Hello Danette,
Thanks for stopping by planDisney with your question. May will be here before you know it and so will your magical vacation!
I know it can be frustrating to try to make dining reservations at your favorite restaurants only to see time and time again that there are no available times. Yes, many of the restaurants you want to go to could be full already, especially if you are looking for reservations at some of the most popular restaurants like
Chef Mickey's,
Space 220 Restaurant, or
Cinderella's Royal Table.
One option is to split your party in two and try to get smaller reservations for the same time. I have had success with that in the past, but splitting up your party means trying to get double the amount of reservations booked. Let's save that for a last resort.
First, do you know it's easy to see all of the restaurants available for your party size on any given date using your
My Disney Experience App? If you don't already have the app, you'll want to do that first. Once you're in the app you'll see a "+" with a circle around it right in the bottom center of the screen. Click that and select "Check Dining Availability." Enter your party size, and select a specific date (you can swipe left to access future months). Next select a meal type (breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner) or a specific time and you'll be shown a list of all the restaurants that have availability for that date and time. When I tried to find dinner times for a party of 7 on May 9, there were several options, but they were all quite late in the evening, which may not work if you have young children. However, there were also several lunch options, so maybe you might want to consider having a large sit down meal in the middle of the day, and then enjoying a counter service meal or tasting your way around the
Outdoor Kitchens at the
EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival in the evenings.
Hope this helps. Have a magical vacation!
Diane