Questions about party size

[WillowRain]

First off, will my 2 year old need to be included in the reservation??? Since he has no ticket, needs no FP everything else, do they need table reservations?

Second, what are my odds when booking of getting a table for 8 or 9? I played around with it 6 months out and when I changed from 8 (no tables) to 6 (4 pm) to 2 (4, 6, and 8). Is this really because tables go that quickly? If I make 2 res for 4, are we going to be able to sit together?? Or do they not have very many tables to accommodate large groups? Am I better off calling the phone number instead of online? I am so confused!!! I have 20 days til I can start and I want to make sure I have every last detail sorted out before I dive in. Thanks!

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

Yes - your 2 year old will need to be on the reservation. It is for a head count and fire code.
Also we go with a party of 8 or 10 and get seated together all the time and except once out of all these years at Ohana did we have 2 tables. Otherwise we get 1 table all the time even if we have 2 or even 3 reservations. To make 2 reservations you will need 2 Disney accounts so I use my account and my husband's - or you need to call. I would try making them and if you don't get them then call. You should have no problem. I hope that helps.

 

[Regan117]

There's no guarantee you'll be seated together, so I'd try for a single reservation for 8. Just a note though: if you're trying for 9, TT here are some places that can't book a party that large over the phone.

 

[Disneynutinlondon]

We're going as a party of 18 over Xmas and I'm having to make multiple bookings per restaurant i.e 3x table for 6 or 2x table of 10. I'm hoping if we check in a bit early then the restaurant will be able to sort things out so that if we can't all sit on 1 table ( which I seriously doubt) at least they will be able to try and put our tables next to each other

 

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

Yes - your 2 year old will need to be on the reservation. It is for a head count and fire code.
Also we go with a party of 8 or 10 and get seated together all the time and except once out of all these years at Ohana did we have 2 tables. Otherwise we get 1 table all the time even if we have 2 or even 3 reservations. To make 2 reservations you will need 2 Disney accounts so I use my account and my husband's - or you need to call. I would try making them and if you don't get them then call. You should have no problem. I hope that helps.

We only have 1 account for our group, the other people are intimidated and want me to just book everything. We have separate room reservations, but everyone is linked on MDE. does this mean I can't book say :Brother party of 4 at 5pm and me party of 6 at 505pm ?

 

[Surgie]

We have separate room reservations, but everyone is linked on MDE. does this mean I can't book say :Brother party of 4 at 5pm and me party of 6 at 505pm ?

This is our situation exactly. 10 people all on one MDE account and I'm hoping to do as you suggested if I can't get all 10 reserved together. Really do not want to open an additional MDE account so I'll be interested to hear what others say who have done this.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

We only have 1 account for our group, the other people are intimidated and want me to just book everything. We have separate room reservations, but everyone is linked on MDE. does this mean I can't book say :Brother party of 4 at 5pm and me party of 6 at 505pm ?

Correct - and 95% of the time you will all sit together - or you can call and they can make 2 different reservations under 1 account. I book everything for our party of 10 but if I need to split up the party to get the reservation then I use my husband's account. Or like I said you can call and ask Disney to do it. I like using two different accounts. I hope that helps.

 

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

I did a little bit of experimenting I tried to book reservations for a party of six and a party of four for a random date in October and I went through the whole process including getting a confirmation number If I left the primary person as me then I could not make a second reservation in that timeframe The website assumed that I was trying to double book myself

However if I did the first reservation and I changed the main person's name to one of the other people on my family list I was able to look for a second reservation at the same time because the computer knew my brother has a reservation for his name and not mine I hope that makes sense

I called Disney to confirm that we would not have any issues. She confirmed that it will work the way my experiment work she did say the one exception is Cinderella's Royal table the name of the reservation holder must be one of the people that are attending the dinner the credit card must be one of those people as well and this is the case even though we all have the dining plan

