Dining Reservation Day is one of the most important days in the planning of your Disney vacation. It you are staying at a Disney Resort, you are allowed to make Dining Reservations at all Table Service restaurants on Disney property, starting 60 days prior to the first day of your trip. At that 60-day mark, you can make dining reservations for the entire length of your stay.
Now, you may think it is ridiculous to decide what and where you want to eat, 60 days before you even begin your trip. However, newbie Disney planners will be shocked to learn that dining reservations fill up incredibly fast, particularly for high-demand restaurants. For that reason, I will lay out tips on how to get all of the dining reservations that you would like, and talk you through the process of the "fun" that is known as Dining Reservation Day.
1) When and Where Can you Begin Making Dining Reservations?
You can begin making dining reservations for the entire length of your stay exactly 60 days prior to the first day of your trip. The electronic dining reservation system will automatically open up to you at 6am on that day, for the length of your stay.
The fastest and most efficient way to make dining reservations is on the My Disney Experience App. You can also make dining reservations starting at 6am on the Disney World website, but I have found that it takes much longer for these pages to load than on the app. Those extra few seconds can cost you a hard to get, high-demand reservation that you probably could’ve snatched up quicker on the App.
A final way to make dining reservations, is by phone with a Disney customer service rep. However, that is the least efficient way. The phone reservation system does not open until 7am. That means you missed out on a whole hour that people have already been booking reservations via the app and the website. Additionally, you are at the mercy of how quickly the Disney customer service rep is able to book the reservations for you, which will not be fast. This process will take forever and I promise you that you will lose all popular dining options and times if you choose to go this route.
2) How Do You Make Dining Reservations?
When Dining Reservation Day rolls around, you should already have a detailed idea of specific restaurants that you want to eat at on each day of your trip. Going into my 6am booking session, I usually have an itinerary mapped out of what parks I'll be in on what days. I will also have an idea of what restaurants I want to eat each meal at on each day, based on the park or resort I will be at on that day.
I then like to take it a step further, by marking the restaurants that will have the most priority in booking. Those will be the restaurants I know are extremely popular (and therefore the reservations will fill up quickly) and also the restaurants that are most important for me to go to.
Once 6am comes and the Reservation system opens up for me, I can go down my list of restaurants and book them in the order of priority. The best way to do this, is to search for the specific restaurant you want to eat at and then search for reservation time slots available on the specific day you are looking for. When doing this, make sure to click through the prompts as quickly as you can, because you are not guaranteed the reservation until you reach the confirmation screen. You will repeat this process of searching for the specific restaurant all the way through your list of restaurants.
A tip to make this process move faster is to have a credit card saved on your account, because each reservation requires you to enter a credit card number. This is for no shows- Disney will charge a fee of $10 per person that does not show up to a dining reservation.
Another tip is that you should try to line up very high-demand restaurants towards the end of your trip. The reason for this, is that on your 60-day mark you can make reservations for the entire length of your stay. More likely than not, the first few days of your trip fall during other people's trips which started earlier than yours. That means they had a head start in making reservations for those days since their 60-day mark was earlier than yours. The further out you get from the first day of your trip, the less opportunity people will have already had to make a reservation for that day. This leaves a higher probability that there will be something left for you.
There are also other ways to search for dining reservations, when you are not trying to book a specific restaurant and just want to see availability in a certain park at a certain time. You can simply search the "make a dining reservation section" for a certain meal or a certain time. This will show you all dining reservations available on Disney World property for that meal or time. You can then narrow that down to a certain area or park.
For example, you could search for all lunch reservations on October 20 in Magic Kingdom. That is helpful if you know you want to have a table service meal, but there is nowhere specific you want to go. This is definitely not the recommended approach if there is a high-demand restaurant you are trying to get reservations to.
3) What If There Are No Reservations Left on My Dining Reservation Day?
Dining Reservation Day can feel incredibly stressful, particularly if there are no reservations left at a restaurant(s) that you really want to go to. Don't freak out if this happens. I have found that if you check back on a regular basis, time slots do open up as you get closer to the trip. It may not be at the ideal time, but usually you can find something.
Lots of people, myself included, tend to hoard reservations. They book multiple restaurants and different times on different days and hold them until they have a more solid idea of what their final plan will be. Disney allows you to cancel dining reservations up to 2 hours prior to, with no penalty. You will surely notice times becoming available as you get closer and closer to the day of.
