NYE-DCA dinner reservation?

[trapaq]

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!
I have a few questions regarding dining reservations during the holidays. We prefer affordable (as we have 4 children ages 4 through 12) but we are also foodies (aka: food snobs)

Due to crowd levels .... I believe our family of 10 (grandparents too) will visit DCA on NYE. Can anyone recommend a fun family restaurant?

If we do decide on the disney side .... I am thinking about making a reservation at big thunder ranch bar b que. Is this a good choice?

We plan on visiting the parks dec 28-jan 2. Do we need to secure reservations for meals all the days we are there?! How early would you recommend we make these reservations? mostly considering dinner reservations.

Thanks in advance for any advice!!!!

 

[SMD]

Yes you will need reservations on those days, the parks will be very crowded. I'd recommend making lunch reservations as the capacity closures usually happen earlier in the day and ease off by dinner, so you have a better chance of doing counter service or DTD for dinner. Especially in DL, which tends to be more crowded. Also, seating for 10 will involve combining tables, so as a walk-up I'd expect to wait even longer. You could try sending someone ahead to put your name in. You also have to be careful that you can show up at all of the reservations, or you'll end up with a $10 per person no show charge. That could be problematic you're planning to park hop and the DL gates close, so I'd start my morning in the park where I've made a lunch reservation on those days.