Dining Reservations Part 4 (Off-Site Edition)

Hi Disney friends,

The previous posts about booking Advanced Dining Reservations (ADR) have centered around staying on site and taking advantage of planning your meals around days with Extra Magic Hours (EMH.) However, if you are staying off site, then that method of planning would actually be less beneficial. The reason is that on average, if a park has extra magic hours it tends to be somewhat more crowded than on a day when the park does not have EMH. The reason for the extra congestion is that many of the people on site will take advantage of the extra magic hours and that puts more people in those parks and less in the others.

Therefore, an example of this plan would be to go to Hollywood Studios on a day with no EMH (especially if there are morning EMH at another park) and get there at rope drop (actually about 30 minutes prior for nonholidays.) Once there, try to get to a couple of rides early in the morning. It will be more difficult to book fastpasses since the window for booking when staying off-site is 30 days and many of the earlier times will be booked. Then, have a midday late lunch/early dinner planned at Hollywood and Vine (there are no characters at lunch.) Then enjoy some more rides and plan to take in one of the nighttime shows.

A couple of things about dining when staying off site. You are still able to book reservations 180 days in advance. As mentioned above, you will only be able to book fastpasses at the 30 day window (there are some resorts that have recently been allowed to book at 60 days, but with so many off site options, this is a very small number of locations.) Lastly, when staying off site, you will not have access to purchasing the meal plan.

I hope this helps in planning you planning a trip to Walt Disney World. If you have more questions about dining or resorts or anything related to Walt Disney World, the Disney Cruise Line, Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort, Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, Disneyland, or Adventures by Disney, please let me know and I will be honored to help you plan a magical vacation. My email address is brian.herndon@mousemadesimple.com.