Planning a Disney World trip can be tricky!
Main Street, U.S.A.
After you figure out your hotel and Park Pass reservations, you’ll want to make dining reservations for the sit-down meals you’re hoping for. And you don’t need us to tell ya that can feel impossible sometimes! We’ve given you plenty of tips to help you snag those hard-to-get Advance Dining Reservations, but sometimes, they fill up before you can grab a spot. Luckily, we’ve got a pretty cool trick for you to try!
Lately, Disney World’s been in the habit of extending their park hours. This typically happens a couple of weeks out from the affected dates. And with these extensions, we’ve seen park time extended up to 4 hours! That’s a LOT more time to play in the parks, guys.
Tower of Terror
You may be thinking about how many more rides you’ll be able to hop on, but there’s a hidden bonus to these added park hours. And that’s dining reservations, friends! When park hours are extended, dining reservations are added for those “new” hours. And they tend to be wide open for a bit!
The Crystal Palace at Magic Kingdom
We’re gonna paint a picture for ya. Let’s say you’re struggling to snag a reservation for Oga’s Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge (trust us, we’ve ALL been there.). And let’s say Disney’s Hollywood Studios just announced that their park hours for next Monday changed from a 7PM closing to an 8PM closing. As SOON as you hear about that change, you should go to Disney’s website and try to grab that reservation for sometime between 7PM and 8PM.
Galaxy’s Edge
Of course, that’s a totally theoretical scenario, but you can imagine how this little hack could play out in all sorts of different scenarios. Wanting breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table? Grab one when Magic Kingdom’s morning hours are extended! Dinner at Be Our Guest? Book for extended evening hours!
Be Our Guest
This trick is SO quick ‘n’ easy, but it does require you to keep a close eye on Disney World’s park hours. And it does require timing. More reservations may not be automatically released. The restaurant may close before the park. There are plenty of scenarios that can mess this up. But it’s totally worth the try!! And luckily, we update you every time those change here at DFB! Stay tuned so you know exactly when to grab those tough reservations. And we’ll keep bringing you lots more Disney news, too!
Check Out the Hardest Dining Reservations to Get in 2021!
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WE KNOW DISNEY.
YOU CAN, TOO.
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Watching for the extended park hours is how I got a Yak & Yeti red in Mothers’ Day. Of course my Landry’s card didn’t hurt either! Thanks, DFB.
Great tip!
I’m glad we are only eating outdoors this trip as my friends who are going are have a really hard time getting dining reservations! The fewer options and capacity limits, though understandable, make it very difficult.
We’re excited to be forced to find some new food options!
Hello DFB! Having just returned from 5 days in WDW staying at Fort Wilderness campground, the biggest lesson learned was to understand that there is NO TRANSPORTATION directly from any of the 4 parks (where it is likely a traveler will be during the day) to Disney Springs where most of the open dining reservations were available during my trip! I needed to take transportation to a Disney hotel FIRST from the park and then get a bus to Disney Springs from that hotel and that 2 part transportation trip added a significant amount of travel time (approx 75 mins from Magic Kingdom to DS and 60 mins back to MK) which was time OUT from being in the parks! This was a huge misunderstanding on my part and negatively impacted my park time. I understand the reasoning behind not having this direct connection but my pre-trip research did not reveal this nugget of information and it set me back time every day. Now I think I will not ever make reservations at Disney Springs because it is not worth the time commitment IMHO. Love your blog! Keep up the great work!
To get to Disney Springs from a park, take the Saratoga Springs bus and get off at the Congress Park stop and walk to Disney Springs within 10 minutes.