Dropped the leading reservation two days ago, at the 60 day mark for my last reservation. Everything is sticking so far. Thanks to everyone on this thread for the information and guidance.
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FYI, I booked a leading reservation, snagged all my ADRs (outside of CRT, which appears to be closed on 12/30), and just cancelled the leading reservation online through the website; didn’t have to call or anything. All my reservations are still valid, as I’m well within my actual onsite stay’s window.
Thanks for all the info here, everyone.
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My family of 4 are heading to Disney March 24-April 1. We arrive late March 24 so will not start our reservations for dining until March 25.
We are travelling with our friends who are a family of 5, so we have 9 people in total.
Currently we both have our own resort/ticket package and we are linked so I can do the planning for all of us (ie I made the park reservations for all 9 people).
If I want to make a leading reservation, can I book all 9 of us for the dining? Or should the other family also make a leading reservation?
I will make our leading reservation for March 15-April 1 and then cancel February 1…is this correct?
Thanks for your help!
Theoretically yes, you can make a reservation for any number of people with a single MDE account, although there are certain limits depending on the restaurant (usually I think 12+ they make you call directly). In practice, some restaurants struggle with more than 8 – either you will have to split it into two ADRs, or when you check in ask for accommodation for an additional party member (I wouldn’t rely on this, but it often works).
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This article gives you a list of all the restaurants and how many people you can reserve up to. There are some restaurants that max out at 8 people, like Yak n Yeti.
And yes, your dates are correct.
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I’m definitely not top tier is the latest Disney dining info, but I’m wondering if these are theoretical max party sizes, as opposed to practical one? Like, you might get them if you call in, but these wouldn’t really be available to book online? And may or may not be available if you call?
Here is some quick-and-dirty online booking research I did last year:
I just didn’t see many of those sorts of large max party sizes at all, but maybe things have changed dramatically since then? 
. Or, maybe they are available by phone?
I think if it were me, I’d try to book online at 60+10, splitting the group if needed so I at least have something booked, then call and see if they can accommodate us better?
FWIW, here’s how I did it:
Our travel party was 7, with extra relatives joining us to make it 10 for a couple of meals.
I made one leading room reservation and included myself, DH, and DM on the leading. (I have login capability for all 3.)
When needed, I would split our reservation into 2 parties booked online under myself and DH. Booking at 60+10, that got me everything I wanted.
The one wrinkle was that the relatives later shifted what they were joining us for, so trying to pick up more seats I used DM’s account to pick up an extra reservation for as many as I could at the closest available time. I set up alerts and then kept scooting things around until I got enough seats at roughly the same time.
At the time of our trip, I think we ended up having around 3 different meals where the reservations were split across 2 ADRs. We checked in in-person well ahead of time, told them we were willing to wait if needed, and for all of them they were able to seat us together pretty close to the reservation time.
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With our last large group trip (9Adults) we booked all separate 4/5 or 6/3 reservations. Then about 1 hour before our ADR time, if we were in the area, we asked if they could try to have us placed close together. Often they were able to combine us to sit together (at Skipper Canteen they did, and it was super fun), and sometimes we were near each other (50s Prime Time- we even had our own little “room” but we were in two tables), but we were always able to be seated together at the same time, even if our tables weren’t pushed together 100%.
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Thank you!!!
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Thanks for your help!
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Just to make sure it is clear. Assuming that have to make two ADR’s for the same time. They don’t need their own leading reservation. But when you make the first ADR change the lead guest to be one of them. Then you can make the second ADR with you as the lead guest. If you were to do the reverse, you couldn’t use your leading reservation for the second ADR because it would see that you already had an ADR during that time period.
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If you add another member of your party as a guest on your leading reservation, you can make ADRs on both your accounts (assuming you have access to their account). I found that easiest so I didn’t have to transfer them around.
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I am in a similar situation for our June trip. We have a group of 14 so I will be splitting us into two groups. So as long as we are all linked I dont need to make leading reservation/ADRs on my sons MDE? I can do them both on mine as long as I have him added as a guest on the leading reservation? Just want to make sure I understand
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No, you will need to use his MDE to book the second set of ADRs, but you won’t need to do a separate leading reservation for his account as long as he’s a guest on the leading reservation you have booked.
Recap:
- One leading reservation
- Each person that’s a guest on that leading reservation can book ADRs at 60+10
- One MDE cannot hold multiple ADRs for the same time
- Easiest thing to do is have multiple devices open at the same time, each logged into a different MDE so you can book them all at the same time
Depending on where you are getting ADRs, for party of 14 you may need 3 MDEs because a few places have max party size of 6, I think.
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We have gone with a group of 9 with no issues. I was planning on splitting 6/8. Thanks for the explanation, it makes sense to me now
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How can I make this work? We rented DVC points for two rooms for our June 2-9th trip, one on my MDE and one on my sons MDE. We decided to arrive a day early and have rooms at SoG for one night. With the new 25% off discount I am considering booking rooms at POR for June 1st instead. If we decide to do this is there any way to book a leading reservation? Could I leave someone from my account and my sons off the POR reservation to use for the leading reservation and then add them to the POR reservation after I cancel the leading reservation? I hope that makes sense 
You can have multiple room reservations booked at the same time for the same or overlapping dates. Just book the leading reservation on your MDE to cover all the dates you want to book ADRs. Handy calculator:
On rare occasion, if you have to call Disney for some reason, a CM might ask if you are aware you are holding multiple reservations. “I’m still finalizing my plans” is a sufficient answer. They really don’t seem to have an issue with it, more just making sure you are aware.
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Even under the same name? I guess I always thought that it only allowed one per name and that MDE didn’t recognize the DVC rentals which allowed you to book or w DVC and one w MDE. I must have misunderstood that part of it
Yep.
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You are right, for a while it was working that way. The system hasn’t blocked two reservations for a long time.
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It shouldn’t be a problem to have more than one reservation. For my trip in 28 days, I had 3 reservations in my MDE account for around the same time, with varying length of stays. A couple of the stays overlapped on some days. It was like that until we were about 45 days out. DH couldn’t commit because of work.
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