How long should I allow for dining at Chef Mickey's

[portocall]

I am having trouble figuring this out and could use some opinions.
On our arrival day, we are planning to eat at Chef Mickey's. My brother and SIL are locals and they want to come along with us. Worst case scenario is that my SIL has to work a full day and won't make it to Orlando until 6:00. We are hoping to spend a couple hours in the Magic Kingdom after dinner.(not before, we really want to take it easy until dinner after a long drive)
We are assuming that the Magic Kingdom will be open until 11:00 like it has been for the same day of the busy holiday week for years now.

What I need to know is how long should I allow to dine at Chef Mickey's? Should I go ahead and hope that SIL will make it to Orlando in time for a 5 reservation. What happens if we show up as a party of 5 instead of a party as 7(in other words, not waiting on them)? If we do a later reservation, do you think we would have enough time to do something at the MK assuming the hours are accurate?

TIA

 

[TheRustyScupper]

1) 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
2) Also can be extended by
. . . time delay to get seated
. . . later in session (time after bfast or dinner starts) waits become longer
. . . amount of time you want to wait to see characters

 

[wdwmom0f3]

If you have an ADR for 7 and only 5 show up, I don't believe that it will be a problem. I sure hope not anyway because I had my parents booked with us for 4 nights of our trip and now they are not coming. Others have told me not to worry about it, so...don't worry about it.

 

[ROEDISNEY]

1hr 15 to hr 20 min. that's what I always do.

 

[monorailsilver]

I'd say about 1½-2 hours.

And when I ate there in 2005, they wouldn't seat us until all our party was there but the chef did walk me around since my ds has food allergies while we were waiting.

I think in August, I had a 5:05pm seating time & I swear we were not out of there until close to 7. And we had to wait a bit to go to our table because they were seating everyone at that time.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

In my opinion the time factor of being seated past your scheduled ADR time could be a factor, because the popular dining locations sometimes fall behind on all the ADR's they have scheduled for that evening.

 

[portocall]

Thanks so much for you responses! You have given me a lot to think about...

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

You're welcome.