Hello Bethany!
Welcome to planDisney! What an exciting adventure awaits you and your whole family this upcoming July! I love planning large trips with my family and I also did all the planning once for 13 family members!
Let's get started friend! I will have to start by making you enlist at least three other trusted adults in your party to help you. They should create a
My Disney Experience account and be willing to wake up one morning (or more) a little early to help you. One of the best benefits of staying at a
Walt Disney Resort Hotel is that you can
book your entire vacation's Dining Reservations (up to 10 days) as early as 60 days before you arrive. This can be very strategic as you can book days before non-Resort guests. Knowing this, I would aim to put the most difficult
reservations to get at the end of your vacation as you are competing with fewer people for reservations. Off-site guests will have to wake up early each day as they can only book Dining Reservations one day at a time. Why early? Dining Reservations open at 6 AM EST online. Sometimes reservations for some restaurants start at 5:45 AM EST!
List the reservations you want in order of priority from most desired to least. You have to now figure out what reservations are the hardest to get.
Cinderella's Royal Table is a difficult reservation to get as it is popular. If this is important to you I would make sure you book this first reservation at 6 AM
and on a day further into your vacation (if staying on-site). If not, pick a day in the middle of the week that works for you. A dining reservation of 13 is nearly impossible to grab and I remember only being able to do it once in a miraculous moment for
'Ohana in 2018! My strategy for you is to break your party down into two groups of six and seven and have two people work together at 6 AM to find time slots for their respective smaller parties within 15 minutes of each other. I would not book anything further apart as the next important step is to arrive 20 minutes before your earliest reservation from the two you made. I would speak kindly to the Cast Member at the host stand and ask if these two reservations can be seated together. If they are not very busy and are able they can usually find a way. It may require a bit of a wait but the joy of eating altogether or even next to each other is worth it. I have only had this not work for me once but it was during the Holiday break and that is one of the busiest weeks of the year!
I would also consider trying to book for a party of 6 and 8 as even-sized parties for some reason work better in the online reservation system. You can adjust the party size afterward via the
My Disney Experience app. Many people don't realize that Walt Disney World Resort Packages can be canceled 30 days prior and Disney Hotel-only stays can be canceled five days prior with no penalty. I would look at 30 days and 5 days prior because of this fact! Dining Reservations can now be canceled for most reservations no less than 2 hours prior so I would even consider checking the day of. It is a lot of work but I promise it will be worth it.
I hope this helps and I have more ideas if you want to reach out to me
directly.
-Nimmy