Changes Coming to Advanced Disney Dining Reservations

August 29, 2023

For many guests, making dining reservations is an important part of the Disney vacation planning process. They’ll meticulously plan out their meals, but it isn’t always easy to get the reservations they want. To make it easier to find reservations, Disney will soon make changes to the advanced dining reservation websites for both Walt Disney World and Disneyland as well as the My Disney Experience app and Disneyland app!

All Reservation Time Slots Will Be Visible

Currently, reservation searches only yield a handful of time slots from which to choose.

Currently, if you search for a dining reservation at a certain restaurant on any given date, you’ll see just a few time slots that fit the search criteria. Even if there are more time slots available, that is all you can see. With the upcoming changes, you’ll be able to scroll and view all of the available time slots that fit the search criteria, not just the three or so options that the system currently displays. This gives guests more flexibility and more opportunities to find availability that works for their schedule.

Search Results Will Be Sorted by Meal

With the current system, it is not always clear which meal is being served.

In their current state, the dining reservation sites and apps organize reservation availability by time. However, it isn’t always clear whether it’s breakfast or lunch during the late morning or whether it’s lunch or dinner in the late afternoon. The updates will organize search results by meal, so it will be clearer to the guests which meal is being served.

These changes follow the recent modification to the Disney World dining reservation cancellation policy. Instead of canceling at least the day before a dining reservation to avoid any cancellation fees, guests can now change or cancel their reservation up to 2 hours before their reservation time. Altogether, these updates to the reservation system are a welcome improvement to make the dining reservation process more user-friendly.

Need a little extra help getting the dining reservation you want? Try out the Unlocked Magic Dining Reservation Finder! You can set it to send you a text message and email whenever the reservation you want becomes available. This way, you can be the first to snag it!