So what is an Advanced Dining Reservation? Well it’s exactly what you think it is; you can make a table service reservation in advance of your Disney vacation. But it’s not like making a reservation for a restaurant in your hometown. With Advanced Dining Reservations you will be given a time slot of when your party should arrive at that restaurant, once you arrive your party will receive the next available table to fit your party’s size. But we’ll get more into detail about that a little later in this video. The whole idea of the advanced reservation has become very popular and almost a must when planning your Disney vacation. It has become so popular that for some restaurants you HAVE to book your reservation as soon as possible. So let’s get into how the reservation process works.
First off the number one most important thing that you have to remember is 180 days. If you are staying on Disney Property you will be able to book your advanced dining reservations 180 days out from the first day of your trip. What that means is that when that 180th day comes around you can make your table service reservations for your entire trip and not day by day. So be sure to calculate what day that is for you when you book your trip and be ready bright and early on the morning of that day to make your reservations. This chart here gives you an idea of when that 180th day is by month. AND just a side note, if you use a Travel Agent they do all of the remembering and calculating for you. You just have to tell them where you want to eat.
The number two most important thing to remember is, do not give up! A number of restaurants are very popular and book up very quick! And by quick I mean within the hour. So if you go to book your reservation and there aren’t any times available don’t give up! The reason I say don’t give up is because people may cancel or change their reservation at any time; so if and when that happens you will be able to make your reservation in their place. If you are really wanting to get a certain restaurant, you will need to check daily or check back on the night before you are needing a reservation. I will touch base on the cancellation policy a little bit later in this post.
The third most important thing is save your reservations for the more popular dining locations for the end of your trip. Remember when I said that you can book your reservations for your entire trip at that 180th day mark? What many people have a problem with is when they log in to their My Disney Experience and try to get a reservation for that first or second day they are hit with no available time slots. And you’re thinking well what the heck how did this happen? How can there not be any time slots open, this is the first day that I can make reservations?!? Well what’s happened is someone else has booked that dining reservation on their 180th which overlapped with your vacation time. So how you can avoid this is by booking the more popular restaurants towards the end of your trip. By doing this less people around the time of your 180th will have booked for those days that are later in your trip which then will give you a better chance at getting a reservation.
My next tip is, to be open to flexible dinner times. Think about this, there are going to be how many other families that are trying to get a reservation at about the same time that you and your family are. So let’s say that your family likes to eat dinner around 6 pm, if you eat a little earlier like around 5 pm or a little later around 8 pm there will be fewer families trying to get a reservation for those times. Being flexible with your reservation time will help those with larger parties the most. This may mess up your normal eating times and change around a few plans for your trip, but if you do a good job at planning your day around the odd meal times your vacation will go pretty smooth.
My next tip is; you are going to need to know where you are going to be on property on the day that you making your reservations for. That may have been a little confusing so let me explain. If you don’t have park hopper tickets, then you will need to make sure that you are making a reservation in the park that you will be going to on that day. Because it would really suck if you made a reservation for 50’s Prime Time at Hollywood Studios and didn't realize that you had made plans to go to EPCOT that day. If this were to happen you wouldn't be able to make your reservation at 50’s prime time because it’s in a different park. If you do have park hopper tickets, you don’t have to worry about that as much.
My next tip goes along with the previous tip of knowing where you are on property. You need to make sure you have planned out enough transportation time to and from your reservation location. Disney’s transportation system does a great job of getting its guests to and from their resorts and the parks, but it gets really tricky when you’re trying to get from resort to resort. My general rule of thumb for the amount of travel time is 30-min if you are traveling from your home resort to park or from park to park. If you are going from your home resort to another resort, I would most definitely give yourself an hour window of travel time. I know you’re thinking, “What an hour? That’s crazy!” Yes, it is. But Disney resorts don’t have a way of transportation from resort to resort, unless you are going to one of the three monorail resorts. If you are traveling from resort to resort you will have to go to one of the parks or Disney Springs in order to get to another resort. And of course you could always use the options of your own vehicle or calling a cab. But, if you are solely using Disney Transportation throughout your trip; then I would suggest planning to already be at one of the parks or Disney Springs and leave from there to get to the resort where your reservation is. Also, if you are making a breakfast reservation and that park is not open at the time of your reservation it may be a little tricky to get there using Disney Transportation. The buses don’t start running until 45 min before park open so just be aware of what time that park opens on the day you are making your reservation.