How early do I REALLY have to arrive for a meal reservation?

I booked my sit down meals and the lady on the phone said to arrive an hour before? Are you kidding me, I might as well just show up. What are your experiences with dining and how long does it take with the bus transportation? Any tips that would give me some in sight on the would be helpful. THANKS.

We are going April 19-26

How early do I REALLY have to arrive for a meal reservation?

The earliest I%26#39;ve ever arrived was 15 min prior. Depending on where you are going in the various parks, I would suggest giving 30-45 minutes for transporation to the restaurant (bus, walking). If you%26#39;ve booked on the far end of Epcot I would even suggest an hour for transportation.

How early do I REALLY have to arrive for a meal reservation?

We showed up in Jan for Character Meal about 20mins before and waited and hour, 40mins past our Reservation time!!!!, we were a Party of 5, a Party of 2 and 3 walked in ahead of us No reseravation !!!!!!!i FLIPPED out on the Manager!!!!!!!!!!!!!, 1 hour my A**,

The whole point of a reservation is to reserve a ';specific time';. I always show up ';on time'; and have never waited more than 15 minutes. As you said (and as an episode of Seinfeld once said), ';anyone can book a reservation, holding the reservation is actually the important part';

We generally arrive about 10 minutes before and have never had to wait more than 15 minutes.

We are two adults who would expect to be eating around 8pm or later. Is this still a time that we would need reservations for? I was hoping that reservations are only needed for popular dining times like 5 or 6pm.

This is one of those ';it depends'; kind of answers. It depends on your party size, how the restaurante is laid out, how busy the restaurant is, etc. Let%26#39;s say you are a party of six, with reservations a half hour after the restaurant opens, during busy season. They typically book reservations in 15 minute blocks, so there will be two blocks of reservations ahead of you, plus walk ins. Let%26#39;s say the restaurant only has six tables capable of handling your party size, and two are booked for the first block, two for the second, and the other two are filled by walk ins. The average diner will spend at least an hour dining. So you could show up on time, and although you would be seated at the next table for your party size, it might not be available for an hour or more. You would be irritated at all the other party sizes coming up later and being seated sooner, but if they are parties of two or four, there may still be tables of that size available.

On the other hand, if it%26#39;s slow season, and you%26#39;re a party of three, you can probably show up on time and be seated within 5 minutes, because there are generally more tables for four than any other size, and the restaurant itself is not overly busy.

Since you are going right after Easter, the dining reservations for the beginning of your trip will probably entail a longer wait than the ones later. I know a lot of the restaurants at Epcot will give you a pager when you check in, so you can shop, etc. while waiting for your table, instead of just hanging around bored. The later in the trip it gets, the less wait you should experience, except at character meals. Those always seem to be popular!

Transportation times vary also. For example, if you are going from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom, you can walk in about 10 minutes, or take the monorail for about 20-30 minutes. If you are going from Animal Kingdom Lodge to the Beach Club, your best bet would be to take a bus to Animal Kingdom, and then a bus from there to the Beach Club. Allow at least 20 minutes wait time for each bus you need to catch, and then actual drive time (usually 15-20 minutes if there are no additional stops), and add about 10 minutes per stop-going to the Beach Club you could have up to four stops before you get there. When you think you have your travel time calculated, add at least 15 minutes, in case something goes wrong. If you are a few minutes late for a reservation, they will usually still seat you.

When I booked my advance seating timeswith WDW, they told me to arrive about 10-15 minutes before our reserved time. They did caution however to take commute times to the parks into consideration.