Both of my trips were booked after 180 days (160 and 140, exactly). I have started to book another, also past 180.
But we are only two, don’t really mind what time we are eating (I like late lunches and late dinners, anyway) and don’t have that much specifics. However, when I was planning for 4 last year, I saw pretty much everything at random moments, including CRT. So, it’s either get up early or spend a lot of time on the WDW at random moments. That’s how I got BOG, V&A, CRT, Beaches & Cream (10pm dinner, of all things). Reservation Finder found some stuff, but never as good as the random stuff I found when watching TV.
If you are 10 people and want a specific meal on a specific day at a specific time, being up at 3am PST might be the best way. For me, I will keep on checking while watching The Simpsons marathon.
We aren’t exactly a once in a lifetime family but it had been seven years since our last trip so I wanted to make sure the biggies and must do fpp were in place. It was great to have SDMT, FOP, and SDD in the bag at 60 days out. Likewise, the Bon Voyage Breakfast ya 7:30am and the 10:45 Tusker House Brunch were both great. We could have made do with other alternatives but these fit in so well with our plans.
It is part of the fun to have something to do 180 days out and 60 days out as you’re getting ready for the trip.
Certainly this isn’t true for everyone and I’m a big believer in folks doing what works well for them, so everybody, have fun no matter when you make your adrs/fpp!
I will admit that I did get up at 4:45 am my time at my 60 days for FP. The only one I couldn’t get was FOP. Then a few days after Disney dropped a whole bunch of FP for FOP and I got one!!!
As far as ADR I had to problems getting ours except for BOG at way less than 180. To be fair we chose “odd” times to eat. We are having lunch at 2:30 on two days and 11am another day. Then just a few days ago I scored a BOG breakfast at only 12 days out. For a while I was checking every single day but I had pretty much given up then I was cancelling a different one and thought I would just take a look and there it was. I felt like I had won the lottery!!
I think part of the problem is that because people can book so far out they tend to hoard ADRs?
Not sure it’s always strictly necessary, but I enjoy the rush of Fastpass and ADR day. For me it’s all part of the planning, and makes it feel like the trip is getting closer. I also like to have our Fastpasses and meals booked for the time I’ve planned them, so making them as soon as possible maximizes the chances of that. Plus, as others have said, making FPs and ADRs for one is infinitely easier than a larger party, so you can’t really compare the two.
Lots of people dislike being tied down by any form of reservations when on vacation, so they don’t bother with FPs and ADRs and have perfectly magical trips anyway. That doesn’t suit the way my family likes to do things at WDW, so we plan ahead (and I love the planning!).
Family of 4, so modifying isn’t as easy as 1.
We don’t get to go often (this is trip #2 and maybe last), so I want to hit as much as possible, as many times as possible.
We’re only spending 4 days there (2 at Universal, which I am not nearly as stressed about).
I wake up early anyway.
I wear my OCD patch with pride.
I have 5 in my family. Some ADRs and FPs can be difficult to get. I also can’t do everything on a whim with my family. Some flexibility, yes. No plan, no. I do sometimes change a few things around, but not enough not to do everything initially at 180 and 60.
It might take some perseverance and patience, and you might not get exactly what you want — you might have to do some tweaking — but getting up early to book things seems really unnecessary to me.
Either way, it’s work. You’re either getting up early or you’re “persevering and being patient.”
For me, I just got up an hour earlier (before work). I spent that extra hour getting exactly all the FPs I wanted. Now I don’t have to spend any extra time between the 60 day mark and Park entrance looking for FPs.
So my choices are sleeping in an hour later or not spending a few minutes everyday looking for those FPs that I didn’t get at the 60 day mark.
Some people have no problems waking up early. I do it everyday for work (and for my young children who apparently don’t know the definition of sleeping in).
I mean, you do you. If you’d rather spend more time refreshing and tweaking plans, by all means. For me, waking up early made my plans perfect.
While it’s possible to find FPP for these attractions inside 60 days it’s not a sure thing. I wouldn’t “panic” about not riding them, or having to go at RD, but I like all of these attractions and would prefer to increase my chances of riding them, perhaps even more than once, during my Disney World trips.
This becomes even more important for planning for more than just myself, as the chances of finding FPP for a decent-sized group at a time that works for everyone are even more remote than finding just for yourself. I just returned from a trip in mid-July where, despite checking regularly prior to and during my trip, I never found a 7DMT for myself and the one morning my group visited MK at RD I wasn’t able to join them, so I didn’t get to ride that attraction at all. It’s far from a disaster and I still had a great trip, but would have been even more fun if I could’ve ridden 7DMT.
So, my question would be, why would you NOT want to book your FPP or dining reservations as soon as possible? Just because there’s a chance you might get what you want later doesn’t seem like a good reason not to and my experience is that it’s a lot more of a hassle to remember to keep checking MDE or responding immediately to reservation finder alerts, than just booking what I want ahead of time. I’ll use those strategies if I’m planning on short notice, but if I have the choice, it’s a lot easier to book ahead of time when I can.
I know it sounds crazy, but I kind of liked getting up in the middle of the night to play FPP lottery. My BF thought it was nuts, but he got up with me and started booking them too! It was great. It was fun, in the middle of the night, helping each other book FPP.
Yes! Getting up at 4 am on one morning can result in a huge payoff (our trip was over Christmas, so a difficult time in general for snagging those hard-to-get FPP’s). I scored almost everything I wanted at 4am, and then spent the remaining months tweaking a few FPP’s/ADR’s. Well worth the initial early morning in my book.
My crew is a little slow moving. I doubt our ability to get to SDMT and FOP in a reasonable time to beat the rush at rd. It was wonderful being able to do other priority attractions at ropedrop and then being able to go over to these attractions at leisure when the window opened up.
I’ll preface this by saying that I am never looking for ADRs or FPPs for a party larger than 2, so my observations will be different than a larger family…
For ADRs I don’t see it as that big a deal. I have no interest in CMs or pre-RD breakfasts (or any breakfasts for that matter) and those seem to be the ones that most people sweat over. The only time I was in the sweat box was when I was trying for the most difficult to get ADR in WDW - the V&A Chef’s table (only about 200 available - per year). The planning for the majority of my trips has started well after the 180 day mark, and I’ve never had a problem getting an ADR that I have wanted.
I’m a bit more OCD with FPPs. For my next trip, there will be quite a few "new to me’ attractions - Pandora, TSL, possibly/probably SWGE and MMRR, FEA, Soarin’ 2… Not to mention the “usual” favorites. Hopefully there will be definitive dates regarding SWGE 60 days out…
Absolutely. But the “regular” dining room can handle upwards of 200 ADRs per week and the Chef’s table only 4. One thing about the Chef’s Table that is different than any other ADR that I know of is that they will “wait list” you for a date and if there are cancellations, they will contact you. At least this was the case in 2014 when I ate there…