180 Days and Counting

It's here! The day is finally here! We officially hit the 180 days until our next Disney trip today! This means that we could book our dining reservations also known as a "ressy" or an ADR. While ADR's can be made on-line, I chose to phone 1-407-WDW-DINE and visited with a very helpful Shannon to make our ADR's. There was only one disappointment for a lunch reservation, but we just chose another restaurant and voila, we were set. 'OHANA's, Chef Mickey's, Rose & Crown, and Chefs de France, here we come. Shannon also made sure the boy's birthday was on the reservation, as he will have a birthday just a few days before we go and we want to celebrate while we are at the World. We are sticking with two favorites and trying two new restaurants.

Click here to read about dining at "OHANA's.
Click here to read about dining at Chef Mickey's.

You may be wondering how someone goes about deciding where to eat six months ahead. If you are wondering that, you are not alone and because of that question, Disney has toyed with the dining reservation "window" going back and forth between 90 and 180 days. We have dealt with both and don't really prefer either window, we just want to get our reservations done ahead of time.

This begins with a bit of planning, like what park will we be in on which day. We know on Saturday we will be in Studios--extra magic hours in the morning-- and character explosion at 5:00. (Click here to read about the character explosion.) And then we decide which park we will be at on our other days and make dining reservations from there. We know if we are in EPCOT, we avoid scheduling a lunch in World Showcase and a dinner in Future World, as that would mean back tracking, so we make sure to have lunch in Future World, or a World Showcase Pavilion close to Future World, and then dinner somewhere in World Showcase. We also take into consideration character meals and our favorites. For example, the husband did not want to give up 'OHANA's for dinner as it is one of his favs, but he was willing to give up Crystal Palace. It's about balance and compromise.

Now that the ADR's are made, we sit back and relax. . . and dream about our next visit to the happiest place on earth!