[DBAMBINO]

Me,my wife and 9 year old daughter are traveling to WDW in July.I cannot believe that they expect you to know your itinerary 4 months in advance that you need to make priority seating arrangements that early. What are our chances of just showing up and some of these restaurants and waiting for a table without priority seating?

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Dom

[shawnp0001]

My experience has been that you can get into any restaurant without PS...if you have the patience and time to wait as long as 90 minutes. I've used PS and waited 30 minutes, and also not had reservations and gotten in after a 10 minute wait. if you're willing to eat at non-traditional times, you stand a better chance of minimizing your wait.

[mickey]

Dom, welcome to DisneyCentral! I have always used PS. The only place that you need to do any real advance PS is Cinderella's Royal Table, and you must call 60 days in advance at 7:00 AM EST. The other would be the kitchen table in Victoria and Alberts, and I think they take PS 120 days in advance. Others that would require a little bit of time ahead would be California Grill or Crystal Palace.

We have some friends that are leaving in three days to WDW. We called yesterday to help them with their PS, and had no problem getting pretty much what they wanted, with the exception of Crystal Palace. We got them in for lunch though, so it was ok. I have been able to make PS at guest services for the day we are in the park, or even at the restaurant you would like to eat at. Make sure you get them. I have been to many restaurants, particularly in the parks, that they won't even consider letting you in unless you have a PS. It is much easier to take a couple of minutes and make the PS. They don't cost you anything, and you don't really even need to show up if you find yourself a couple of miles away that day.

We usually decide a couple place that we have to eat at (Spoodles, Kona Cafe, Jiko, Crystal Palace) and then make those PS ahead of time. We then plan our itinerary around those couple of times, and then make additional PS when we arrive at WDW and have a better idea of what we would like to do.

I hope that helps, let us know if you have any other questions!

[wdwjeff]

Dom,
Welcome to the boards. We're also going in July. CRO told us to make all our PS reservations when we check in at CBR. To me, that means you only need to make them a few days in advance. Hope this helps. By the way, when in July are you going? Are you flying out of Philly or A.C. We're taking Spirit out of A.C. and it's about $75 less expensive pp;also, parking is only$3 per day. Just thought you might want to know.:) :) :D

[lvbug]

Us Philly people all think alike.

We, too, are going in July! However, I am in charge of making all of the plans and we are doing some special stuff so I've made many of our PS in advance. But then, our group is fairly large and the only thing we are definitely doing as a group each day is eating together, so I want to make sure that I get it right.

There have been many times though that I've made PS at the park the morning of without any problems.

PS Welcome to DC Dom--You'll love it here!

[lvbug]

Oh, I forgot to mention that we're DRIVING! (yuck, i hate it but i right now i hate flying more)

[brumcg]

Dom,

Like everyone else is basically saying, it's a case of supply and demand. If you really want to eat at a certain place at a certain time, do your PS's early; if you're more flexible, you can do it while your down there. Sad to say, eating is one of my favorite things to do at WDW and we incorporate that into our itinerary.

If you want to sit down and eat (not counter service), I wouldn't do it without PS unless you really like waiting... :)

Just to get an idea... We wanted PS for 6 at the Rainforest Cafe for dinner on Sunday, 6/2. We called about 110 days prior. They didn't have anything... :(

Bruce

[spike]

Ditto on what Bruce said. If I plan on dining with the characters or having a nice dinner. I will allways make PS, if I can't get PS for a certain time or place, I move on to the next best. I enjoy the planning involved in making PS for our trips, I park of my ritual.

[iloverags2]

If you are flexible, then you shouldn't have a problem with PS's once you are there. My husband refuses to make PS's even a day in advance. We usually call the morning we will be at the park, and sometimes even a few hours before dinner. (And in some cases have made those PS's once inside the park! Are we nuts or what?) That said, we usually get the restaurant we want, although we have had to play around with the times somewhat. Have found that using say 12:40 p.m instead of 12:30 p.m. or 1:00 p.m. seems to work out better. We do usually eat at off times also, like 3:00 p.m., 7:30 p.m., etc.

Have fun on your trip!

[brumcg]

Just a heads up for those of us going the first week in June. We called WDW-DINE on Saturday to switch some PS around and had a really hard time getting the times and places that we wanted. We've never had problems like this 45 days out...

One big difference, is that we normally have a party of 4 and this time we're 6.

Bruce