Are dinning reservations filling up at 180 days out?

[hughjulia]

We are planning to go November 13th through November 20th. We went last year at that time and it was absolutely wonderful.

I was not planning on making our Disney World reservations until later this summer. At the moment, the room discounts offered by Disney extent to October 2nd. I know there will be deals of some sort later for the November dates. The question is, will we be able the book dinning reservations if I wait that long?

Last year dinning reservations were 90 days out, so this wasn’t an issue. The room discounts for November came out a few weeks before the 90 day window.

I’m just curious as to what people are experiencing, and what your opinions are with respect to our situation.

 

[ancestry]

Many of the dining reservations are filling up at 180 days -- of course it really depends on the restaurant. If you want Le Cellier, Cinderella's Royal Table, or Ohana's I would highly recommend that you make reservations at 180 days.

Generally speaking and in my experience it seems that many (but not all) of the park restaurants fill up before the resort restaurants and that the 1 point restaurants fill up before the 2 point restaurants.

 

[DISNEY1975]

Dont forget even though its your 180, 10 days of other people have booked your day of check in. This is why you should plan popular restaurants later in your trip.


I went online at 6:00am on my 180 (about 2 weeks ago). I got everything I wanted, but not all the times I wanted. I would wait until much beyond the 150 to book.

 

[sunset30]

We booked all of ours on our 180 day mark, and got everything we wanted, BUT, we are travelling with a 3yr old, and so most of the big ones we wanted were breakfast or lunch. I have heard people already struggling to get the dinner ressies they want even at 180 days, if they are for the ones which are generally harder to get anyway.
Lx

 

[StacyMarie]

We are going in August/September and I was able to get everything I wanted including Cinderella's Royal Table and Ohana even after our 180 day mark without any problem. To be safe, I would do 180 +10. But, like I said I did not have a problem.

 

[imthatgirl]

IDk, I know people are always saying it's so hard to get reservations if you wait to long....but I'm going in 19 days and made my ADRs about a week ago. We got everything we wanted, 1900 parkfare, garden grill, 50s primetime, crystal palace, whispering canyon and captains grill. We may not have gottne the exact times we wanted...but all the times we got are just fine.
If you want any of the biggies like CRT or LeCellier I would suggest getting those immediately. but for the rest of them...of course you have time.

 

[TDC Nala]

Le Cellier for dinner does.

If you're flexible about which meal and what time for CRT, you don't absolutely need to make that at 180 days unless it's for Christmas Day or the 4th of July or something.

If you want 'Ohana for dinner before 8 PM, you may want to make that one as early as possible.

Nothing else seems to fill up that fast. Other especially popular locations seem to be Chef Mickey's, Coral Reef, California Grill within 2 hours of the fireworks at MK, and 1900 Park Fare dinner.

If you want Le Cellier at all, especially for dinner, I'd pick a day during your planned vacation and make the reservation at 180 days out whether you have made a room reservation or not.

 

[Fairiebee]

I think you will be fine. I just attempted CRT just out of curiousity for 180 days out, so October 24th and was able to get a 1:30pm reservation for a party of 7. I think you should be fine that week. I wasn't even using a 10 days out option either. We are going the week of Thanksgiving so I plan on getting on as soon as possible at 180 +10. Last year I got on very early in the morning for the week of Christmas and we were able to book everything we wanted, including Le Cellier twice. The only thing I recommend is making a notecard with all your reservation numbers and bring it with you on the trip to your restaurants. It's very difficult for the CMs to look up reservations from the on-line booking system for some reason, unless they have fixed this, so having the numbers handy is a good thing. Good luck! I think you'll find it's easier than you anticipate.

 

[hughjulia]

This may sound silly to the rest of you, but it didn’t occur to me that we could make dinning reservations without a vacation reservation. It just seems so backwards!

We have always done our trip as a Disney package: dining, tickets and room.

It makes sense. People staying off site wouldn’t have a reservation number.

I’m sure about the week we want to take our trip, so I’m going to go ahead and make our dinning reservations at the 180 day mark. There are a few specific reservations that are important to us. Ohana in particular is something everyone enjoys. The kids had a wonderful time there last November. My daughter is going through a princess phase that will probably last the next 10 years, so I’d like to try Akershus this trip.

I’m guessing each day of the trip will have its own 180 day mark, so I’ll have to make reservations every morning for a week. That will be a little different.

