Hi, there!
Welcome to planDisney, Krystal. I'm so happy you stopped by and even happier to hear you're planning a
Walt Disney World Resort vacation! It's the very best kind if you ask me.
A Disney vacation with a big group is sure to be BIG fun! It can certainly be a challenge to plan for so many people, though. You ask a really great question about planning your
dining reservations for your party of 11. It used to be that when you checked reservation availability online for a particular dining location, you could view the max number of people that could be included on a single reservation by selecting from the party size drop-down menu. Now, you can add up to 49 people from the party size box before searching for available times, and that number is definitely not indicative of how many people can be included on one reservation! I just chatted with a Cast Member about your question and she said in general, most dining locations can be booked for up to 7 Guests. For parties of 8 or more, she recommends booking two separate reservations. That said, I can tell you that I was once responsible for booking dining reservations for my party of 14 and I had no trouble booking most of our dining reservations online as one large party. There were only two instances, at
Sanaa and
San Angel Inn Restaurante, where I needed to break our party of 14 into two smaller groups.
Dining reservations can be made up to 60-days in advance. You can make your dining reservations online as early as 6:00 AM, so I recommend getting up bright and early, pouring a cup of coffee (in a Disney mug, of course!), and having your laptop ready to go by 5:45 AM on that 60-day mark. I pull up a tab on my internet browser for every restaurant I want to book and then reload each page just before 6:00 AM. That way, the availability calendars should all refresh. I suggest trying to book for all 11 members of your travel party first. If you don't see availability for 11, go back and split the party up.
I hope this was helpful, Krystal. Please let us know if you have any other questions about your Walt Disney World Resort vacation! We'd love to help you plan a magical stay.
Ashley