howdy folks, I have dining rez opening up in a few days and now that free dining is open for my dates I am assUming it will be challenging to get all the reservations I’m hoping for. I know I can use the rez finder and try to capture what I miss, but just for fun, what order would you all approach these in:
Storybook dining dinner
Topolino’s Terrace breakfast
PPO Garden Grill
PPO BoG
Tusker House dinner
Sanaa lunch
All for party of 8 (4 adults, 4 kids). I listed them in the order I am thinking of attacking with, but curious what y’all think.
I would switch the order of PPO BoG and PPO Garden Grill and I think you’re good to go
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Also: don’t forget that if you somehow don’t get one of the ones you’re wanting, there’s always the res finder which is hugely successful in securing your heart’s desire
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Also don’t forget that you can also do smaller groups at similar times. As in, 2 groups of 4 people, for example.
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Also, you may not be aware, the value resort DDP offer only provides a QS DPP not a Standard - no TS options.
I mention it because, IME, the people who really get excited about the free DDP are value resort guests. So it may not be that big of an issue. GL!
I believe you can upgrade for a fee
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Yep! It’s $22.99 / adult and $4/child - per night for each.
IMHO - the people who are looking to get “free” DDP for their value resort aren’t the type looking to upgrade. Not say it applies to all value resort guest, but I’d wager most take the QS plan that’s included. (100% opinion) 
this is key! I just played around a bit and realized I can “never” see a rez for 8 at GG, but I cna find a 3 and a 5 with overlapping times. Doh! Lightbulb moment. Thanks!
I had a full price rez for Pop with one park per day tickets and regular DDP, not QS. I was able to “upgrade” my reservation on the morning of release, had to add hoppers but didn’t have to downgrade dining, and the overall savings were about $700 compared to the original reservation. So, not “free” dining but certainly a significant savings over the original reservation. I’ve done the math and this is what works for us, although I know “free dining” is a bit controversial on here 
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yes! Love the reservation finder, it has definitely saved my day on previous trips.
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We had the exact same situation on our last trip, except we already had park hoppers plus since we planned to hit the water parks a couple of times. Saved us about $600 dollars. Would have been more but we gave up the Canadian resident tickets to get the free dining.
This has worked for me several times. Keep in mind that you might not all get to sit together however. So if that is really important to you you might want to set up a res finder for ones where you had to split up the party. Although sometimes it’s nice to split up, EG at BOG I had me and my friend have an adults dinner in the dark scary room while my husband and 3 kids ate in the ballroom portion. That was a nice way to get an adult time with my friend although I wouldn’t have planned it that way—and it was only about an hour so not too long to leave the kiddos with my husband. And last time I had 3 groups of 2 at Sci Fi diner at 5, 5:10 and 5:20. I tried for many months to get those consolidated but it never happened. On the day of the res they were able to put us all together at one table (although not one of the cars) and at the same time. The person checking people in said it wouldn’t happen but then the other staff made it so.
LOL! People here say that is the room to get. We went in there and there were tables. But it was so dark. We wouldn’t be able to see my food! We took some pictures and went to sit in another room where we would be able to see our food!
I’d was tracking a mock trip for the week after Labour Day using Canadian tickets, with some sort of plan of hoping for a room only discount . Then the free dining offer came along for the same week so I had a lot of comparison numbers. Based on my math the package gave me the Canadian ticket price, and the room rate was less than the rack, maybe 10%, and actually I took the hopper plus which showed as a $42 add on, whereas on the Canadian tickets it is $80. Yeah I booked it, toot sweet!
I didn’t have trouble seeing food but I think my friend may have had trouble seeing the menu. It might also depend on where you’re sitting in the room—our table was relatively well lit. I liked that room though b/c the thunder kept going off and the portrait kept changing. This was 4 yrs ago; haven’t been to BOG since, in case it changed.
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Why have I never thought of this before. Oh my gosh, this is brilliant (we always have a large-ish party!)
Also works for fast passes.
I did think about it for fastpasses, it is my plan for trying to get Slinky Dog. I guess because rides seem more individual and dining seems so much like a group thing. We have three adults with three children though, so we don’t all even have to sit together as long as each child has an adult with them! This honestly might be one of the best tips I’ve gotten for dining. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
I’m sure that I read about the idea somewhere on the 'net before my first ADR day. I think I started using it to get BOG, 5 yrs ago when BOG was incredibly hard to get. I’d manage to get separate BOG at first and was able to consolidate later at least once. I also have my group split up and go to different restaurants sometimes, esp b/c my 2 older boys are totally not into the princess thing whereas my DD8 still was at our last trip.
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so, just to close the loop on this one, I overslept, logged on frantically at 6:20am, and… got every single reservation I wanted. No difficulty at all! I had an early February trip in 2019 that I could not get PPO rez for GG or BoG for at 180+4, but I had my pick of slots today. Wierd!
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