ADR anxiety

So, I’m approaching my 180 day mark and am working frantically to get my touring plans together so that I know which parks we’ll be in each day and what our rough schedule will be. I feel an additional level or pressure as we’ll be in WDW during the Christmas break when everything will be packed beyond belief. On top of that, I live in California, so when my 180 day window opens, I’ll be up just before 3AM trying to snag my ADR’s ahead of the masses. I’m feeling the pressure and am worried about the ADR process. I understand that each ADR is made individually, so with 10 reservations to make, which do I do first? Here’s my list:

12/24 Splitsville dinner and bowling 5ish
12/25 Boatwright’s (POR) dinner 7:15
12/26 Garden Grill dinner 6:30
12/28 50’s Primetime Cafe lunch 11:30
12/28 Sci-Fi Dine in Theatre snack 4:30
12/29 Cinderella’s Royal Table lunch 11:30
12/29 California Grill dinner 8:00
12/31 Be Our Guest lunch 11:30
12/31 Hoop Dee Doo Revue dinner 8:30
1/1 La Hacienda de San Angel dinner 7:45

So many of these are tough to snag, so I don’t know what to go for first. BOG? Hoop Dee Doo on New Year’s Eve? CRT?

I appreciate any and all advice! My friends and family think I’m nuts and don’t understand why I’m stressing so much over a vacation that’s over 6 months away. Thank goodness for the UG and touringplans.com and all of you Liners out there!

Don’t stress if you don’t get exactly what you want.
Agree, your strategy is good - I’d go for BOG, then CRT, then HDDR, then San Angel, then GG, then Sci Fi, then 50’s, then Boat’s. Don’t stress if you don’t get BOG, just keeping on moving and get through the rest of your ADRs then come back to BOG again after.
Good luck! :slight_smile:

When making ADRs on a PC, open up an MDE window for each ADR you want to make and get it all set to go with the restaurant and date selected. Then when the clock strikes 6:00 (or 3:00 in your case) clock on the button in each screen to search for available times.

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I had my wife and I book at the same time. Ipad and computer. We booked two at once. I thought we would run into issues but it worked fine.

Mossmacl order seems good.

Consider just searching ‘dinner’ or ‘lunch’ and take whatever time you can get. Putting in ‘11:30’ may give you less options than ‘lunch’. You are up against people who are arriving earlier and therefore can book days before you. Keep your times as flexible as possible.

You’ve got a lot of great options there. If you don’t get every single one you want, don’t worry. I’d prioritize your order with CRT first, over BOG. I found BOG underwhelming… it’s themed great, but it’s just a restaurant. CRT is more of an experience, same with Hoop De Doo.

I had 12 to make on my ADR day, logged on (only one window) and was ready to go right at 0600, and I got every one I wanted - including the V&A Chef’s Table. Never tried booking anywhere for NYE, so I really can’t comment on where that would fit in. Of the others, BOG is definitely the “hardest to get” (probably even more so being NYE), so that should be your first. I would say CRT and CG would be next on the list. As long as you can be a bit flexible on times (e.g. +/- an hour) I don’t think any of the others should be too difficult to get in the 180+10 window. It’s been my experience that Sci-Fi “sells out” more quickly than 50s, but I am admittedly working from a relatively small data set :smile:

Are any of the ADRs important enough to you that you would be willing to change your park days around in order to get an ADR? If so, I recommend having “pre-made” lists for each contingency. The Chef’s Table was important enough to me that I actually had 7 different trip plans worked out, depending on which day I was able to book it. Once I got that one, I then made the rest of my ADRs from that list. I got all 12 (Citrico’s, HBD, CG, Le Cell, MP, Sanaa, AP, Narcoosee’s, TH, Yachtsman, V&A, and Raglan Rd) in about 50 min, and all were within an hour of my “ideal” time (most were right on). BOG was still using the “FP” system for lunch and that was a whole different sort of game.

Good luck, and don’t stress out over it too much (says the guy who lost sleep for a week stressing over being able to get the Chef’s Table). Except for maybe BOG, I don’t think you’ll have any problems getting the ones you want… And if you can’t get one in particular, there are dozens of other great choices available. :slight_smile:

I agree with @Crasstastic regarding BOG. It IS a beautiful location, and if you have someone in your party who just HAS to eat in Beast’s Castle, then you know what you’ve got to do. But in all honesty the quality of the food is not really any better than other CSs in the MK; pretty much a one-and-done for me - at least for lunch. Might try dinner sometime if there’s an available ADR for a MK day…

LOL, My MIL didn’t get why I was stressing about something that was 6 months out. I understand how you feel & was feeling the same way. You have a bit more of a challenge then I did, larger party size, & CA time, ouch (I like my sleep getting up at 4am was hard enough for me). I’ll be curious to know how you do so please follow up. This is only our second trip & our first was done for me by the TA this time it was all on me. I thought I planned well enough ahead of time, read everything I could find about it. Did everything everyone here is suggesting but still struggled. Never could get dinner for BOG (that was the only thing my daughter really wanted to do) Thankfully I did manage to snag a lunch time but not for a day I had originally planed to go to MK which of course changed everything around. I’m now stressing over FP+ scheduling. I have read some great stuff about not giving up and checking often so there is always hope. Also on a side note not all the locations showed up right at 180 days (+10 window) apparently some locations don’t have schedules open until later. Example our arrival day is 11-12-15 so my 180 was on 5-16-15 but I wasn’t able to book Biergarten on 11-18-15 until almost a week later. Good Luck!

My thanks to all of you for your suggestions! I was up early this morning and was able to secure 9 of my 10 ADR’s and most are within 30 minutes of my target time. I feel so accomplished!

I wasn’t able to book Splitsville at all. Anyone have any experience here? My guess is that they operate on a different scheduling system or due to the holiday week they are filled with large groups and private parties.

Also, though I did get La Hacienda de San Angel for dinner on Jan. 1, I was only able to get 6:30 and I was trying for 8ish in order to see Illuminations from the restaurant. I’m not sure what to do on this one as I’m not set on eating there without the perk of better Illuminations viewing. Additionally, the Illuminations schedule isn’t even set yet for that date, so I have no idea what the optimum time is.

Again, thanks for the great advice and please chime in if you have any other ideas for me!

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KEEP THE 6:30!!! Getting one of the FEW window seats will be a serious crap-shoot; I ALWAYS recommend eating first and then finding a good place to watch IllumiNations.

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Thanks for following up! I agree, Keep the 6:30 & watch IllumiNations after, this site has some good suggestions.

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Agree… 6:30 is PERFECT time for Hacienda. Eat, then wander to strategic location for Illuminations.