Booking large groups for dining at Disney World

Traveling with big groups to Walt Disney World comes with its own set of challenges, including making dining reservations.

Here are some tips to maximize your chances of getting what you want as a group.

What is considered a large group?

For the purposes of dining, we’ll assume anything over 6 people is a large group. The reason for that is because each restaurant has a max party size it can allow per dining reservation, and some of those are as low as 7 people.

Since the max number varies by restaurant, it’s possible you won’t have any issues booking for your large group at some locations.

Restaurants best suited to larger groups

Each restaurant has a different maximum number that they will allow on one reservation. While searching for Advanced Dining Reservations on the Disney website or in the My Disney Experience App, you can choose up to 20 as the number of people in your party.

In practicality, however, rarely will any restaurant be available to book for more than 12 people in one reservation. In the table below, we’ve listed the restaurants that will frequently show availability for 10 people on one reservation.

How to book if group size isn’t allowed

Let’s say your group exceeds the max number at a restaurant, or you cannot find a reservation for your whole group at the time and place you prefer, so what to do then?

You’ll need to break your group into segments of 6 or fewer and book multiple reservations instead.

For each of these reservations, make sure each reservation has a different lead guest, since My Disney Experience won’t allow the same guest to have multiple reservations at one time.

When you arrive at the restaurant with multiple reservations, be sure to check in together and let them know at the podium that you’re one big group, so they can try to seat you together or at least near each other.

Tips for dining with large groups

• If booking a large group, try eating during off hours instead of during peak dining times to maximize your chances of securing an Advanced Dining Reservation.
• Try booking online first at 5:45 am EST and then, if needed, you can call the reservation line for help when they open at 7:00 am EST. Note: sometimes the reservations don’t show up right at 5:45 am so if you don’t see anything, keep checking.
• Some of the Disney Springs restaurants hold back availability. If you can’t secure a reservation through Disney, try using Open Table or calling those restaurants directly.
• If you can’t snag 1 reservation for all of you, consider breaking your reservation into 2 smaller ones. Then, when you check in, do so together and ask to be seated near each other. Note – If you do try to book 2 reservations you will need to call the reservation line as opposed to booking online since the website won’t allow you to hold 2 reservations that overlap.
• Even if you book 1 reservation, depending on your party size and the restaurant, you may be split up into multiple tables.
• An automatic gratuity of 18% is added onto all parties of 6 more.
• If you plan to book at a restaurant that requires prepayment (like Cinderella’s Royal Table or Hoop Dee Doo), don’t forget you’ll have to prepay for everybody unless you are on the Dining Plan.
• Like all Advanced Dining Reservations, book in the order of popularity NOT in the chronological order of your trip.
• All members of a party must be present in order to be seated, so make sure everybody knows when and where they are supposed to be!