Silly question, about party size and checking in, think I know the answer, but.....?

[bangzoom6877]

We have 4 ADRs at character meals next month where we will be a party of 10. They are Chef Mickey's dinner 5pm; CRT dinner 5:15pm; Akershus lunch 12:10pm; and 1900 Park Fare breakfast 9:25am. At Akershus we will definitely be together beforehand and arrive altogether. There is a slight chance we will be coming from different locations for CRT and Chef Mickey's and arrive separately. And, for 1900 Park Fare, we are coming from 2 different resorts and meeting there, so we will definitely be arriving separately.

OK, here's the silly question part...we all plan to arrive about 20 minutes early for each ADR (30 minutes early for CRT though). DH and I are reliable for this kind of thing, and my parents and sister are as well. However...what happens if some of us arrive earlier than the others, check in, and the table is ready earlier than expected? Will they NOT seat us until everyone in the party is present? I am guessing that would be the policy for large parties...that if 4 people are present out of 10 (or 6 people out of 10), they can't seat you, and therefore you'd have to wait until the right size table(s) come up again.

I have never experienced Disney Dining with a large party. Last time it was just DH, me and our 2 boys, which it will also be for the rest of our meals which I'm not worried about. When it was the 4 of us, we had varying experiences, always arriving about 20 minutes early...from being seated within 5 minutes even though we were earlier than our actual ADR time, to waiting an extra 10-15 minutes past our ADR time. I don't know what to expect with a party of 10, but I do know that even though we are all reliable and will show up on time (that being about 20 min. before scheduled ADR), the chances of us showing up at the exact same second are very slim when coming from different locations.

So...if we arrive before them, should we wait until we are all present to check in at the podium? Or is it OK to check in before the rest of the party arrives? (and vice versa of course, so I can tell them what they should do if they arrive before we do)

 

[CathieArms]

My experience is that they won't even check you in until you entire party is there. That's the first question they ask, "Is your entire party present?" If not, they'll make you wait until the entire party shows up.

 

[vicki_c]

You can try and check in if everyone is not there. I was not even permitted to check in at Akershaus when my husband was running for a FP, others have said they were permitted to check-in at other locations.

I do not know if they will seat you or not though.

 

[Pakey]

We have never been able to be seated without entire party present (we have one adult son who is always late). Most times they will ask upon checkin if everyone is present and they won't count you as checked in if entire party is not there.

 

[TwiddleDeeTwiddleDum]

When we went with a group, whoever arrived first would always check in with the hostess to let them know although we were not all there, we wanted them to know our group was checking in. They would check the ADR & make a note and tell us to let them know when everyone had arrived. But in the meantime I think they would start getting ready for us because we had anywhere from 8-14 in our party.

CRT would not seat us until everyone had arrived - there were 8 of us. H&V it didn't matter because they were late seating 12 of us, we did arrive at different times but everyone was there before our ADR time. There were 12 of us for the R&C in Epcot & it took them a while to get ready for us, we just hung out in the bar or outside so we were all there when seated. 3 of us were late arriving for our Ohanas b-fast ADR & they did seat 5 of us before those 3 arrived, but it was one of the latest b-fast of the morning.

In general I don't think they will seat you until all have arrived but you can certainly check in to let them know you are there & when you think the rest will be there (if you're communicating via cell phones with the ones on their way as we did)

Have a great time. Disney is special but even more so when you get to celebrate with a big group

 

[Nadjalu]

Above poster is correct. They won't check you in until the whole party is there.
AND......will only hold the reservation for 15 mins past the ressie time.

We experienced this at Ohana last year. My friend and her kids were coming to join us for dinner and were caught in traffic (an accident) and were late arriving. They wouldn't even check us in until everyone was there...and told DH that if the entire party wasn't there 15 mins after our adr that the reservation would be canceled and we wouldn't be seated at all. They couldn't hold the table.
I was panicking because my friend kept calling updating me and finally got there with 1 min. to spare.

DH went to tell them everyone was there and low and behold they had went ahead and canceled our ressie. After some slick talking by DH we were seated, but had a terrible table and a slow server.

 

[bangzoom6877]

Thank you everyone! Everyone we'll be with tends to be early for reservations in general (including us). Just that one group may arrive 25 min. before ADR time, another may arrive 20 min. before ADR time so I just wanted to check. We'll make sure that whoever gets there first informs the CM at the podium that we are checking in, then we will inform them again when everyone is present. Shouldn't be a problem at all, except for unforeseen circumstances like the above poster mentioned (very unfortunate, sorry).

Now...what happens if at the last second one of the kids has to use the bathroom and so 2 members of our party are not there when the table becomes available? The kids are 3, 5, 6, and 9 so an adult would have to go with them. See...I think of everything!

 

[Nadjalu]

If everyone is there and you have checked in it shouldn't be an issue if someone stepped away to the restroom with the little ones.
I would just inform the CM if that happens.

 

[bangzoom6877]

If everyone is there and you have checked in it shouldn't be an issue if someone stepped away to the restroom with the little ones.
I would just inform the CM if that happens.

Excellent, thanks!!