Reservions for large parties

[angeleigh]

Tomorrow is the day when I attempt to get my dining reservations. We have a party of 10. Would it be easier to break the party down into smaller groups or just stick with the 10? Also any suggestion of the order I should request in? Below is our dream list - all for dinner

Chef Mickeys
O'hana (trying to decide if we want to do it at a time so we can view fireworks after from Poly)
Be Our Guest
Garden Grill
Cinderella's Royal Table
T-Rex
Momma Melrose - Fantasmic Package

Any advice would be appreciated

Also - If on the dining plan do you need to prepay for any of these reservations?

 

[kjmollypup]

Can't help with the prepay question, but I just made reservations for 10 on Wednesday to some of the same places. I've never made ADRs before so it was quite a learning experience!

Just be prepared, if you haven't seen all of the posts lately about MDE not working, that you will need to call as soon as you are able. I was able to make one reservation on the MDE app before I called, and it was my arrival day ADR at Whispering Canyon, which I wasn't all that worried about getting. Nothing else worked, and I tried for the entire hour.

I would say Be Our Guest should be first, followed by Cinderella. Be prepared to break down into two groups - or more - at Be Our Guest. Since I only had one resort confirmation number, they wouldn't let me have two reservations at BOG on the same night at the same time, even though I had been allowed this at Grand Floridian Cafe. So I wound up with one reservation for four only. I am hoping to get lunch reservations for all 10 of us and then it won't matter, I can just drop the dinner. If you are going to try to break it down, make the reservation for 6 people first. Four tops seemed easier to come by when I was looking at times and availability.

Don't know about order of the rest of your meals, but I had no issue reserving for 10 at 'Ohana and Chef Mickey's.

Best of luck getting what you want! With the exception of BOG, there was only one restaurant where I had to compromise at all for my party of 10. Lunch will be a half hour later than I wanted at Hollywood & Vine. Everything else, including pre-park opening meals, were pretty easy to get. I was relieved!

 

[angeleigh]

Thank you for your reply. And thank you for the advise on Be Our Guest. We have two reservation numbers so if we need to we can use both. We were not going to do any breakfast reservations but my dh just told me he wanted me to try CRT for breakfast and if we can't get it then dinner. So we will see how successful I am with that. We have only eaten in the Castle once and it was many years ago when lunch was first introduced.

 

[kjmollypup]

Let me know how it goes. I was really relieved at the ease of it all; well, over the phone, that is. They really need to do something about the app and website issues! Was also surprised at the availability for tables for four at Be Our Guest, but I was looking at days 6 and 7 of our trip and I know that helps, to look further out.

 

[angeleigh]

I was able to get everything I wanted except crt is at 8:20 instead of 8. We did have to split into 4 tables for BOG.

 

[Mikie]

I was able to get everything I wanted except crt is at 8:20 instead of 8. We did have to split into 4 tables for BOG.

Did you end up calling or using the web site? When I called for my group of 12 ahead of time just to ask a few questions and be prepared, they told me that at the reservation stage, there would be no reason to break into smaller groups. That an ADR was basically just a head count and when it came time to actually check in that day, the restaurant would decide how they needed to seat us. We happened to get our requests as one whole group anyway, but I'd be interested to know in the future if you do get better luck breaking into smaller numbers.

 

[angeleigh]

For most of our reservations we could get ten together. BOG we had to split into four groups with four different times five minutes apart. For trex they split us into two groups at same time.

 

[angeleigh]

Did you end up calling or using the web site? When I called for my group of 12 ahead of time just to ask a few questions and be prepared, they told me that at the reservation stage, there would be no reason to break into smaller groups. That an ADR was basically just a head count and when it came time to actually check in that day, the restaurant would decide how they needed to seat us. We happened to get our requests as one whole group anyway, but I'd be interested to know in the future if you do get better luck breaking into smaller numbers.

I called because online would oy let me get an adr for my arrival day.