Dining At Disney Park Restaurants Is Easier Than Ever With New Reservation Process

Anyone who has ever vacationed at Walt Disney World in Florida or Disneyland in California knows that there's more to the theme parks than just rides. For many guests, the unique, immersive dining experiences are some of the best parts of the parks, so much so that getting reservations to eat at these restaurants can be a challenge. Disney allows guests to start booking reservations online for resort restaurants 60 days before they arrive for their vacation, and tables go quickly for the more popular locations. While this system has been in place for years, the company announced on August 2 that it is making a change to the reservation portal on its website, which should make things a little easier for guests.

Both Disneyland and Disney World will be updating their websites soon to allow guests to browse more reservation times at once in order to make planning their meals easier. The old system would allow guests to choose a restaurant and see a selection of reservation times to pick from in their date window, however, that list was not entirely inclusive of what was available. The new system allows guests to choose a restaurant and see all the reservation times available for their selected date(s), giving guests more options and control.

Seeing all options for open tables at a given restaurant is not the only change Disney is making to the reservation system. Now, guests who don't have a specific restaurant in mind but know what time of day they'd like to eat will be able to search for reservations on a certain day by time window (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) and see the open times within that window across all restaurants. These windows are helpful because they tell guests which menus are available and when at each restaurant, which could impact price or extra experiences available, like character meet-and-greets.

In addition to giving guests a clearer picture of availability to make meal scheduling easier, Disney also recently made it easier to change plans. Guests can now cancel a dining reservation up to two hours before the scheduled time without incurring a cancellation fee, instead of the old 24 hour cutoff. Disneyland's website has already been updated to include the new changes and Disney World's is expected to follow suit in the coming days, while both parks' apps should see the change in an upcoming system update. Reservations will still go live every day at 6 a.m. on the park websites, and you do still need a park entrance ticket if you plan to eat at any of the restaurants.