Disney World Advance Dining Reservations

Not sure where you want to eat? Wondering how far in advance you can make a reservation? If you are new to using Disney World Advance Dining Reservations, we’ve got lots of information and advice here, including lists of the hard-to-get and easier-to-get locations.

It is frequently impossible to just “walk up” and eat at a full-service restaurant, even in low season! If you are planning to try some of Disney’s excellent table-service restaurants and/or dinner shows while you are vacationing at Walt Disney World, it is important to make Disney World Advance Dining Reservations (ADRs) online, using the MyDisneyExperience app on your phone or by calling (407) WDW-DINE (939-3463). Disney strongly encourages making bookings online or using the app, and wait times are getting longer for calling in for reservations. Using the app or website you can only make reservations for up to 8 guests. If you have a party of 9 or more, you have to make reservations over the phone.

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Picking the Right Restaurants for You

It’s a very good idea to decide where you want to eat and make reservations well in advance of your vacation (see When to Reserve Your Table below). But how do you pick restaurants before you’ve even arrived in Orlando?

One great resource is The Disney Food Blog, which offers in-depth news and information about dining at Walt Disney World, as well as at other Disney’s parks, resorts, and cruise ships. If you have the time to work your way through all the blog posts, this is a free way to gather information.

Short on time or just want to skip straight to the pertinent information? The author and founder of The Disney Food Blog, AJ Wolfe, has compiled her best material about all things delicious at Walt Disney World into critically acclaimed, gorgeously illustrated e-Books that cover many different aspects of Walt Disney World dining.

When to Reserve Your Table

All guests can book reservations for Disney restaurants 60 days in advance. If you are staying at a Disney-owned resort, you can make reservations (in some cases) up to 69 days in advance (see below).

Need to calculate when you can book your restaurant reservations? The link below goes to an outside site that is not affiliated with MouseSavers.com:

  • Priority Seating Calculator allows you to figure out when to call for those hard-to-get reservations for Hoop-Dee-Doo, Cinderella’s Royal Table, etc.

Thanks to Small World Vacations for information and updates.

Information and Advice About Advance Dining Reservations

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Reserving Online

The information below is especially useful if you plan to book any of the restaurants that are very hard to get and/or if you will be traveling at a peak time. If either or both of those situations apply to you, it’s critical to start getting your restaurant bookings set up as early as possible — ideally 60 days in advance.

Before your 60 day mark:

  1. Go to DisneyWorld.com/dining/ to familiarize yourself with the Disney restaurants and the dining system. For any restaurant that takes reservations, you can select the restaurant name and then on the resulting page, look in the right hand column for menus. Make a list of your preferred dining locations.
  2. Create a daily itinerary, including which park you will tour and where you plan to eat. Here’s a useful site for scheduling your days: DisneyWorld.com/calendars/. To help you figure out which restaurants to choose, see our advice above.
  3. Make a list of all the reservations you need. Put the hard to get restaurants at the top of the list. Pick some alternates in case you can’t get all of your first choices.
  4. If you don’t already have an account set up on DisneyWorld.com, do so (use the “Sign in or Create Account” link in the upper right corner of the site).
  5. If you are staying on Disney property, link your room or package reservation to your account. Log in and go to My Disney Experience at the upper right. Use the pull down menu to select My Reservations and follow the directions from there. The purpose of linking your account is so that you’ll qualify to book Advance Dining Reservations (ADRs) for 60 + 10 days from your arrival date.
  6. If you have an iPhone or recent Android phone, install the FREE MyDisneyExperience app and get logged in. Make sure you can see your account details, especially your resort booking (if you’re going to want to book all your reservations at 60 days from arrival).

Exactly 60 days from the day you check in, be ready to book your preferred dining locations online at 6:00 am ET at DisneyWorld.com/dining/ or using the MyDisneyExperience app. Booking online gives you a one hour jump over calling for reservations.

