disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

we are traveling with a 3.5 year old and a 1 year old at time of travel.

what time did you make your dinner reservations?

mainly trying to figure out what time to schedule dinner at the castle.

sample day:
Mk at 9amish/lunch at park/hotel break at2/3pm maybe/ dinner at castle

what time do you suggest? 6pm or like a 7:30 8pm?

thanks!


eta- at home we eat late , like around 8/830pm. wondering if we should eat earlier b.c we will be doing a lot of running around and maybe the kids will want to go to bed earlier..

Message edited 3/14/2012 4:22:31 PM.

Re: disney folkd with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

I don't have little kids, but one thing I would think about in terms of logistics is whether you intend to stay for fireworks and the fireworks/park hours.

If you ARE planning to stay for MSEP and Wishes, then you want to get out in time to get a spot, if you're NOT, then you want to get out of dinner in time to be able to get out of the park. Once people start getting into place for MSEP, MMY, and Wishes, you're not going to be able to get ANYWHERE easily.

Either way, I'd say you want to get out of there at least an hour before the parades and fireworks. If you don't care about seeing fireworks and don't care about when you leave, you could have the dinner during the fireworks time if it's available.

I don't know much about when your child eats, but traffic getting out of the park is something to consider if your DC is going to be tired and want to go to bet after dinner.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

All of our dinner reservations are between 5:30 and 7.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

I have 3 DD's (almost 5, 3 1/2 & 8 1/2 months). We made all our dinner reservations 6:00 or 6:30, with one being at 5:45pm.

My older DD's don't nap anymore so if they don't take a nap during the day while we're there, I don't want to chance them not making it through a later dinner.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

I posted this exact question a few months ago before we went. At home DD eats at 530ish and we eat @ 8-830. I made reservations for dinner @ 730-8pm and truthfully, I t was a little late. We wound up changing them to 7 and 645 when we were there and it was much better.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

Late dinners at disney (7 pm and on) are the worst for little kids, IMO.

Disney dinners take a long time, especially if characters are involved.

As much as kids love Disney or are well-behaved, I find children to be mysteriously 150% capable of being cranky and more tired than normal at Disney than anywhere else in the universe.

Plan with that in mind.

I've seen parents with tears in their eyes trying to get their kids to stay awake at a dinner table because Piglet was about to circle around, and meltdowns over buffet pasta salad.

The best reservations are the ones in the morning for breakfast, but I see you are asking about dinner.

Message edited 3/14/2012 7:00:10 PM.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

They all varied from 600 to one as late as 930. I am not sure how things will play out, if she naps during the day she could be up LATE at night. I figure some of them may fall through and thats ok. So I have them but will play it by ear. The important ones, that I had to prepay...are at 630. But oddly enough my DD seems to crash around 500-630 at home, since she doesnt nap, so I dont even know if 630 will work. Its our first time there and I have no idea what is going to happen! But I did book ressies based on what park we will be in, what parade or show we want to make it to, etc.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

I would say earlier is better. Keep in mind they are more like call aheads then reservations. We have often waited anywhere from 5 mins to 50 mins for our table once we checked in (you have to check in 15 mins early). We found in the past if we made say 5 pm we could go back to the parks around 4 or so and we would only be done with dinner around 630 or often closer to 7. Then we had time to do some more rides before leaving the parks. The few times we tried for 7 - the kids were generally hungry because we weren't eating until almost 8pm. We eat at home around anywhere from 6-7 during the week so I tried to keep closer to our real schedule.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

All of our dinners were before 6PM.

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

We went in December and our DD was 17 months and we were also there with our friends whose kids were 3 and 1! All of our reservations were between 5:45 and 7...most being about 6, 6:30! Worked out great and I honestly couldn't have imagined eating dinner at 8 or 8:30! They were exhausted...as were we! Lol

Re: disney folks with young kids, what time did u make your dinner reservations?

anywhere from 5:30 - 8 depending on where we were etc. the kids were great - they slept later than they usually do at home, napped later during the day and were up much later. it all worked out

i have a 2.5 and a yr old