Hi Joel! Welcome to planDisney! We are so happy to see you stopped by with your question. A New Year's trip to the Happiest Place on Earth is sure to fill 2023 with lots of magic!
It looks like you are planning a pixie-dusted trip for lots of friends and family! I'm happy to help you try to navigate making character
dining reservations for a large group. Since you are visiting during the holidays, you'll want to try to secure reservations early as that is a popular time of year at the Disneyland Resort. Both the
website and the
Disneyland Mobile App will allow you to search for reservations for groups of up to 20 Guests. While your party is only 17, it can be difficult to find openings for such a large group. A tried and true planDisney tip is to break your party into smaller groups and look for reservations that are within 15-30 minutes of each other. You could do 3 groups of 4 and 1 group of 5 or even try a down-the-middle split with 1 group of 9 and 1 group of 8. Hopefully, a few friends in your party have their own Disneyland account and can help to make these reservations with you as the system will only allow you to hold one reservation within a certain window. If you head to the restaurant early, let the cast member know that the separate reservations are actually one big party, and they will do their absolute best to seat you all together, or at least nearby. Depending on the timing of your reservtiaon, you might want to stop by and speak to the host when the restaurant opens to give them a head's up! There are no guarantees, of course, but Cast Members are always willing to do what they can to make a little magic.
When it comes to character dining, you might have the most luck securing multiple reservations at
Goofy's Kitchen at the
Disneyland Hotel or Mickey's Tales of Adventure Breakfast or Brunch Buffet at
Storytellers Cafe in
Disney's Grand California Hotel & Spa. These restaurants are a bit more spacious, and I have had luck making reservations for larger groups at both. Don't forget to let them know if you have anything special to celebrate! You never know what kind of pixie dust might follow!
While there are no special services available to make dining reservations for large parties of friends and family, the Cast Members in
Guest Services are always available to help with any specific questions.
Joel, I hope this was helpful! If you have any more questions about your planning, you know where to find us here at
planDisney!
Magic awaits!
Tara