  1. Have a credit card ready.
  2. Log into your account or open the MyDisneyExperience app.
  3. Choose your first restaurant and open the page for it.
  4. You’ll see a blue box marked “Check Availability” on the right, about halfway down the page. Pick your date and number of people in your party.
  5. Promptly at 6:00 am ET, select “Find a Table” and start making your reservations.

Tips and Tricks For Online Booking

The ability to book for your whole stay at the 60-day mark, for guests staying on property, doesn’t always work for mysterious reasons. If it doesn’t work for you, you can make your first day of reservations online, but you’ll have to make the rest of your reservations by phone at (407) WDW-DINE (939-3463) starting at 7:00 am ET.

If you can’t get an ADR for one of the more popular locations such as Cinderella’s Royal Table, keep trying each day at the 60 day mark. It is rumored that Disney opens up more tables exactly 60 days prior to the day you want to dine.

You might find better availability for the more popular locations such as Chef Mickey’s, Cinderella’s Royal Table, Le Cellier and Oga’s Cantina if you check starting on the last day of your reservation and work your way backward toward the beginning. Earlier dates get sold out first because people arriving before you whose vacation overlaps your stay grabbed those ADRs during their 60 + 10 window.

Print out a list of your ADR confirmation numbers and bring it with you to each dining location, or save it as a PDF and email it to yourself so you can access it from your smartphone. Better safe than sorry.

Getting Through on the Phone Quickly

The fastest way to make your dining reservations is to use Disney’s online booking system or the MyDisneyExperience app on your phone.

If for some reason you need or want to use the phone, be aware that hold times can be long when calling Disney’s Dining Reservations department at (407) WDW-DINE (939-3463), particularly first thing in the morning (because of people trying to book super time-critical reservations like Cinderella’s Royal Table) and 60 days before any major holiday. You’ll usually get through more quickly on weekday evenings after about 8:00 pm ET. The reservations department is open 7:00 am to 11:00 pm ET.

Restaurants That Require a Credit Card Guarantee or Prepayment

The following locations require full prepayment in advance, using a credit card. Generally if you don’t cancel them by two days before the event, you get no refund. Check their cancellation terms carefully, as they can change any time.

All other table-service dining locations that take reservations require a credit card guarantee. Your credit card will be charged $10 per person if you don’t either show up for the reservation or cancel less than 2 hours before your reservation time (Please note: Victoria & Albert’s, Monsieur Paul and Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue have a different cancellation policy – see below). But for all other restaurants, if you cancel 2 hours or more before your reservation time, there’s no cancellation charge for regular restaurant reservations.

At Victoria & Albert’s and Monsieur Paul, your credit card will be charged $100 per person if you don’t show up for the reservation, or if you cancel within 72 hours of the reservation. Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue reservations must be cancelled 48 hours in advance to avoid a charge. 

Note that if some of your party can’t make the reservation, that’s not a problem. As long as at least one person shows up to take the reservation, no one will be charged the fee.

Canceling Reservations

Dining reservations made online can be canceled online or on the phone. Dining reservations made over the phone typically need to be canceled over the phone. To cancel online, log into MyDisneyExperience and if the dining reservation is not already linked to your account, link it using the “link a reservation” feature. You’ll need the confirmation code you were given when you made the reservation. Once your reservation is linked, just use the “cancel reservation” link next to the reservation in question. To cancel over the phone, call (407) WDW-DINE (939-3463) or (407) WDW-CNCL (939-2625).

If you know the same day that you won’t be able to make the reservation, but can make an earlier or later time, you can call the reservation line and ask if there is any availability earlier or later. Typically there is no charge to move the reservation time for the same restaurant. Changing from one restaurant to another, however, will typically incur the cancellation charge.

If you miss your reservation but you are able to get to the restaurant before the reservation time or within an hour or two afterwards, stop by and explain your circumstances to the Cast Members at the check-in desk. They can waive the fee if you have a reasonable excuse (sick kid, bus broke down). This is entirely at the management’s discretion. You can also call the dining line and explain the situation. There are no guarantees that they will waive the fee, but if you don’t have a record of doing it a lot and you have a good reason, they have been good about it in our experience.

