Our group is growing

[1goofyfamily]

My family, sister's family and both mine and my wife's parents (15 of us) are going to see our little sister who doing an internship at Disney (ASMovies) 11/30-12/7 at the Port Orleans Riverside. We've have had our reservations for months since my sister got a free dining pin code and my wife's best friend (who happens to be my boss's boss and her son and my oldest are best friends) and her kids decided a few weeks ago to go with us with the hope of getting the public free dining offer. Well low and behold the offer comes out and it doesn't cover our dates. So I don't even want to look at my boss when she comes by my office but I finally broke down and told her but I said let me call and see if there were any rooms left with our pin code. Well that night I ended up on hold for almost 2 hours and ended up getting a great guy on the phone and while we did have a room left to use with the pin code Disney didn't have any left at POR we could use it on. So he checked about moving their room to French Quarter to use the room discount because they were in the Royal rooms so it would have saved a lot but he said everyone had been moving their rooms there for the same reason. But he did suggest moving her 2 kids into our rooms to give them the dining free since we are in Alligator Bayou and can have that 5th person.
I didn't want to do anything without her permission so I thanked the guy and we joked a bit. So next day I look and see standard rooms did open up at POR so i was on hold and my boss comes by having just seen the same thing so I said already taking care of it. Got a 2nd wonderful castmember who checked everything again for me to see if our pin could be used but ended up moving them from Royal to standard and adding her kids to our rooms which in essence saved them almost what they would have saved anyways. So I had a huge relief and didn't feel guilty about convincing them to go. This will be their 1st trip and actually the 1st time her kids have even flown...so we're pretty excited to show them why we love Disney so much. Then came the dining reservation scramble. I did get them added to several of ours but some of our larger group ones I couldn't but they are at character buffets so hoping it won't be an issue when we get there. sorry for the length and now we wait.

[disneymom15]

How exciting!! Hope you have fun!

[Pirate Granny]

How many extra are there for dining? You may want to make an additional ADR for the number of her group around the same time as your ADR. They may be able to help you out there and seat you together, BUT I wouldn't just expect them to accommodate a larger group than is already reserved. So, is this 15 in total or are you adding more? Most of the time for really big numbers you can call the restaurant directly.

[DENZILOP]

I found this post very useful

[1goofyfamily]

our total went up to 18. I did talk with one of the Disney Mom panelists (helps when they're your wife's friend) about our increase and she didn't expect us to have an issue at the places we were going but yes call them directly when it gets closer. I think 2 of our reservations are for the full 15 and the other 2 we split when we originally made the reservation. And if all else fails turn on the charm right? I will save my little sister being an employee as my trump card if all else fails.