How we chose & booked our ADRs in WDW!

Hello everyone!!

I'm addressing a hot topic today: Advanced Dining Reservations, also referred to as ADRS. I'm going to tell you how we picked what restaurants we went to, what our priorities were, and then how we booked them.

So, before you can even book you need to know where you want to eat. Not all places require an ADR, such as quick serves and some lounges, but if you want to experience restaurants, and some lounges and bars in WDW, you need to make a reservation.

Be aware if you are stopping onsite in a WDW resort like we did you can book your ADRs 60 days out from your arrival date. These go up at 10am here in the UK, and 5am EST. You can book for up to the first 10 days of your trip, and then for the remaining days you need to go on each day to book.

Space 220 in EPCOT

How did we choose where to book?

Simply put we watched LOADS of YouTube videos! If we saw a restaurant we liked the look of we popped it on a list.

• MENU

When were were getting closer to the booking date we started to look at the actual menus. This was the difficult part because myself and Jon have quite a wide variety of food we enjoy, and are willing to try, whereas the kids not so much. If the place served pizza, fries and chicken nuggets we were onto a winner, and to be honest the majority of restaurants in WDW do, which for us was great.

• CHARACTERS

We also looked a what characters were at what restaurants, so we didn't double up too much, but for some, seeing the fab five multiple times might be a huge plus, so you have to do you when it comes to characters. Also, some places only do character dining for breakfast, so if it's characters you want at that restaurant, that's what you need to book. Some places have different characters to meet at breakfast and dinner, so look at that too when choosing.

• COST

Also we looked at the cost. Breakfast tends to be lower priced than dinner, and for us there was more the kids would eat off the breakfast menus, so we choose breakfast over dinner for some of the places we booked.

• WHEN

You also need to look at when you want to visit these places. Is there a special occasion while you're there? What park you are you in on what day? Do you want an early breakfast, late brunch, or dinner at a time where the fireworks are on if you are planning a restaurant with a fireworks view.

Always let your server know if you're celebrating something, they usually ask. You never know what you might get.

Oga's Cantina in Hollywood Studios, Galaxy's Edge

What restaurant's did we choose?

• Crystal Palace character breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends in Magic Kingdom.

• Skipper Canteen in Magic Kingdom

• Tusker House character breakfast in Animal KIngdom

• Sci-Fi Dine In Theater in Hollywood Studios

• Boma for breakfast at Animal KIngdom Lodge

• Space 220 lounge in EPCOT

• Grand Floridian Cafe for brunch at the Grand Floridian

• Ohana for character breakfast at The Polynesian

• Topolinos for character breakfast at Riviera

• Oga's Canteena at Hollywood Studios

• House of Blues weekend brunch (this needs to be booked closer to your desired date so please check on MDE) in Disney Springs

How did we book?

• Make a list

We listed all the places we wanted to book and then gave each one a first, second, third and fourth choice on what date we wanted them on. When you come to actually making the bookings you will see why we did this.

Put the restaurants you want the most, or are the most popular, at the top of your to book list. Reservations can go very quickly so you want to secure them first!

• Safety in numbers

If you can have multiple people booking at the same time. Both me and Jon were on MDE at the same time working our way though the list when the times and dates were released. This doubled our chance of getting what we wanted. You can hold multiple reservations for the same restaurant. We booked different times and dates for multiple restaurants on the day, so we could go though after and pick the ones that fit in with our plans the most. This meant we could swap and change things about to get things how they suited us best, but we did have to change plans which leads me onto the next point.

• Be flexible

Be prepared to move your itinerary around if you really want that reservation. If it's a must do, you may need to change your park reservation so you can enter the park your ADR is in. The more flexible you are, the more likely you are to get the ones you really want.

• Don't despair

If you don't get the ADRs you want, don't worry too much. People change their plans and cancel reservations all the time, so keep popping back on to check. If you're at WDW, check the night before. Things do come up, and worse case situation go to the restaurant and ask, some places have a walk up wait time.

If you want to cancel a reservation you need to do this 24 hrs before your reservation time, or you will be charged $10 per person. So it's worth double checking the day before if you still want to go.

Sci-Fi Dine in Theater in Hollywood Studios

Once you have all your finalised ADRs all you have to do is look forward to them. They will appear on your My Disney Experience app under My Plans. You can check in using the app 20mins before, and you will get a push notification when your table is ready.

A few tips I would give you is to...

1. Turn up for your reservation on time, but also bear in mind you may still need to wait for a table so have things to entertain the kids. We had a couple of reservations where we had to wait past our booking time.

2. Give yourself plenty of time to sit and enjoy your reservation. You have put a lot of work into getting it, you don't want to be clock watching as you have something else booked in or need to be somewhere.

3. Give yourself plenty of time to get to your reservation. It can take up to 1.5 hrs to get from A to B in WDW - it's a HUGE place. If you're early and at a resort, you can always have a look round while you wait, and get a coffee from their quick service. And if you're in a park there always tends to be something to do or see nearby.

4. I know your very excited about your reservation, but do keep in mind what may look perfect on paper or on a vlog, for you might not actually be in real life, Not to put a downer on it, but there was one place in particular that we had such high hopes for that we were a little deflated about. If you do find this, just put it down to experience and try not it let it effect any other reservations you have booked. We went on to have THE BEST experience at another reservation, so some do really live up to the hype.

Thank you for sticking with me, and hopefully I've shared some useful information with you on how we booked our ADRs. I know lots of people do things differently, but we will be doing the same next time.

Don't forget to share your experiences of booking ADRs and if you have any questions just pop them in then comments below and give this post a like.

See ya real soon!

Animal KIngdom Lodge where Boma is situated