Linda:
You've checked two of the most difficult decisions in planning a Disney trip off your list: your dates and your resort. Now it's time to plan which parks to visit while you're there and your dining!
I like to decide which parks I'll visit on my vacation
before booking my dining reservations. Avoiding parks with morning Magic hours helps avoid crowds as well as steering clear of the smaller parks like the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios on the weekends when nice May weather brings more local crowds. Visiting the larger parks (Epcot and Animal Kingdom) on the weekends allows more room for the crowds to disperse. Once you've picked which parks to visit on which days, it's time to think about your dining reservations.
At 180 days out from your arrival, you'll be able to book dining reservations, so I recommend making some preliminary decisions of where you'd like to eat. I tend to book my dining choices in the parks I'm planning to visit or at the resorts near them so that I'm not spending a lot of time traveling to a restaurant. For example, if I know I'm going to visit Hollywood Studios on Monday of my vacation, I'm not going to book a restaurant at the Magic Kingdom and spend an hour going from one park to the next.
I have a 10-year-old son and his favorite restaurants are
Chef Mickey's for the waffles, Ohana for the all-you-can-eat skewers, California Grill for the sushi and view, T-Rex,
Coral Reef's aquarium views and Teppan Edo. Book only one table service meal a day so you're not spending a lot of time out of the parks, and you'll create the right balance to your vacation.
If you need more help planning, feel free to come back to ask.
Wishing y'all a magical vacation!
Whitney