 

[cmcinc]

I guess it really depends on the actual dates and the restaurants. We always have the booking date on the calendar and I will be up before 6am to go at it. Good luck.

 

[dixonsontour]

Yes without the reservation number you will have to go on each day but it is no trouble with the online reservations. I had to do my last 4 days like this as we are staying 14 nights.

If you know your dates nothing to lose by booking it 180 days out and everything to gain!

 

[cadd10]

How hard it is to do reservations online?
Last time, we used AAA a week after the 180 days and we didn't get everything we wanted and had to rearrange the week based on the ones we did get.

 

[mousketexan]

I booked our June vacation in mid-Feb and began making ADR's immediately, as it was then about 120 days out. I was able to get Chef Mickey's, CRT and 1900 Park Fare with no problem. I just went in this week and changed/added some things and was able to get California Grill at prime fireworks time for a Saturday night. I couldn't, however, get Le Cellier at any time. If I'd tried at 120 days, I might've gotten it.

But to answer your original question, I don't think you need to book everything 180 days in advance -- especially since you're not going during a peak time. If you want Le Cellier or are really picky about the times, book as soon as you can.

 

[Andrea73]

I booked 8 weeks out and think I got some decent ADR's

Ohana's Dinner
1900 Park Dinner
CRT Dinner
Ohana's Breakfast
Tusker Breakfast
Crystal Palace Breakfast
Cape May Clambake
HDDR
Le Chefs Dinner
Ashkerus Breakfast


So you can still get decent ADR's 60 days out. It's not a super busy time, but it's Memorial Day weekend.

 

[Thumper_Man]

I agree with other posters about Le Cellier. DW and I were out of town at the 180 day mark, on the day we would've needed to book Le Cellier, for the day and time we had planned for in October. Got back 2 days later, and when I tried to make our ADR, all the times we had hoped for were already gone. We landed up with a reservation for much earlier than we hoped for.

 

[belle09]

FWIW, I just started planning an early August trip (3 months out), and the only reservation I wanted that I couldn't get was dinner at Le Cellier. Tons of lunch spots open though. Also available were:

'Ohana Dinner
California Grill at Wishes
Crystal Palace breakfast
Chefs to see Remy

Sometimes I think the DIS just makes us forget that most people aren't obsessive planners like we are...

 

[sydneysmom]

We also made ours at the 180 +10 mark for the end of Sept and I got everything that we wanted within 5-10 minutes of the times we wanted. The online reservations are fantastic. I wanted to make sure to do this because we wanted CRT for a breakfast and dinner ( not the same day), Narcoosee's and Le Cellier. (those were our "big ones".) No problems getting any of them.

Now, I went out yeasterday to play around w/ possibly switching one of our dinners because it turns out it's now a MNSSHP night (we're doing an earlier one) but I couldn't get anything !!! Now w/ Free Dining, I think it's going to be harder (although it might not effect you yet unless they extend free dining like last year.....)

Good luck !!!

 

[cadd10]

When you do this online, do you get an e-mail confirmation with the ADR# or do you need to write it down as you go?

 

[sydneysmom]

When you do this online, do you get an e-mail confirmation with the ADR# or do you need to write it down as you go?

Yes, but you have to choose to have your ADR's emailed (at the end). (it will ask if you would like this emailed to you) Make sure you're logged in before you make your ressie's though..... When I made them originally I kind of didn't trust that I'd get an email, so when I was done and everything was in "my cart" w/ confirmation #'s I printed this AND put everything on a spreadsheet. ( paranoid much ??) But I did get the email.

If you want to check your reservations or cancel any, just go back to the reservations and put in your dining reservation # and phone # and it'll pull it up. You can click "multiple reservations" to keep adding confimation #'s. Unfortunately, it just doesn't let you put in your resort reservation # or phone and pull everything up ! That would be awesome!!

But all in all, I had a fantastic experience w/ the online booking and would highly recommend it. Just make sure you have your credit card handy for the ones you need as a reservation hold. (if you're doing DDP, make sure you enter your reservation # first so your CC doesn't get charged). Also, I believe your "cart" only can hold like 9 at a time (someone correct me if this is wrong).....so what I did was put 9 in then I checked out....then started the next batch. I did my "big ones" first and checked out. I wanted to be sure we could get the ones I knew would go first.

This is probably WAY more info than you wanted....sorry about that !!!

 

[pmaurer74]

I just made mine about 90 days out and got all but Ohana's I usually had to go with my second choice on time. If you want special events like Cinderella's Royal table I would make them early.