Making dining reservations before park times?

[bball15fan]

I will be going to DL for the firs time and am used to planning my Dining reservations 6 months ahead of time in DW. I will be in DL area for a week but will only be at the parks for 4 days. I was waiting to see what the park hours and schedule was like. Seems like you schedule dining before the schedule comes out. Do they have the new fireworks, light parade and Fantasmic every night?

 

[SMD]

Typically fireworks and Fantasmic only run every night between Memorial and Labor Days, Spring break and Christmas. Otherwise they're Fri-Sun. We don't yet know if the nighttime parade will continue to be nightly after Labor Day.

 

[tiffjoy]

Just as a note since you are a WDW vet, reservations aren't nearly as hard to get at DLR. I often wait until a few weeks before to book with no trouble. I have also booked that morning for something for lunch or dinner. The only ones I sometimes struggle with doing that are Ariel's Grotto and Cafe Orleans, but that has only been during busy months. So you shouldn't have too much to worry about.

 

[bball15fan]

I will be going at the end of August, so it seems like I can at least wait to know the times.

 

[figment_jii]

Yes, this is one of the quirks of the Disneyland system. The dining reservations become available at the 60-day mark, the operating calendars are released 45-days/6-weeks in advance, and entertainment information is often not added until the 30-day mark. As others have said, getting dining reservations at DLR is not nearly as hard as they are at WDW. You can often wait until much closer to your date and still get prime dining ADRs. I do still recommend making ADRs if you know you want to eat at a specific locations and/or at a specific time, but you don't need to be online right at the 60-day mark.

August is considered the transition month. At some point in the middle of the month, they begin to transition from the full summer schedule to a more limited schedule. As SMD noted, fireworks are usually presented nightly from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. F! is presented nightly from Memorial Day weekend through mid-to-late-August, when it goes to a weekend only schedule (Fri, Sat, and Sun). Last year, F! stopped it's nightly schedule on August 25, 2015. At this point, we do not know what PtN schedule will be (i.e., will it be presented nightly year around, on weekends only at some point, etc.). WoC is generally presented nightly.

You can get a sense of the hours and entertainment offerings (in terms of fireworks, F!, and WoC) from the previous years. WDWinfo has archived the information, just change the year (in the link) to see older calendars:
http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneyland/park-hours.cfm?month=8&year=2014