What this means for me is that since my brothers window is a day later than mine I can book all reservation for him and me and our mom and our extended family by being a little bit creative with the names of the reservation to ensure he gets the odd ones that we're not dining with him for and then the following day I will log in and book his remaining which is essentially a Cinderella's Royal table dinner that only he and his family are going to and the rest of us are opting out but I digress

I hope this information was helpful and yes I went and made sure that I cancelled those dummy reservations that we made

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

I did a little bit of experimenting I tried to book reservations for a party of six and a party of four for a random date in October and I went through the whole process including getting a confirmation number If I left the primary person as me then I could not make a second reservation in that timeframe The website assumed that I was trying to double book myself The website assumed that I was trying to double book myself

However if I did the first reservation and I changed the main person's name to one of the other people on my family list I was able to look for a second reservation at the same time because the computer knew my brother has a reservation for his name and not mine I hope that makes sense

I called Disney to confirm that we would not have any issues. She confirmed that it will work the way my experiment work she did say the one exception is Cinderella's Royal table the name of the reservation holder must be one of the people that are attending the dinner the credit card must be one of those people as well and this is the case even though we all have the dining plan

What this means for me is that since my brothers window is a day later than mine I can book all reservation for him and me and our mom and our extended family by being a little bit creative with the names of the reservation to in sure he gets the odd ones that were not dining with him for and then the following day I will log in and book his remaining which is essentially a Cinderella's Royal table dinner that only he and his family are going to and the rest of us are opting out but I digress

I hope this information was helpful and yes I went and made sure that I cancelled those dummy reservations that we made

Wow - isn't is crazy how inventive you have to be - you did great - I am glad you were able to get what you wanted.

 

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

Wow - isn't is crazy how inventive you have to be - you did great - I am glad you were able to get what you wanted.

well not quite yet, we don't get to have our 180 day open until July 3rd. So I am glad that I went on to try and 'practice' to learn exactly what I had to do to make it work. bit annoying hopefully it does in fact work out next Monday! Just wanted to pass on some tips if it helps others.

 

[Gracie09]

Wow - isn't is crazy how inventive you have to be - you did great - I am glad you were able to get what you wanted.

Blame people who would book multiple reservations at the same time back when there wasn't no penalty for a no show

 

[Gracie09]

Op I have made reservations for up to 16 people. A few times we were at one table but most two right next to each other. It worked out great - adult table and kid table. We did often have to eat early - at the start of the dinner service around 4:30 but that played into our get there at ripe drop touring style

 

[heaven2dc]

I did a little bit of experimenting I tried to book reservations for a party of six and a party of four for a random date in October and I went through the whole process including getting a confirmation number If I left the primary person as me then I could not make a second reservation in that timeframe The website assumed that I was trying to double book myself

However if I did the first reservation and I changed the main person's name to one of the other people on my family list I was able to look for a second reservation at the same time because the computer knew my brother has a reservation for his name and not mine I hope that makes sense

I called Disney to confirm that we would not have any issues. She confirmed that it will work the way my experiment work she did say the one exception is Cinderella's Royal table the name of the reservation holder must be one of the people that are attending the dinner the credit card must be one of those people as well and this is the case even though we all have the dining plan

What this means for me is that since my brothers window is a day later than mine I can book all reservation for him and me and our mom and our extended family by being a little bit creative with the names of the reservation to ensure he gets the odd ones that we're not dining with him for and then the following day I will log in and book his remaining which is essentially a Cinderella's Royal table dinner that only he and his family are going to and the rest of us are opting out but I digress

I hope this information was helpful and yes I went and made sure that I cancelled those dummy reservations that we made

I had to do the exact same thing for our BOG breakfast reservation since everyone is listed on MDE. Initially I booked 2 ressies for 2 guests and 6 separate reservations for 1 guest each. Luckily an opening came available for a party of 6 (just happened to on the website when it opened up even tho it didn't alert me on the site I was using). So I booked that reservation for a party of 6 and kept 2 of the party of 1 reservations and cancelled the "dummy" reservations like you did. It was fun seeing those single reservations show up quickly on the Disney Dining site so hopefully that worked out for someone else!