Grand Gathering ADR tips/tricks?

[tpimental]

I am part of a grand gathering (13 of us) going in Oct. For the last few months I have been encouraging dinning reservations but no one has been as engaged with DIS planning as I have been. I know we are going to have very limited options for table service. How is it going to work when I call to make reservations. Can I have the person tell me what is available on which days and go from there or do I have to go restaurant by restaurant for each day? LOL....trying to figure out the best way to get a person on the phone that can book 4-6 table service meals for the whole bunch of us. I know this is going to be tricky and a pain in the butt for the rep. What do you suggest?

 

[TwiddleDeeTwiddleDum]

We didn't use the grand gathering available at WDW when there was 9 & more of us, but I thought they had someone available at WDW to specifically help groups with this? But I'm not sure, maybe someone else will post that is.

But if you wanted to do this yourself, I would check the on-line availability for your party & try to secure some ADR's now. In our case, I actually had a very cooperative group of lady family members going so we had a BBQ & tossed around general ideas, then I followed up with a questionaire with questions like: List you top 3 favorite countries you'd want to dine at in EPCOT; do you prefer character bfast or sit down dinner on MK day, etc. Then I tallied up everyone's response & sent out another "survey" listing the top 3 choices for each question to re-vote on. And I'm sure I sent a final showing the result & for everyone to comment they'd go along with it or if they'd have different plans that day.

But this was before 180 day out ressies so it was easier to get everyone to think about it 6 months out so that when day 90 hit I was able to call WDW-DINE & get all our ressies booked together.

We made it as our own little pre-trip fun, choosing disney names for everyone & since we were celebrating my aunt's 50th b-day, everyone was extra cooperative & we had a wonderful time. Among others we had bfast at Cindy's castle, CM dinner, H&V Fantasmic dinner, R&C dinner, Donald's bfast in AK and then we separated for some of the meals in EPCOT due to different plans & tastes. But those big family meals at WDW are some of my fondest memories ever But my family was very supportive of my effort to make the trip a good one. Everyone agreed & were appreciative of my efforts to preplan for them.

Hope your group has a great trip.

 

[anicholson75]

There are 12 of us going in October too, and I started booking our ADR's back in May, and it was a bit difficult getting an ADR for that party size. I've tried to switch around a few things but can't because there isn't anything left since FD was announced. We're going Oct 5-12. Keep trying though, you never know! You can't book online for that many, unless you split up, which is an idea because at this point, the odds of getting seated together are going to be tough anyway.

 

[crabbygal902]

Duuude, I feel your pain.

I am currently trying to plan a trip for 20. I can't get a 'yay' or 'nay' from some group members about ANYTHING. I'm sure that they think we'll just walk right up to Le Cellier with our group of 20 on a Saturday night and get seated without an ADR.

I've taken the bull by the horns and planned the places I want to go that I think that would be good for a big group. I chose Le Cellier, 'Ohana, Cape May breakfast, and Wolfgang Puck Cafe. I didn't want to book through grand gatherings and put down a credit card as a deposit, since half of that group will probably decide to do something completely different at the last moment. I booked 10 on my resort reservation number, and I booked 10 on my MIL's number. You can reserve for up to 10 people without a credit card deposit online. I can change those ressies online any time I need to, but we've got them just in case...and no one in the group can accuse me of leaving them out.

Best of luck to you.