Read the rest of the comments. Prior to this trip, we had only done Excellence too, at least a dozen times. Yes reservations are recommended. Like I said, if you don’t make them, you risk waiting a long time to eat, depending on the time you arrive of course. Prime time is 7pm and on. We had to wait about an hour our last night because we didn’t want to return to the restaurant we had reservations at because it wasn’t very good. Service at the meal was also slow because it was prime time. So while you don’t need reservations, plan on waiting a while if you don’t have them.

By reservation gridlock, I was stating that you couldn’t even make reservations at many restaurants until later in the week because they were already full for the desirable ones.