End – Dinner
We are also booked in to the Wanyama Safari & Fantasmic! Dessert & VIP Viewing Experience, and waiting for dates to open up for Star Wars dessert party and Frozen Ever After dessert party – hoping to book at least one of them.
142 days to go. Disney ADR’s booked. Still have to get tickets for Sea World and Kennedy Space Centre, and of course, waiting for the 60 day mark for our fastpasses.