If you want to eat at a sit-down restaurant in Disney World, you pretty much HAVE to make advanced dining reservations. But here’s the problem: sometimes those dining reservations are TRICKY to get!

It’s probably not news to you, but just in case you haven’t heard, a LOT of people visit Disney World every single day. 😅 And a lot of those people want to eat at Disney World’s fantastic restaurants! So what complications might you encounter when trying to book a table and how can you overcome those problems? We’ve got the answers.

We want to reiterate that advanced reservations are STRONGLY recommended for all table-service restaurants in Disney World. For quick-service/fast food spots (like Casey’s Corner and Woody’s Lunch Box), you don’t need reservations (but we do recommend using Mobile Order to skip the line, where possible!), but places like Be Our Guest Restaurant, ‘Ohana, California Grill, etc. will require reservations.

You can also book those reservations online via the Disney World Website. Reservations open online at 6AM EST, but we recommend trying to book as early as 5:45AM, as some open a little bit early.

Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Reservations

Sounds simple enough, right? But there are a few problems you might face when trying to get the best dining reservations in Disney World. Let’s go through them and also talk about possible solutions!

No Availability

This is the biggest and most likely problem you may face when trying to book a table at your favorite Disney restaurant: there’s NO availability for new reservations! Even if you’re ready to book your spot RIGHT when 5:45AM EST hits, you still might find that the restaurant you want is completely full. Seriously — some of the most popular places fill up in seconds.

Here are some of the restaurants that tend to fill up super quickly:

• Be Our Guest Restaurant at Magic Kingdom — Beauty and the Beast-themed dining location where guests eat inside the Beast’s castle just like in the animated film.
• Cinderella’s Royal Table at Magic Kingdom — the well-known restaurant INSIDE Cinderella Castle. (In fact, most character dining is pretty tough to get reservations for, like Chef Mickey’s and Akershus)
• Le Cellier at EPCOT — a signature dining steakhouse in the Canada Pavilion.
• California Grill at Disney’s Contemporary Resort — a resort restaurant with great views overlooking Magic Kingdom and (when they are happening) the nightly fireworks. This is a popular choice for date night.
• Oga’s Cantina at Disney’s Hollywood Studios — the incredibly popular Star Wars bar in Galaxy’s Edge. Unlike other Disney World bars, you can typically ONLY get in with a reservation.
• ‘Ohana at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort — an all-you-can-eat feast featuring the ICONIC ‘Ohana noodles and bread pudding.
• Topolino’s Terrace at Disney’s Riviera Resort — a restaurant with gorgeous views and delightful Italian fare. In the morning, breakfast here is a character meal!

These Will Be the Hardest Dining Reservations To Get in Disney World in 2023

So what can be done if you run into this problem?

The Solution

Before we dive in to the possible solutions, keep in mind that the best way to make sure you book the reservations you want is to grab those reservations RIGHT when they become available. Be ready to make your selections 60 days in advance (plus the length of your stay for Disney hotel guests [up to 10 days].)

But what if you’re a little late to making reservations OR you were ready on time and STILL didn’t get the ones you wanted? We’ve got five possible solutions.

1. Don’t Give Up — You May Be Able to Find a Reservation at the Last Minute

If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Just because you missed your dream reservation at that 60-day window doesn’t mean that you won’t find it at all. We encourage you to keep checking on Disney World’s website or the My Disney Experience app until the very last minute!

Many Disney restaurants have a cancelation fee if reservations are dropped less than 2 hours ahead of time, so you might find availability even on the day of your vacation if other people are changing their plans last minute.

2. Search for Dining by the Hour, Not by the Meal

When it comes to making dining reservations online or in the app, you’ll be given two choices: search by the hour or search by the meal (breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner). The time windows typically display in 30-minute increments, and we’ve often seen reservations pop up when we search by the time that weren’t there when we looked for a specific meal.