Important tip: Cancelling a Disney resort reservation does not automatically cancel your Advance Dining Reservations! Just because you cancelled your room or package doesn’t mean your dining reservations were cancelled. You will need to cancel each of them separately or face a flurry of no-show fees.

Restaurants You Really Must Book in Advance

If you want to attend the Cinderella’s Royal Table Character Breakfast, it is critical to either book online or with the MyDisneyExperience app at 6:00 am ET or via (407) WDW-DINE (939-3463) at 7:00 am ET, 60 days in advance. It sells out within minutes each day when reservations open. (Lunch and dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table sell out quickly, too.) Full prepayment in advance is required for Cinderella’s Royal Table.

The Chef’s Table at Victoria and Albert’s in the Grand Floridian Resort also sells out every morning, exactly 60 days in advance. There is only one Chef’s Table seating each night and it is not available Wednesdays and Fridays. We recommend you book online or with the MyDisneyExperience app, but you can also call (407) WDW-DINE (939-3463) at 7:00 am ET, 60 days in advance.

Reservations are required for these locations — you will never get a walk-up table (or rarely enough that it’s not worth counting on it):

Also, during the Free Dining promotion, most table service dining locations will be fully booked up during regular meal times. It is critical to have reservations during that time period! Disney does usually add some extra hours to certain restaurants (i.e, Chef Mickey’s, which is not normally open for lunch, often offers lunch during the Free Dining period; other restaurants may have extended hours for lunch), so if you find yourself without a reservation, that might be worth a try.

Reserving Independent Restaurants Directly

Not all restaurants on Disney property are actually run by Disney. All the table-service restaurants at Disney Springs and the Swan & Dolphin are independent, and there are a handful of others scattered around the parks. While all of them can take reservations via the Disney Dining system, many of them also accept reservations directly (or sometimes via OpenTable). They may actually have availability even when Disney says they’re sold out, because they allocate a portion of their reservation slots to Disney and keep the rest for themselves. This is especially true for large parties; many of these restaurants can easily handle a group of 12 or more, but may not bother to make those tables available through Disney; you have to call to make a group reservation of that size.

One other advantage to booking directly or via OpenTable is that there is usually no credit-card guarantee or no-show fee to worry about. We don’t advocate making reservations you don’t intend to use, but it’s one less thing to worry about if something happens and you can’t make your reservation. Keep in mind that while OpenTable typically allows you to cancel with no fee, if you no-show, they will send you a warning, and if you no-show repeatedly they may deactivate your account. And occasionally restaurants will have special cancel policies or will add them during popular times like Valentine’s Day or Christmas, but special policies, if any, will be explained when you book.

Some of these restaurants may not actually start taking reservations at 60 days out when you book over the phone. They may ask you to call back later, sometimes as late as 2-4 weeks before arrival.

Can’t get a reservation at the restaurant you want?

Don’t want to make reservations?

Be prepared for very limited or even zero table-service choices inside the parks, particularly if you are visiting during a weekend, holiday, summer or Spring Break period (mid-February through mid-April). Don’t count on being able to walk up at ANY of the table-service restaurants in Magic Kingdom or Disney’s Hollywood Studios at any time of year. If you must do walk-up seating, your best bets for table-service dining inside the parks are:

Lounge Meals Without Reservations

Nearly all of the on-property lounges serve meals or snacks, so this is a way to walk up and eat on a first-come, first-served basis. Some lounges offer a full menu from the associated restaurant, while others have only lighter “snack” type options. Disney’s Dining Plans are not accepted at most lounges. 

Some of the best bets for a full meal in a lounge are:

Resort Lunches Without Reservations

A few Disney resort table-service restaurants are open at lunch. They are usually not busy in the middle of the day, when most people are in the theme parks. Not only are these usually easy tables to get, they provide a relaxing break from the crowds. Try:

Other Walk-Up Options