Hi ya, Bonnie!
Welcome to planDisney! Your opportunity to make dining reservations is approaching fast, so I'm glad that you asked this question. You will be so ready!
No, you do not need to have your
tickets or
theme park reservations in order to make dining reservations. So don't miss that chance to book 60 days in advance! You are correct that reservation times reflect the local time zone in the parks, so any reservations you make will be at Pacific Standard Time.
I think it's easiest to make
dining reservations on the Disneyland website, but you can also use the
Disneyland Mobile App to make or manage your reservations. I'll also share that making reservations for larger groups can be difficult, so if you're traveling with a party of 7 or more I would recommend recruiting a planning buddy so that you can make separate reservations for groups of 3 or 4 if you need to. I usually recruit my husband to help when we make reservations for large groups, and we each sign in to our own Disney accounts to make dining reservations together. We aim to get reservation times within 30 minutes of each other. On the day of our reservation we head to the restaurant at least 15 minutes before our earliest reservation time and kindly ask the Cast Members if it's possible for our party to be seated together.
Remember that to visit the theme parks you'll need both a valid park ticket and a theme park reservation each day. While you can make dining reservations without those things I wouldn't wait too long to get everything settled! I would hate for theme park reservations to run out on the days you plan to visit.
You're on a roll with your planning, Bonnie! I hope you can get some great dining reservations and continue enjoying the countdown to your visit.
Keep moving forward!
Amanda