 

Using the 30-minute times, you may also be able to find a reservation for your desired restaurant at a time that’s not a normal mealtime. If you’re willing to be flexible and eat at 3:30PM, this might work out in your favor.

But even when we search regular meal times, we’ve sometimes just had a reservation show up that simply…doesn’t when we’re searching by the meal instead. It might be at a time smack dab in the middle of the meal window. Weird, but it works.

3. Refresh, Refresh, Refresh

We recommend keeping the Disney World website open on your device and just refreshing the screen every time you think about it while you go about your day. You may be surprised by what you find at the most random times! You can also open the My Disney Experience app on your phone and refresh by toggling back and forth between screens.

4. Walk-up Waitlists

If you’re not able to get the reservation you want, try walking up to the podium at the front of the restaurant the day-of. Sometimes there are spots still available, and sometimes you can get on the walk-up waitlist, which is kind of like a virtual queue.

Some folks don’t mind (or don’t know about) the cancelation fee, so you can find reservations open up VERY close to the time they were for at times as well. Just. Keep. Checking.

5. Lounges

Let’s talk about the worst-case scenario here. If you don’t have any luck at all with getting the reservation you want, check and see if the restaurant has a lounge. Several table-service spots have attached lounges that serve similar food to what you’ll find inside the restaurant itself. And sometimes you can even order off the restaurant menu!

Lounges in Disney World don’t accept reservations, so it’s an even playing field if you walk up day-of. You may have to wait for a bit on the walk-up waitlist, but remember that you can sometimes join that waitlist on the My Disney Experience app, before you even arrive at the lounge.

These Are the BEST Lounges in Disney World

Choosing Which Reservations To Make

There are over 200 (!!) restaurants in Disney World spread throughout the four parks and all the hotels. You can find all kinds of cuisine, character meals, upscale experiences, and more. Seriously — the variety is incredible.

But here’s the problem: you have a limited number of meals on your next trip! So HOW do you choose which to visit and which to skip?!

The Solution

We have the perfect solution for you, and it’s called The DFB Guide to Walt Disney World Dining. Don’t go into your dining planning blind! We have reviews, recommendations, and tips all laid out in a comprehensive series of e-books. (And when we say comprehensive, we MEAN comprehensive — there are over 900 pages of information!)

Our guide includes three separate books:

• Plan 101 – Breaking down all of your planning into 5 easy-to-follow steps so that you don’t miss a thing
• Reference Guide – Sharing all of the best-kept secrets to dine like a pro
• Printable Resources – Giving you the exact format we use to plan our Disney World trips – with the worksheets you need to make dining reservations, plan your vacation budget, and much more

Check out the Guide for our detailed insights, tips, and recommendations. We can’t wait to help you get started planning your trip!

Click here to order our Disney World Dining Guide — use code WDW2023 for 25% off!

Overlapping Plans

Disney World vacations require a lot of careful planning, and sometimes your plans might start to overlap. OH NO.

Specifically, we’ve noticed a trend of our Genie+ plans overlapping our dining reservation plans.

Dining reservations are one of the first things you can do as part of planning your Disney World trip (60 days before you go). When you make a dining reservation, you can typically select from a variety of available times, although you can’t make more than one reservation in the same time window. You can modify or cancel your reservation without fees up to 2 hours before your reservation time (at most Disney restaurants). But note that availability at many Disney restaurants fills up quickly and stays pretty full, so it may be difficult to get a last-minute reservation during your trip.

Basically, if you make a number of dining reservations, your day is somewhat restricted around those times, which can limit your visit. But while you can schedule your dining plans in advance, rides are another story entirely.

If you decide to use Genie+ to skip standby lines at Disney World rides, you must know that it’s a daily system, which means that you can’t buy Genie+ in advance like you can with Disney World tickets. You must purchase Genie+ for each person in your party on the day of your visit (Genie+ becomes available each day beginning at midnight), and you can start booking your Lightning Lanes as early as 7AM each day.