If worse comes to worse, most Table Service restaurants at Disney also permit walk-ups. This is not guaranteed, but you could try to get on the walk-up list if you arrive early enough in the day. If you check the My Disney Experience App, it will let you know if the walk-up list is full or how long the wait might be. This is a last resort if there is a restaurant that you are absolutely dying to go to.
4) What Are Some High Demand Restaurants That Should Take Priority in Booking?
Some Table Service restaurants in Disney have developed a reputation as being impossible to get dining reservations for. These are the ones that you should try to book first on Dining Reservation Day and line up towards the end of your trip:
1) Cinderella's Royal Table- This is a character dining meal inside Cinderella's Castle in Magic Kingdom, with Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Snow White, and Jasmine.
2) 'Ohana- The is either a character breakfast with Lilo, Stitch, Pluto & Mickey, or a Polynesian themed dinner at the Polynesian Resort. Both options are incredibly popular.
3) Le Cellier- The is a steakhouse in the Canada Pavilion at Epcot.
4) Chef Mickeys- The is a character breakfast and dinner at the Contemporary Resort with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald & Pluto.
5) Space 220- This is a new and extremely popular restaurant in Epcot with theming to feel like you are on a space station.
6) Be Our Guest- This is a restaurant inside Beast's Castle in Magic Kingdom.
7) Story Book Dining at Artist Point- This is a very popular character dinner at Wilderness Lodge with Snow White, Dopey, Grumpy & the Queen.
8) Topolino's Terrace- This is either a character breakfast with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald & Daisy, or an upscale dinner at the Rivera Resort.
5) Considerations When Determining Timing of Reservations?
There are a few things that you should be sure to include in the itinerary you create prior to Dining Reservation Day. Keeping these items in mind will help choose the best time to make your dining reservations at:
1) Nighttime Shows- When you are booking dinner dining reservations, you will want to try and book them early enough that you will be done eating in time to enjoy the nightly shows. Magic Kingdom and Epcot both have nighttime fireworks show and Hollywood Studios has a nightly show of Fantasmic. If you try to eat dinner at 7pm or earlier, you should be done with enough time to spare. Knowing the show times in advance will help when trying to speed book reservations while half asleep at 6am on Dining Reservation Day.
2) Rope Drop- If you are booking a breakfast dining reservation, you should know what time the park officially opens. If you plan to rope drop a particular ride, avoid making a breakfast dining reservation within 30 minutes of park opening, since you will likely still be on the ride and will miss the reservation. Most restaurants are pretty understanding and will honor your reservation if you are only slightly late, but you can't show up an hour late and expect your spot to still be available. Therefore, I think that breakfast reservations 1- 1.5 hours after park opening is the perfect timing, so that you can take full advantage of the low early morning crows and then sit down to eat when peak crowds start to form.
3) Resort Table Service Restaurants- Some resorts around the Disney Property have amazing restaurants. You can still eat at these restaurants even if you are not a guest staying at that particular resort. My recommendation is to book reservations at such restaurants on a day that you are visiting a park nearby that resort. For example, if you would like to visit 'Ohana for dinner, it would make most sense to pair this with your Magic Kingdom day. 'Ohana is a 5 minute monorail ride from Magic Kingdom and is a nice little break from the park to have a delicious meal. I would not book a reservation at 'Ohana on a Hollywood Studios Day. It would waste far too much time trying to over to the Polynesian from Hollywood Studios. As such, having a general idea of the layout of Disney World is extremely helpful when visiting non-park restaurants on a park day.
4) Genie Plus- Genie Plus is the one thing that you cannot base your dining reservations around on Dining Reservation Day. The reason being is that Genie Plus is booked day of. By that point, you will have all of your dining reservations pretty much finalized. In turn, you will have to book the Lightening Lanes around the dining reservations rather than the other way around.
5) Type of Dining Experience- Some restaurants at Disney vary in type of dining experience, based on the meal that you are eating. You should educate yourself on these differences prior to Dining Reservation Day. For example, Topolino's Terrace offers a very popular character breakfast. However, the dinner experience is very different with no characters and an upscale vibe. If you really want a character meal at Topolino's Terrace, don't accidentally book a dinner at that restaurant. It won't be what you are expecting.
Final Takeaways
Booking Disney dining reservations can unfortunately be a pretty stressful experience. However, preparing ahead of time by mapping out an itinerary, flagging hard to get reservations as priority bookings, and having a well thought out plan can help make it smoother and easier. Dining Reservation Day is important not to miss, but remember that you can always keep checking for time slots to open up between the 60-day mark and the day of. Try to have fun with it and know that even if you don't get every reservation you want, you will still be in Disney World having a magical time.
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