ADR ?s - It's been too looooong!

Walt Disney World Dining
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OMG, I haven’t had an ADR day in years and now I’m triple guessing everything! I’ll be up early on next Saturday to do everything but I had a few questions and figured I’d ask the experts…

It’s me and DH we’re staying POR 9/14 to 9/24 with the DDP and here’s my plans for Park Days and ADR/evenings…

T 14 - Fly/DME, Check into POR, go to MK, dinner at O’Hana then try to see YeeHaa Bob
F 15 - MK Day - EP Night - Dinner at Spice Road*
S 16 - HS Day - MK Night - Dinner at The Wave
S 17 - BB Day - AK Night - Tusker House* ROL Package
M 18 - EP Day - DS at night with dinner at Frontera Cochina*
T 19 - DS Day - MNSSHP - Dinner at BOG*
W 20 - AK Day - EP Night - Dinner at La Hacienda*
T 21 - MK Day - DS Night - Dinner at Homecoming*
F 22 - EP Day - HS Night - Dinner at Prime Time 50’s
S 23 - TL Day - MK Night - Dinner at Skippers Canteen*
S 24 - Probably go to MK for the day, late flight home

I put a * next to all the new places we are trying - Yum!!!
I’ll be able to flip some of my ADRS (say BOG for Skipper’s) depending if we can get the reservations
And for the nights at DS, I’m planning on late ADR’s in case we want to go to a park then go to dinner (and we love the boat back to POR at night!)

  1. Is it safe to assume that if TP has MK closing at 7pm it’s for MNNSHP? They haven’t officially released dates yet, but the park hours seem to suggest it…
  2. Is ROL going to be every night or only select nights?
  3. If we do dinner at 4:30-4:45 at Tusker House, will that leave us enough time to see Pandora at night, do EE and see ROL (with the dining package)? I’ll be able to have FP+ set up for the night since we’re doing a water park earlier that day
  4. At La Hacienda and Spice Road, is this similar to Rose and Crown where if we make ADR for 7:15, come early and wait for a table we can get a good Illumination seating? How are the views from these places?
  5. I really wanted to fit Saana in there, but it took us forever to get there the last time and I didn’t want to run into that again. Any suggestions where to fit that in?

Is there anything else I’m missing?! It’s our 5th trip, but sooo much new stuff/new to us - First time at F&WF, Pandora, Staying at POR, MNSSHP, the HS fireworks and ROL, FEA, both water parks, all the new Star Wars stuff, Disney Springs… heck, we haven’t even seen the new Castle Hub!

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  1. I’m certainly assuming that. 3 nights per week. (I’m there the week before you)
  2. With a 7pm close, I doubt RoL will be running at all.
  3. I doubt we’ll know much about the Pandora times until much later. Personally I’m going to rope drop it to beat the queues.

HS evening parades & Star Wars stuff hasn’t been announced yet either. Not sure when those will come out.

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How exciting! Let me ty to give some feedback to your questions:

  1. I think it is pretty safe to rely on TP projections for MNSSHP.

  2. & 3. Tusker dining package most likely will not be available for booking on your ADR day. When I booked Tiffins for February the latest ADR was 3:30, but there was only one show and it was at 7:15. It will be getting darker later. I do not want to guess what Disney will do after Pandora.

  3. I cannot help with this.

  4. I discovered the joy of Uber my last trip. It makes it very easy to Ho from resort to resort and usually is $10 or less.

Finally, I love your DS plan but I found that some of those restaurants were slow loading times. Also, will you book an early BOG ADR to not miss any of the party? Last year I believe those were loaded late too. You may need an reservation alert set for that.

Good luck!

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AK closing time will definitely change.

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Thanks all!
I’m really hoping AK gets more PM hours with Avatar opening up

For BOG, I’m now thinking of doing that last night and switching up the party night to something faster - maybe the Wave. The DH is all about the sit down dinner so CS won’t cut it.

Soooo excited too be in planning mode again!

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Spice Road table has great table side views of Illuminations. I do think I liked the views better from Italy though - no ADR necessary. 7:15 might be too early depending on what time Illuminations is set for that day.

Def agree on uber/taxi. Cut significant amounts of time off of transportation.

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  1. TP predictions are based on historical data. Disney could adjust the MNSSHP schedule at any time.

  2. ROL is currently running 4 nights a week. There are rumors that it will go to every night during the summer, but if it does, no idea if/when it might switch back to a more limited schedule.

  3. Probably… There will likely be more than one ROL show per night. If you’ve already done the rides in Pandora, I’'m guessing you’ll only need 30-45 minutes to walk through and see the scenery at night.

  4. Window seating is very limited at La Hacienda, and if you don’t get a window, you won’t have much of a view. I always recommend eating first and then finding a spot outside after for the show. I’ve never watched IllumiNations from SRT, but reports are that the view is good.

  5. I plan Sanaa for a non-park day lunch so timing is not really an issue. But you definitely want to go before dark so you can see the animals. You’re hopping virtually every day; I typically only hop once or twice during a trip. I would probably schedule a full day at AK, and plan an early lunch at Sanaa to break up the day.

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@clairenmn I agree with @bswan26 on the park hopping. we hopped every day in 2015 and I swore I would never do it again. 2016 I hopped once. it was a much more peaceful trip. Is it typical for you to hop so much on your trips? You said it’s your 5th trip. Perhaps you know from your own experience that you will be ok with that much hopping.

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Funny, I hop every day! I plan my days as 1/2 days with resort time in between . Last trip I was at HS, EP and AK three half days each.

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LOL It’s funny how different people tour Disney. I don’t have much resort time and don’t take midday breaks. it’s just not the way we do Disney vacations. We take a more relaxing vacation typically during the year as well.

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Same here! Yes, we do RD and a half day at the park, then nice nap in the AC and back to parks for dinner. We switch it up in the night because we like variety, plus a few trips ago we were like hey we got park hoppers, might as well use it to the fullest!
Helps us avoid the crowds and heat too - we usually go in August (!) Due our anniversary…

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WooHoo!!! Done by 6:17 am!

Made a few changes on nights based on Liner suggestions, and got everything I wanted - Including BOG for our last night!!! - except for 'Ohana on our first night (booked the Wave for now, will keep trying though)

Hopefully when the ROL packages and the HS firework dates come out, it won’t screw up my plans too badly

Now, back to bed!!

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Congrats! Lol- do you think you will change a lot before your trip?

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I think the big unknown is what they are going to do with AK after Pandora opens - I’m trusting my Liners to help figure it out, lol!!

The only changes I think I’ll be making is for RoL and the Star Wars fireworks at HS - The good thing is that the only really hard-to-get ADRs I have/will try to get is BOG on our last night, and hoping to get 'Ohana on our first night, and I won’t have to change them around if the AK or HS schedule changes. We have 2 night planned at DS so should be able to move things a bit without too much stress, I hope, lol!!

Here’s what I finally decided on - All ADR’s are for ~5pm:

9/14 - The Wave (Hoping to get this changes to 'Ohana) then go see YeeHaa Bob
9/15 - Frontera Cocina / DS
9/16 - Sanaa / Uber over to MK
9/17 - Tusker House - Hoping this can be changed for ROL package
9/18 - Spice Road - EP
9/19 - Skippers Canteen - MNSSHP
9/20 - La Hacienda - EP
9/21 - Homecoming - DS
9/22 - Prime Time - HS (hoping the fireworks are this night)
9/23 - BOG (FINALLY going for dinner!!)

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If you keep it please report how Frontera Cocina was! Great choices !