Learn All About Disney Genie+ Here

When Genie+ Lightning Lanes open at 7AM, some of the more popular rides can end up with available time windows later in the day. Basically, booking your Lightning Lane in the morning doesn’t mean you’ll only get morning availability. You might only see time windows for later in the day, so it could still impact your lunch or dinner reservation.

When booking your Lightning Lane, you’re allowed to book one lane at a time, and the available times depend on how many other people are also booking that same ride. That means that you can’t always get the Lightning Lane time you want, and you might end up with a time you don’t like or one that conflicts with something else you had planned (although note that you can now modify Genie+ reservations without canceling them). So what happens then?

Let’s say you end up snagging that popular Lightning Lane reservation, but then you realize it’s at the same time as the dining reservation you made 60 days ago! What do you do? Don’t worry – we have suggestions!

The Solution

Cast Members have always told us to prioritize dining reservations over rides. It’s much easier to keep your dining reservation and instead opt to speak to Cast Members about your Lightning Lane reservation at either the location of the ride or at Guest Relations. Keep in mind that they might not be able to change your Lightning Lane time, but it can be worth the ask.

We’ve also been told by some Cast Members that they generally wait about 15 minutes past your reservation before giving your table away. Keep in mind, however, that your mileage may vary, so don’t count on this being absolutely always the case. It’s just good to know if you run into a situation in which your Lightning Lane wait time is running slightly long.

You could also try finding a different time for your dining reservation or Lightning Lane. You can stop by the restaurant to find out if you can get in earlier or later, or you can keep checking the My Disney Experience app for a different Lightning Lane time and modify your existing reservation. If you’re in a pinch, you can always cancel your dining reservation without a cancelation fee as long as it’s at least 2 hours before the reservation time.

We also recommend keeping in mind what you prefer to do in each park. If you want your day to be ride-heavy, it might be a good day to stick with quick service (fast food) rather than table service restaurants. If you have a dining reservation you can’t (or won’t) move, consider which rides you’d be willing to skip or try the standby lines first thing in the morning or during fireworks for typically shorter wait times.

On the flip side, if you’re visiting quite a few table service restaurants during your trip, you might want to skip using Genie+ to avoid the stress of time conflicts. You could also consider only making breakfast reservations, in which case you probably wouldn’t have issues with Lightning Lane time conflicts.

The COMPLETE Guide to Planning a Disney World Vacation

Technical Problems

There’s one problem that’s particularly difficult to solve: technical difficulties. Disney World technology is certainly no stranger to glitches. Just recently, the entire dining reservation system went down for several hours. While it was down, we were unable to make any dining reservations at all.

We got error messages online, and in the My Disney Experience app, a notification popped up that said, “Pardon the Inconvenience: At this time, we are unable to make new dining reservations or Enchanting Extras Collection bookings online or over the phone. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

So what can you do if this happens to you?

The Solution

Unfortunately, in the moment there’s not much you can do if Disney’s reservation system is down. The only solution is to keep checking back and waiting for the issue to be resolved on Disney’s end.

However, to avoid technology woes on YOUR end, make sure your devices are all charged, your WIFI is working, and you have multiple screens open before the time comes to make your dining reservations.

When we’re trying to snag those hard-to-get reservations, we usually have the dining reservation site pulled up on both our phones and our computers. Sometimes — for mysterious reasons not known to us — one works better than the other.

If there are multiple people in your party, have everyone try to get the reservations at the same time, just in case one person has better luck than the others! It’s better to get more reservations than you need and cancel the extras than to not get any at all.

Learn More About the My Disney Experience App Here

We know that booking Disney World dining reservations can be a stressful experience, but it’s totally worth it — as long as you book the right ones! Again, our DFB Guide to Dining in Walt Disney World can help you plan ahead so that you love every meal in the parks.

And if you want some help planning your upcoming trip, check out our friends over at Small World Vacations. They’ve got decades of experience navigating the confusing world of Disney World reservations, so they can save you time, headaches, and money when it comes to prepping for your vacation.