How early can you check in / get in with ADR?

[CheriePenguin]

Just curious as to how early you could potentially get in if you come early for your ADR time. I realize everyone can't come hours before and get in way before their time or the whole system would be kind of useless.

But our ADR for Chef Mickey's (first night, hardest to get because of 90+10 of others, even though I was online at 5am on my 90 day date) is awfully late (almost 9pm). They say to come 20 min earlier, and get the next available table for your party size. Is that next available from check-in or from ADR time? If we come earlier than 20 min prior, would we be likely to get in any earlier?

Thanks.

 

[Aimeedyan]

Just depends on the restaurant at the time. We've checked in really early before (when we were at that point where we needed to just sit and not try to trek to another attraction before dinner) - like 45 minutes - and were seated 45 minutes AFTER our reservation time. Thus waiting 1.5 hours total. They were crammed with people and did the best they could. We were happy in the air conditioning so it didn't matter much to us.

Other times we've checked in a little early and were seated immediately.

You get in line behind anyone else waiting on your specific table size - so if they are behind, there may be 10 other parties waiting which means you won't get the next table. The other 10 parties will.

There is nothing wrong with showing up just to check in and see. At the Contemporary, there is plenty of stuff to wander around and see if there looks to be a long wait.