Travel with the Whitakers

The only way to make sure that you get to eat at the restaurants that you absolutely can't miss out on is to make Advance Dining Reservations (ADR). The most popular restaurants- Be Our Guest, Chef Mickey's, Cinderella's Royal Table- book up fast and will definitely require a reservation. You can make your reservations up to 180 days out for your entire trip. Don't worry, if you plan a last minute trip you can still get reservations at a lot of places. We have taken two "last minute" trips, planning both a month and a half out and we were able to eat at a lot of great places. On this last trip we were able to score a dinner reservation at Be Our Guest. Before you can make reservations you need to decide where you want to actually make reservations for. We personally plan where we're going to eat based on what park we have planned for that day of the trip. So, making your daily plan before deciding where to eat is importan

Frozen came out over a year ago, but it is still HUGE! If you go to a Disney park, at least half of the little girls in princess dresses are dressed as Anna or Elsa. There are Frozen plush toys, dolls, clothes, and party supplies in almost every store. I don’t think that this movie or its merchandise is going to go away any time soon—if at all. The Disney Parks are obviously not exempt from this crazy and on our last trip to Disneyland we sampled two Frozen themed snacks. The Frozen Blueberry Bread Twist This braided bread which is available at a stand located by the Royal Theater is one of three that are available. The other two are cheese and chocolate. The bread is served warm and has a perfectly balanced blueberry flavor. The blue sprinkles give it a welcome crunch. If you’re looking for a great, portable, and easily sharable snack, this one is for you. Just Chillin’ Olaf Cupcake This cupcake is both delicious and adorable. We were able to find it at Pinocchio’s Vi

The Dining Plan… Is it right for you? Some people say that they don’t purchase the dining plan because it won’t actually save them any money. That’s fine, but we don’t get the dining plan because it will save us money, it is more for convenience. Every time we go to the World we purchase the Deluxe Dining Plan which allows us to eat at almost every restaurant and it is paid for completely in advance, expect for the tip or alcohol. If we did not purchase the dining plan I can guarantee that we would not eat the way that we normally do on vacation. We would have food delivered to our hotel room by a local grocery store and take that for breakfast and lunch, have one in park meal a day—most probably a quick service meal, and then have one splurge meal for the trip. Because everything is paid for in advance we can order anything we want to from the menu and not have to think about how much it costs. You could have steak or lobster at every single meal if you wanted to.

If you were to look into the Italy pavilion at Epcot, but not go any further than the gift shop at the front, you would surely miss Via Napoli. Nestled at the very back of Italy, Via Napoli is a pizzeria that features Italian specialties served by cultural ambassadors—people that are actually from Italy. Until our last trip we had never eaten here, but I’m glad that we decided to try something new and journey into Italy. There are plenty of Italian restaurants on Disney property; and on this last trip we actually ate at three of them. What makes Via Napoli different from Mama Melrose’s at Hollywood Studios and Tony’s Town Square at Magic Kingdom is that the food is being served to you by servers that are actually from the country that the food they are putting in front of you represents. Also, while Mama Melrose’s is themed as a Italian restaurant in Hollywood, and Tony’s showcases the restaurant where Lady and the Tramp share their first kiss, Via Napoli is only themed to