How necessary are ADRs in mid/late January?

[rt207]

I've always made an ADR or two for my trips, but this trip will be with my 1 year old son for the first time. He's only been home with us for a little over a week and I have no idea what kind of schedule he'll be on by that age (napping, etc.) so I'm not sure what to do about ADRs. Is it possible to just "wing" it and try to get something while we're there?

[Strmchsr]

It's really hard to say with the new DDP starting in 2008. I've heard quite a few people say that they are less than enchanted with the changes Disney has made to the program, so that might lessen crowds. However, ADRs have been notoriously hard to get year round. Yes, you could probably get some when you get there, but you may not have much in the way of choice. Certainly you would be out of luck for the more popular places without an ADR. I understand that there's no way to know your child's needs at this point, so maybe make a couple of ADRs and, for this trip, plan on the rest of your meals being counter service which you can do at any time.

[Mom2JPL]

First off...CONGRATULATIONS on the adoption of your son! How wonderful for you!!! What a great age to welcome him into your family; our oldest daughter was 1 year a 4 days when she made us a family (we adopted her from China). So, I understand completely what you mean about not knowing his nap schedule yet! That being said, our daughter soon fell into an early morning nap - she woke around 6:30ish and would nap around 9:30, 10:00 for about an hour, and then would nap in the afternoon around 3ish. I would definitely make some adr's just to be safe (you can always cancel them) - maybe you want to plan a character meal (if you feel he'll be receptive to those big characters). We've leaving in October with our almost 4 year old daughter, our 2 1/2 year old son, and our youngest who will be 1 a day before we leave. I've got adr's for an early breakfast, 2 mid-day lunches, and a late lunch the day we get in. Our plan is to get to the parks early, do lunch (table service) return to hotel for nap after lunch, and hit the parks in the evening for dinner (counter service) and fun and back to the hotel around 8 or so. My kids are all in bed by 8:00, but it's vacation so if they're out a little late it's no big deal. Hope you have a great trip!! :mickey:

[rt207]

Thank-you for the congrats! He is only 7 months right now and napping 2 or 3 times a day...usually 2. We'll be there the week before he turns 1.:joy:

[Madame Leona]

Congratulations. We usually don't make adrs and have been in Dec 2006 when ds was 10 months then in May 2007 when he was 15 months. Since children's nap schedule changes with different developmental stages, I would suggest making the adr (if any) closer to when you go and have a better idea of what their schedule is like. Also, we have had pretty good luck making adrs the night before or checking to see what is available the morning of in the park we are in. Flexibility is the key with a little one. Just remember you are there to have fun.

[bkfree]

First of all, from one adoptive Mom to another CONGRATULATIONS!:cloud9:. We have adopted twice, son was 9 months at adoption and daughter was 11 months. We did not attempt WDW until they were 3 and 5 the first time. So here's :thumbsup: to ya on that note.
We went last year during the same time. It was low crowds BUT, it seemed ADR"s were full at each restaurant we ate at. We had made ADR's for all of our TS meals and I was very glad we did. The evening we ate at CP, it had a 1 1/2 hour wait for walk ups and the other restaurants seemed the same. The exception was the morning we ate at Chef Mickey's. We had a late ADR at 10 am for brunch and you could probably have walked up then and been seated pretty soon. A couple of nights we did call and move our ADR's back because we weren't ready to eat when our ressies were. We had no problem changing the times. I would suggest you make your ADR's. If you need to change or cancel it, no biggie, but I would not go without them no matter what time of year. Even in the low crowd value seasons that we always go in, ADR's are still very valuable things to have.

[Natazu]

It's really hard to say with the new DDP starting in 2008. I've heard quite a few people say that they are less than enchanted with the changes Disney has made to the program, so that might lessen crowds.
I wondered that. But I think the Deluxe Diners with their three meals a day may clog the system back up, maybe shifting the difficult ADRs to signature places like CG and Narc.