Dining Reservations at Disney World

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Milos and Jen with pineapple drink

With the new packages being released for next year at Disney World, I thought it might be a good time to address a very important part of the Disney planning process – Dining Reservations.

Currently, dining reservations at Disney open up at 180 days – that’s 6 months in advance. Who actually books that far in advance? LOTS of people. (Myself included!) And if you want a hard to get restaurant, you’ll need to do it too. It just breaks my heart when people are set on a specific restaurant, but they don’t know about booking dining so far in advance.

Sometimes people think that maybe they’ll be able to do walk-ups while they’re at Disney World. Don’t count on it. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but if it’s a busy season or a popular restaurant, you will not get a walk-up. Or (if you’re lucky) you might, but it’ll be a three and a half hour wait for a table.

The best thing to do is book some reservations at the 6 month mark, then you can always try to change your mind closer to the trip. (Based on availability, of course.) But at least that way, you’ll know that you have somewhere to eat on that given day. And the larger your group, the more trouble it will be to get a table. If you have a large group, do not wait to make your dining reservations. Do it as close as you can to the 6 month mark.

Which restaurants seem to book up the quickest? Many of the character meals book up fast – especially Chef Mickey’s and Cinderella’s Royal Table. As far as non-character meals, Be Our Guest is the hardest to get reservation on property.  It’s the restaurant in the Beast’s Castle in New Fantasyland.  Also hard to get is Le Cellier.  This is a small steakhouse in Canada in Epcot that is VERY popular. If you want a prime dining time, be ready to book exactly at your 180 day window.

Another very difficult restaurant to book is Ohana at the Polynesian resort. It is crazy popular and very hard to get into. Usually resort restaurants don’t fill up as quickly as the park restaurants, but this one is an exception to that for sure. Coral Reef can be hard to get too, but won’t fill up as fast as Be Our Guest, Le Cellier, and Ohana.

***Updated 2016

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Jennifer was initially drawn to Europe for two reasons: music and love.  She lived in Vienna for four years, and now calls Croatia home for much of each year, as she married a native Croatian. Since 2015, Jennifer has worked as a tour director and cruise director on European river cruises for a major American travel company, and has become an expert in all of the cities along her routes on the Danube, Rhine, and Main Rivers. She also has traveled to Disney World almost every year since 1985, and knows Disney World inside and out. As a travel agent, Disney World is her primary specialty, and she has helped many Disney newbies and veterans have amazing trips with her insider information.

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