Dining reservations and park hours

[sam_gordon]

Our family (11) is returning to WDW in June. We will be getting the DDP. There are certain dinners we want to do. But, we want to make dining reservations based on what park we'll be in that day (we won't have Hoppers). We want to decide on the park based on which ones have Extended Evening Hours.

If I understand things correctly, park hours are announced ~70-75 days out (rolling 1 day or rolling 5 day?). Dining reservations can't be made until 60 days out. So we should have about a week to finalize what park/what day and therefore what restaurant.

Is my timing correct? Do travel agents get access to dining reservations before the 60 day time frame?

We do have one newby to Disney, the rest of us have been, but it's been a long time since we did multi days in the park.

Thank you for any insight.

 

[japanese maple]

60 days out is for everyone, even travel agents.

The only thing is, hours change up until almost just a week out sometimes! We've had dinners scheduled for when we thought park was closing, and then they changed the hours and it was open another 2 hours after that. Sometimes that includes parks with the extra deluxe hours.

Just something to keep in mind.

 

[sam_gordon]

60 days out is for everyone, even travel agents.

The only thing is, hours change up until almost just a week out sometimes! We've had dinners scheduled for when we thought park was closing, and then they changed the hours and it was open another 2 hours after that. Sometimes that includes parks with the extra deluxe hours.

Just something to keep in mind.

Well .

But thanks

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Everything that @japanese maple said is spot on. We often do single park tickets and I've had my perfect dining plans upended because park schedules changed a week or two out...including those extra hours.

That being said, while you're a large party, you may be able to tweak things closer to time of travel to adjust for these possible changes. Dining tends to start opening up around the 2 week mark as people start fine tuning their plans. I popped in with DD16 for a night back in November and I was amazed at how much came available in the final 48 hours.

You're a larger party, but I usually have one other person in my group with a Disney account so we can both book ADRs should we need to split to get an ideal time...even when rebooking for a park schedule change.

 

[Genie+]

Onsite your ADRs should open 60 days from check-in for all the days of your room reservation.

The EEH have a good chance to be reliable at that point. Park hours have thrown us curveballs though.

 

[sam_gordon]

We were planning on getting dining plan anyway, but the new deal w/free dining if you get park hoppers may make my concerns moot.

We can make our plans for dinner based on EEH, but if they change, keep the reservation and hop to EEH park.