180 is a Magic Number

To those of us with a love of WDW the number 180 should need no explanation, but for those of you who are perhaps thinking I've lost the plot let me explain.

So this magic number has something to do with the number of days leading up to you vacation and food!  Now food is an integral part of any Disney vacation and can, for some, need a little planning.

'But isn't it all burgers and hot dogs?' I here you cry...well yes there are burgers and hot dogs and all the usual 'fast food' but there is also a lot more which can be a surprise to some.  WDW offers everything from snacks to fast food to high end dining, from food carts dotted around the parks to counter service restaurants to full table service establishments, in fact something to meet everyone's taste and pocket.

Main Street Bakery - Magic Kingdom

ABC Commissary - Disney's Hollywood Studios

Pecos Bill Cafe - Magic Kingdom

Now as a family we tend to be more of the fast food, counter service type and on our last visit took advantage of a free Quick Service Dining Plan offer, which meant that we each had an allowance of 2 counter service meals and 2 snacks for each day of our vacation. These 'dining credits' could be used as we saw fit over our vacation; so if we wanted 3 meals one day and only 1 meal the following that was fine - once all the credits were used we then had to pay for anything else.  As it was we used all the meal credits and were still left with 7 snack credits on our last day!  This year we shall be using the Quick Service Dining Plan again (although Disney has dropped it to only 1 snack per day....think our 15 year old may have to dig into his own wallet to pay for all the snacks he can usually get through!) but we are thinking about trying one or two of the table service restaurants that Disney has to offer and this is where that magic number of 180 comes in.

For a lot of the table service restaurants it is recommended that you make a reservation, or as Disney call it an Advanced Dining Reservation (ADR) and the earliest that you can make an ADR is 180 days ahead of when you need it.  A perk of staying in a Disney resort is that ADR's can be made 180 days prior to check-in and for up to 10 days of your stay.  So we have reached that magical number of 180 days to go till our vacation and we can now give some serious thought to ADR's.

So for us eating at a table service restaurant would be outside of our Dining Plan but it is something that we have on our 'To Do' list for this year's vacation; so we are looking long and hard at which restaurants we would like to try and that we think all four of us will like, thankfully none of us have any real food 'no-no's' so the world is our oyster!!!

There are even guides about food and where to eat, check out Birnbaum's Dining Guide...

That reminds me I need a new one of these!!

...as well as The Disney Food Blog

Any recommendations out there?  Once we have decided where we would like to dine I shall of course let you know....you can't beat Disney planning :)