Dining Reservations ??

[Joan S.]

Hi. we will be at the PPH the week of August 22nd. Are reservations necessary for dinner dining at places like Storytellers Cafe or Wine Country Trattoria?? Are there ANY restaurants that you absolutely need res. for?? Thanks any help is appreciated!! Joan

 

[sonnyjane]

If you want to have a meal at Blue Bayou in DL, I would strongly encourage reservations. Since it's still summer, and will be the first few days that SoCal AP's are unblocked again, I would really suggest it for any of the table service places just as a convenience.

 

[pixiewings71]

We were able to walk into to Storyteller's on many occasions with no problems. Blue Bayou, Cafe Orleans and Carnation Cafe are the only places in DL that we have been turned away from and it's happened the most at BB. In DCA we were turned away from Ariel's Grotto once but I imagine with the WoC preferred dining packages it's a little harder to walk into AG and perhaps even WCT, you may want to keep that in mind. Of course the times we were turned away from BB we walked away, called the dining line and made a ressie for the following day so that's always an option as well. Not guaranteed but an option.

 

[ChickenCarlos]

i would recommend reservations for any place that you WANT to eat at, just to be safe.

 

[jimreuter]

Absolutely make reservations for Blue Bayou at least a week in advance, especially if you have a party larger than 4. They usually are completely booked during the 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm dinner hour several days in advance, and walk-ins are only accepted when people don't show up for their reservations and there are empty tables.

 

[Flitterific]

Yup...ditto to what the PPs said. If there is a place that you absolutely must dine at, make a PS for it. You can always cancel/change the time of your PS that day if your plans change and Disney is very accommodating when it comes to that. It's definitely better to be safe than sorry...

 

[Joan S.]

Thanks for all the replies! I do not want res. at the Blue Bayou. But there are a few other places we would really like to try. So I will get my days mapped out and make some reservations! Joan

 

[spacemermaid]

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Goofy's Kitchen...made the bad decision once to go without a PS...waited over an hour

(It was worth it, but unnecessary...shoulda called ahead of time & saved ourselves a long wait!)

 

[Joan S.]

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Goofy's Kitchen...made the bad decision once to go without a PS...waited over an hour

(It was worth it, but unnecessary...shoulda called ahead of time & saved ourselves a long wait!)

Thanks!! Goofy's Kitchen is one we would like to try. Joan

 

[spacemermaid]

Thanks!! Goofy's Kitchen is one we would like to try. Joan

Then I'm glad I said something...wouldn't want you to have to wait so long when you could just go on in with a PS

I'm sure you'll love Goofy's Kitchen...it's the original & biggest character meal! (And also my favorite, and a big favorite here on the Disboards)

 

[pixiewings71]

OMG if we went to GK and they said an hour we would leave...it's not that good in our opinion, definitely not worth waiting an hour for!

 

[cmwade77]

We were able to walk into to Storyteller's on many occasions with no problems. Blue Bayou, Cafe Orleans and Carnation Cafe are the only places in DL that we have been turned away from and it's happened the most at BB. In DCA we were turned away from Ariel's Grotto once but I imagine with the WoC preferred dining packages it's a little harder to walk into AG and perhaps even WCT, you may want to keep that in mind. Of course the times we were turned away from BB we walked away, called the dining line and made a ressie for the following day so that's always an option as well. Not guaranteed but an option.

I have been turned away from time to time for walkups at all of them; however, I have usually found that I can go and pick up a cell phone or go to a pay phone (all of them in the parks have a button to cal disney dining for free) and call Disney Dining and get a reservation within 1-2 hours of that time. But I do recommend reservations earlier if you really want to east somewhere in particular.

 

[pixiewings71]

I have been turned away from time to time for walkups at all of them; however, I have usually found that I can go and pick up a cell phone or go to a pay phone (all of them in the parks have a button to cal disney dining for free) and call Disney Dining and get a reservation within 1-2 hours of that time. But I do recommend reservations earlier if you really want to east somewhere in particular.

We have the number for DD in our cell phones, when turned away from any place we wanted to eat (CO, CC, BB) we would call, we only got a same day seating that way once (for CC I think) all other times we had to take a seating the following day and once for BB they didn't have ANY seatings available for the rest of our trip. Granted it was a shorter trip, like 3 days I think but no BB for us that time, we had to wait a whole MONTH for BB...LOL I actually think we went ahead and made a PS for BB for the following month without having a trip planned.....lol we really wanted to eat at BB that time. We didn't make reservations for most of our trips, most of them were quick weekends so we ate on the fly, we only made reservations for trips that we were going to be there more then 3 days. Those trips were our bday trips and our Tgiving trip last year.