So, for those that have done this for large parties how did it work? I have a leading reservation but will it let me book dining as 14 together or is it 8 and 6? How did buying ILL$ work for let’s say 10 or 12? How was availability for a regular ILL at 7:00am for a large party? VQ? We are pros on our family of 4, but our group is going to rely on us to do a lot of these things and I’m already concerned. Trip is in March. I’m struggling to figure out how this will work. I believe you can book up to 12 people max for ILLs but I wasn’t sure.
I took a trip in October with a party of 9. I struggled to get dining reservations for all of us together. We only managed to get one reservation for all 9 of us; I had to split the others. I think 9 or 10 was the most you could book online; parties larger than that have to call. The only VQ we tried to get at 7 am was Guardians, which was gone within seconds. We bought LLs but then could join a VQ during the afternoon drop time. There were only 5 of us riding that, however.
I can only speak to dining.
We used to regularly be nearly a dozen and a group that seemed incapable of splitting into smaller groups. So I would call Disney and speak with a CM for our ADRs. Part of the fun of going to Disney was the CM chatting and the “Have a magical day!”
Last big group we were going to be splitting up for touring but eating together.
Disney doesn’t like to seat partial groups. If some of your group is on the way, you may be asked to let them know when everyone is actually at the restaurant.
Tables seat even numbered groups, generally speaking.
My plan for this big group was to gather credit card info from family members. Then, on line, I booked tables for parties of 3 or 5. Or maybe even seven. Using a different card for each table. And close times. Like 5:15 and 5:20. This allowed for some of us to be seated when everyone wasn’t there yet or adding stragglers a small group(s). Both of which happened. We did get moved together at one big table and we sometimes were seated at tables near each other. We had a great time.
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I booked dining for 9 last summer and it was really difficult. I almost always had to split into 4 and 5, and a few times into 3 parties - something like 2+ 4 + 3.
Some restaurants let me combine the reservations, but most didn’t.
If I had to book for 14, I would call instead of doing it myself online. Good luck.
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We were a party of 13 October 21 but are a group of 15 for our trip Jan 8.
I can’t speak to any kind of LL because Genie rolled out 2 days after we left. But dining…oh the dining…
We were able to get dining for the whole group twice for our group of 13 (one of which was Oga’s). Our tactic was to book smaller reservations for roughly the same time period then arriving early to explain the situation, and hoping that we could sit near each other. This worked at Skipper Canteen, Chef Mickey’s, and somewhere else. It did NOT work at Sebastian’s Bistro.
We tried calling the special number for larger groups and they were able to get us together as a group at some of the “less desired” places.
For our next trip in early Jan, we’re taking the same approach. We booked by individual families and if we end up able to sit together it will be a pleasant surprise—but we’re not relying on it. We decided we’d rather get to go to the hot spots more than we’d focus on getting one table for the large group.