crowds/free dinning

[kgoulash]

yet another free dinning crowds question
i will be going after free dinning but close enough (25th) where people could still be there from it. how long do the crowds last? i'm wondering if people book trips towards the end of the promotion but stay for a week or so.
i have made some adrs but don't want to make too many because i don't know with a 7 mo old and 5 yr old how dinning will go. should i make some adrs in case?
how about crowds. has anyone been at the tail end of this promo before? do the crowds die down quickly?
thanks for any info
:mickey:

[TBY2225]

We went last year during the free dining and checked in the last day and stayed the rest of the week. You are able to book up to 10 days past so free dining people like me will be there until the first of October. Crowds the whole time we were there were very light. We walked onto alot of things and the most we wait was about 20 minutes for the Jungle Cruise. I have heard that local traffic is high at Epcot during the Food and Wine festival, but we didn't seem to encounter that. I would definately make ADR's you can always cancel them if you need to, but we did see alot of people turned away from resturants and they even offered last year to trade TS for 2 CS because of the promotion.
It does seem like alot more people have found out about it and are going this time. So, we will just have to wait and see!

[MNNHFLTX]

Even without the dining plan, it never hurts to makes Advanced Dining Reservations. This is especially true if you have specific times of the day you would like to eat at. If your plans change you can always just cancel the ADR's.

Disney World, as a whole, remains busy throughout much of the time now, as compared with some years back. It's better to have a plan, IMO, and then deviate from it if you have to once you get there.

[vamaggie]

IMO, I would definately make some ADRs to have a "set time" for meals. With a little one and a 5 yr old, you don't want to be scrambling around to find someplace to eat when the "I MUST EAT NOW" monster child emerges. Having a plan and then deviating if needed/wanted is much better than not having a plan and having hungry/cranky/crying children. Most of the restaurants in WDW are very family friendly and used to having lots of kids.

[mook3y]

Ohana's is a great place for little kids. 2 years ago, my DW and I had 3 toddlers. This by far was the easiet meal for us because 1) there is food right away and 2) the entertainment helped distract them during the meal, so we didnt have to rush our meal in fear of them getting restless.

Oh, and we will be there for 12 days including 10 days past last check in for free dining.

But we did this last year too and we did not find the crowds bad at all.

Epcot WS was pretty crowded trying to get through with a stroller during the evenings when the wine dine thing started.

Have a great trip!

[kgoulash]

thanks!
i made one adr today and changed one pre existing one, i got the only table for cali grill during the fireworks so now i'm thinking i might as well make at leat one adr per day and alter if need be- it's never predictable with kids!
the only thing that is making me nervous is we never plan all our meals this advanced and i'm stressing i'm going to forget to cancel should need be and be charged the 20 per person fee!

[Lynn J Mc]

Make the ADRs, cancel if you don't need them. 2005 - during the end of free dining, they were putting up signs in the MK that no table service ADRs were available for that day. It was crowded that year.