ADR Order of Attack

Hey y’all!

I’m pretty new to the forum here, but a longtime WDW fanatic and a huge fan of TP. I’m working on the details for an upcoming trip in January and was hoping to get some crowdsourced help on ADR Snagging Strategy.

I know that some restaurants are in higher demand than others, and thus it would probably behoove a person to try and get those reservations the second that the ADR window opens.

On the other hand, there’s also the possibility for some gamesmanship with the 60 day + length of stay window. A moderately popular restaurant might lose availability for Day 60+2, while a very popular restaurant might lose availability for 60+5.

Below are the list of reservations we (two young adults) are hoping to get and the days on which they would fall for our trip. The dates are given as “60 + X,” where X is the number of days past our arrival date (which would be marked as 60, but we’re not trying to get any ADRs on our arrival date). The list is in order of importance to us.

  1. Be Our Guest OR Cinderella’s Royal Table - Lunch/Dinner (60+4)

  2. Chefs de France - Lunch/Dinner (60+1)

  3. Oga’s Cantina - evening (60+3)

  4. Hollywood Brown Derby - Lunch/Dinner (60+3)

  5. Yak and Yeti - Lunch/Dinner (60+5)

  6. Kona Cafe - Breakfast (any day) (note: we’re staying at the Poly, so maybe we’d be able to get a walk-up table even if we can’t get an ADR)

Given these priorities, in what order would you recommend trying to get these ADRs? Thanks in advance, everyone! :slight_smile:

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BOG/CRT
Oga’s
Yak
Chefs
BD
Kona

HS has been so popular that BD could be harder than normal. Usually it is isn’t that hard to get in my experience. And Chefs and Kona have not been as well.

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Thank you! Yeah, I’m hoping that our flexibility on taking either a lunch or dinner for BD might help us, but I’ve noticed that there’s almost zero 60 day availability there over the past few weeks. I appreciate the tips!!

I second your list. Try for both BOG and CRT and see what you get. I did both in one day before and it was awesome (lunch and dinner). It took a lot of trying to get them, however, b/c we didn’t know what we were doing and missed the 180 day mark to try. I got cancellations.

Both in one day wasn’t too much food? Now that neither is doing breakfast, I can’t imagine tackling one for lunch and one for dinner. That just seems like a recipe for a stomach ache, but then again I don’t usually have a huge appetite.

It was a lot of food, but manageable. We had it spaced apart by about 5 hrs. I ended up eating a very light dinner at BOG after a very big meal at CRT. I planned both of these b/c my friend coming with us had them at the top of his to do list. They are both fantastic with the theming and the characters, although I don’t know how that is lately (this trip was in 2014 and we went again to both restaurants in 2015). If they are doing what they did before CRT will give you 5 princesses coming to your table for photos and interactions, whereas BOG you only meet the Beast and that is after your meal. Also at BOG your experience can be very different based on what room you are in. I loved both the main dining room and the scary room, I can’t remember the name.

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Character interactions are minimal now at both—I believe Cinderella does a quick wave to the room at CRT and Beast comes around at BOG, but that’s it. Thanks for the notes on the food etc.!! I think we’re going to prioritize BOG but CRT would be great too!

I’m doing a solo trip in late January and am thinking about doing both BOG and CRT on the same day. Mostly I want to eat in the big castle and the Beast’s. Long distance pics with Cinderella and the Beast will be a bonus. We’ll see if I can make it happen!

Both locations are gorgeous. If possible get seated at a window at CRT. BOG depends on what kind of atmosphere you like, with the 3 sections very different from each other. Of course they might not offer you any choice, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

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Just an update if anyone was curious or cares!

I logged into the dining reservations page at 6:57 AM (Eastern) and was surprised to find that Disney’s clock seems to run at least three minutes faster than my phone or computer. I mostly followed the order recommended by @hokiebroker_696650 (thanks again!) and it worked swimmingly. I was able to get everything on our list, including a couple “flex” reservations so that we can figure out which time works best for us.

Here’s what we got!

Sunday, Jan 10 – Arrival/Non-Park Day

  • 7:30 PM – Dinner at Todd English’s bluezoo (but we’ll probably cancel this and opt for Kimono’s instead)

Monday, Jan 11 – Epcot

  • 8:50 AM – Breakfast at Kona Cafe
  • 6:00 PM – Dinner at Chefs de France

Tuesday, Jan 12 – Magic Kingdom

  • 12:00 PM – Lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table
  • 5:25 PM – Dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table
    (one of our “choose one, cancel the other” days)

Wednesday, Jan 13 – Hollywood Studios

  • 7:50 AM – Breakfast at Kona Cafe
  • 1:40 PM – Drinks at Oga’s Cantina
  • 4:55 PM – Drinks at Oga’s Cantina
  • 6:55 PM – Dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby
    (we’ll only keep one of these Oga’s reservations, I’m just not sure which we’ll end up wanting)

Thurs, Jan 14 – Magic Kingdom

  • 7:30 AM – Breakfast at Kona Cafe
  • 12:25 PM – Lunch at Be Our Guest
  • 5:00 PM – Dinner at Be Our Guest
    (again, we’ll only keep one of the BOGs)

Friday, Jan 15 – Animal Kingdom

  • 1:15 PM – Lunch at Yak & Yeti

We’ll also be in the parks Jan 16-18, but we’re staying off-site on those days so our ADRs haven’t opened up yet. I think we’ll aim for a San Angel Inn reservation for our second Epcot day (gotta love that atmosphere/theming!), a Sci-Fi for our second Hollywood Studios day, and maybe the Jungle Skippers restaurant for our third MK day.

Thanks again to everyone for your help! I was so surprised at how many options were still available, even with reduced capacity in the parks and in the restaurants.

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Dining reservations have started at 6 am in the past (ETA online, 7 am is phone) so you may have been 57 minutes late, instead of 3 minutes early. Glad it went well though!

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oh my, I can’t believe my mistake! Haha. I had figured my thoughts of “6:00 AM” were me correcting to my local time zone, but I suppose they were pre-correction! Hah. Glad we still got everything then.

Our arrival day is the 9th so I was booking a day prior to you. For whatever reason I couldn’t book Le Cellier or Be Our Guest for dinner either of the 2 days I checked on day 60. But I put in a search for Le Cellier in the Touring Plans ADR searcher thingie which tripped overnight and then I was able to book both this morning. Presume those 2 just loaded late, but it was odd…

Do need to remember to book Oga’s…

I’m so glad you were able to nab Le Cellier! If you’re in MK on the 14th or HS on the 13th, let me know which of the BOG or Oga’s reservations you might want and we can try to arrange a quick “i’ll drop and you immediately try to grab” manuever!

Thanks - but I think our park days don’t align with yours. We’re planning HS T/R & MK M/F I believe. At least pending the inevitable changes…

Le Cellier is our traditional day of arrival ADR so the family would have been none too pleased if I came up empty on that one. I had a late lunch ADR for it, but that was going to be close with our flight & MDE schedule so I was happy to be able to shift it into the evening when it’s a lock we’ll make it…