Party of 16!

[Mom2AAA's]

We are a grand gathering of 16 and will be eating all our dinners together. I wonder if we could get our checks divided up to our own families? I am 5, my brother is 5 in his family etc. It would be so much easier to figure out credits. That way we wouldn't get an automatic 18%. We usually tip 20% but if the service is terrible we will tip less.

 

[JimMIA]

First of all, the credits are assigned to each room, so the accounting for DDP credits will be done that way and will take care of itself. You're not allowed to charge more meals to DDP than you have in the room, so everyone will be paying their own bills.

With a crowd that large, you're going to be dining separately whether you want to or not. Most of the Disney restaurants can't seat groups larger than 10, and some are capped at 8. There is not enough room in most of them to put together a table for more than 10. They will usually not even accept a reservation for more than 10 in one party, although we reserved 10 and just showed up with 11 at Norway and were accommodated.

Regardless of how you are sitting or paying, if there are six or more people in your reservation, you're going to be charged the automatic gratuity. Unless you make completely separate dining reservations in groups of five or less, you're going to get billed for the automatic 18%. That has nothing to do with DDP -- it applies to ANY party of six or more.

 

[toystorymom]

Last time we went it was with a party of 14, 3 families (5, 5, 4). We had many meals together and never had a problem splitting up the checks correctly. Buffets were easy, each family gave one card and just asked for the appropriate # of dining credits be taken. Even the TS restaurants that were not buffets though, the waitstaff easily kept our orders separate.

As for dining with large parties...We made all those ADRs as a party of 14. We were told that we may have to split up and sometimes we did, but we were always at tables right next to each other. Sometimes it was nice, the kids could sit together and the adults could have some quieter conversation. I know this happened at Chef Mickey's, Garden Grill, and LTT. We were at one long table at Donalds and Concourse Steakhouse. At Sci Fi we were in cars that were basically attached together. Honestly, splitting tables was no big deal, it was easier to talk to someone right at the next table then it was to try to talk to someone waaaay down the other end of a long table.

We had a great time going with a large group, you should really have fun.

Hope all that helps!

 

[KEMdisney]

We are a party of 16, all on one reservation, all on the dining plan and leaving in 11 days! This is the first time going with such a large group, and the first time I've been on the Dining Plan. I am no where near experienced, but in two weeks I will be back to let you know how everything went! Hopefully I will be able to help you feel more at ease, because I know right now Im pretty nervous about going with such a large group.

We made all of the ADRs for 16 people, and at most places we have two tables although some we were told we'd be split into three tables. From what I understand, since we are all on the same reservation, all of our credits (TS, CS and S combined) will be pooled onto our room key card, and we essentially will only need to present one card to deduct all of our credits.

Also, I (think) understand that an automatic 18% will be added to our bill, no matter what, no matter how split up we are among different tables. (So that means when we go to Chef Mickeys they will tally up our bill, as if we were paying cash... (9 adults, 3 children, 4 free under 3)So an estimate bill would be $360.00, estimate tip $32? I dont have my calculater so Im just guess-timating. So, that $32 tip would need to be paid either by cash, or charge it back to the room to deal with later.

I dont want to keep telling you things that I "think" are going to happen, Ill just wait 2 weeks and let you know "how" things happened!!!

 

[Mom2AAA's]

Thanks, I look forward to hearing about how it went. We have used the dining plan before, but this will be the first time having to leave a tip. I will tell you that in some of the places we went before they did mess up our "credits" When we went to CRT the server took all the credits from my brother and sister inlaws cards for all of us and the whole trip we had to make sure we "made it up" by keeping track of the cards and what was used. I was just thinking if we are split up at two or three tables we could have the bill split up that way an not have the tip auto included. Either way we will pay 18% or more.

I hope you have a great time!! Wish we were going in two weeks, we have two months to wait and I fear it's going to make the summer go way to fast