Help! Making dining reservations tomorrow!!

[DisneyJillian18]

How hard is it to get Disneyland dining reservations? Is it similar to Disney World? We are going the first week in December, should I set my alarm for 2:00 AM to wake up for dining? Or can it wait until morning? I am trying to get a pre-park opening breakfast, so maybe I should?

 

[Malcon10t]

Nononono.... But if you have "ABSOLUTELY MUST DO AT THIS EXACT TIME" then call in as soon as you are up. Heck, I am heading down in a week, and will probably make reservations the day before.

 

[ImDMous]

I was just making ours for Avenger's Marathon weekend yesterday, so that's about 5 weeks out. There were a few things full, but I got what I was looking for. That is a particularly busy weekend with the runs, the first week of Christmas stuff and Veteran's Day so I wouldn't expect the first week of Dec to have the same crowds.

Usually if it's just a normal trip with no special events I do them about a week ahead.

 

[DisneyJillian18]

Nononono.... But if you have "ABSOLUTELY MUST DO AT THIS EXACT TIME" then call in as soon as you are up. Heck, I am heading down in a week, and will probably make reservations the day before.

Oh thank goodness! Thank you so much, I feel so much better!
I'll get on as soon as I get up, I was just dreading a 2:00 AM wake up call that I'd never go back to sleep from!

 

[DisneyJillian18]

I was just making ours for Avenger's Marathon weekend yesterday, so that's about 5 weeks out. There were a few things full, but I got what I was looking for. That is a particularly busy weekend with the runs, the first week of Christmas stuff and Veteran's Day so I wouldn't expect the first week of Dec to have the same crowds.

Usually if it's just a normal trip with no special events I do them about a week ahead.

This makes me feel so much better!
Thank you! And good luck with the race!!

 

[allsaintsatx]

Oh lord no!!! We have a trip to WDW in December, and I was up at 4:45AM making Ohana and Beaches reservations and barely getting them!! At Disneyland? You have the pick of the litter 2 months out. I've been eyeing the reservations for our trip this weekend, and it seems stuff really started to go fast around 2 to 3 weeks out. So at 6 weeks out you will be fine! Also, you can't make reservations for your whole trip at once like at WDW, it is 60 days per day. So you make your first day's reservations at 60 days out. Then wait a day. Then you can make your next days reservations after that, etc etc. It's kind of a pain, but it just illustrates my point that disneyland reservations are no WDW reservations! And that's only if they actually release reservations at 60 days. For this October trip I think they released them at around the 30 day mark? Can you imagine that at WDW??

 

[rentayenta]

PS at Disneyland are sooooo much easier to make than ADRs at WDW.

 

[figment_jii]

It's also worth noting that if you do try to make reservations right on the 60-day mark and something shows as unavailable, it's much more likely that they haven't loaded them into the system yet (rather than already being fully booked). Sometimes if the schedule is in flux, it can take a while for them to load the dining reservations (e.g., they were really slow to load October reservations this year). Also, unlike WDW's system, DLR's system doesn't always roll at a consistent time (I've seen anywhere from midnight to 8:00 am being mentioned).

 

[hsmamato2]

Nononono.... But if you have "ABSOLUTELY MUST DO AT THIS EXACT TIME" then call in as soon as you are up. Heck, I am heading down in a week, and will probably make reservations the day before.

WDW vet here.... I am felling the same way! It feels like I'm forgetting something big.... I'm used to obsessing over what entree I want to eat in 4 months at exactly 12:30 pm....

 

[tzeitel]

The only one I would book at 60 days would be Blue Bayou if you want a guaranteed table by the water. The 11:30 adrs get the waterside tables, we had an 11:50 and were told we could not have one of those tables even though they were empty. Apparently they actually hold those tables for the first adrs.

 

[GatorChris]

As a former WDW goer, and now a DL regular, this is really funny. I used to be just like this. At the 180 day mark for Olrando, I was up early getting those reservations...and being mad that I missed out on Be Our Guest again! At DL, it's so different. There's been times where I'd get an ADR 2 days before for a prime dinner time. It's just so different. You can get up early if it makes you feel better, but you certainly don't need to, that's for sure.