It is nearly ADR day!

ADR day I hear you ask? Advanced Dining Reservations. Our 6 month window is fast approaching and I. Am. Ready.

In five days it will be 6 months until we visit Walt Disney World, and in five days we will be able to make our Advanced Dining Reservations.

Walt Disney World likes to condition guests in to making plans, plans for dining, special events and planning fast passes.

Whenever I have a trip to WDW planned, I am on my phone/ laptop logged in to My Disney Experience at my 180 day mark at 11am GMT (7am EST) ready to make dining reservations. Sam and I spend a lot of time looking at menus and researching the places we want to eat before we book, we also make notes in a notebook, that way when the ADR window opens we have a better opportunity to book the reservations without having to really think about it.

When you choose to stay on site, you can book ADR’s at your 180 day mark plus 10 days, however, if you choose to stay offsite you are only able to book ADR’s at 180 days, so with this you will have to log on each day at 180 days. The only issue (it is a minor issue) I have found with this, the park hours are announced 180 days ahead, so if you stay onsite and book ADR’s at 180 days plus 10 days, you are unable to properly plan Pre-Park Opening (PPO) breakfast reservations as you won’t know the park hours any further than the 180 days ahead. So it is is a bit of a gamble when booking Crystal Palace, Be Our Guest and Cinderella’s Royal Table if you want that PPO ADR. Like I said, minor.

Dining reservations can be cancelled/amended up to 11.59pm the day before your reservation. A credit card must be attached to your account when booking. If you do not show up for your reservation you will be charged $10 per person for the no show. Top tip, if you are unable to bag the reservation you want at your 180 day mark, keep checking, as people do cancel and change plans as they don’t want to be charged the no show fee. We had a great moment where we grabbed a last minute breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare, we booked it 10 hours before we dined and it was possibly one of our favourite dining experiences.

As we are only visiting for a week at the end of November, we are planning on trying to bag 2/3 dinner reservations. With it being close to Thanksgiving, crowds will be picking up for the holiday and I believe there will be large crowds still off the back of the opening of Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. So we don’t really want to be tied down to to many times or places.

When our 180 day window opens, we will be looking for reservations for Artist Point – Storybook Dining, this is a new Snow White character dining experience at the Wilderness Lodge. Every review I have read has been positive, so I really want to try it for myself. Another reservation will be at Sebastian’s at the Caribbean Beach, this new table service restaurant has also had amazing reviews. Yes it is a little out of the way, however we will definately take an Uber to the resort rather than rely on the buses. Finally Disney announced TODAY the new signature dining restaurant in EPCOT’s Japan pavilion opens this summer so we well 100% be booking here as we enjoyed Tokyo Dining so much.

How do you plan our your ADR’s? Or do you just wing it and try your luck on the day? Have you managed to bag a great last minute ADR? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.