This Disney World Dining Change Just Saved You an HOUR

Things in Disney World are changing and you need to keep up!

There’s construction going on in all kinds of places as various new attractions and updates are being worked on. Disney has begun the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, but some booths won’t open until later this year. And the 100th Anniversary will soon be celebrated more fully in EPCOT. But on top of all of that, Disney World has announced an Advance Dining Reservation change that could REALLY impact your trip planning!

The Change

In early August 2023, Disney announced that the Advance Dining Reservations system at Disney World (and Disneyland) would be getting an overhaul to “simplify” the planning experience. Here’s what will be changing.

Under the old/current system, if you are looking for a dining reservation in Disney World, you are able to search by a specific meal period (breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.) AND by a specific time (7:30AM, 8:30AM, etc.). The system only displays a limited number of available times under each heading, making things a little complicated.

Looking for that perfect reservation time at Chef Mickey’s? Well, if you searched by “breakfast,” some reservation times would show up. But if you searched by 9AM, other times that didn’t appear the first time you searched might suddenly pop up!

This made the search for dining reservations a little complicated and more like a game you had to know how to play than a simple way of searching for available times. But that’s all changing!

Thanks to this update, you will be able to see ALL available reservation slots for a particular dining location within the mealtime you’re searching (instead of just a handful of times).

Check out a side-by-side example below of the old system (left) and the new system (right). You can see how the new system shows many more available times!

Plus, reservation availability will be sorted by meal period, so you’ll be able to see whether that 4PM reservation technically falls under the lunch or dinner menu. This can be especially important for some locations (like Space 220, for example) where the difference between the lunch and dinner menus is quite substantial.

Here’s how the change will look on the My Disney Experience app.

Disney previously indicated that the changes would be live on August 2nd on the Disneyland website, though as of the time we checked on August 5th, those changes did not yet appear to have been implemented. The Disney World website change is set to happen in the coming days.

And, from our understanding, both the Disneyland and My Disney Experience (Disney World) apps should see these changes roll out with upcoming app updates on the iOS and Android platforms.

So, why will this change save you some serious time? Let’s take a look!

Why It’ll Save You an HOUR

Again, under the old/current system, finding THE perfect dining reservation time at Disney World can be sort of like a game. You’ll search breakfast and see some times pop up, then search 8:30AM and potentially see a new time listed as available. Search 9AM and another time might show up, and so on.

One way that some guests might have worked around this is by calling Disney World to speak to a Cast Member who might have been able to see the available times in a more convenient way (as they could potentially see all of the available times at once).

If that was once part of your routine — calling Disney World, waiting on hold (which can sometimes be very long, depending on the day), and then ultimately speaking with a Cast Member to try and find that one time that simply wouldn’t pop up through your version of the dining reservations game, then you will soon be able to say “sayonara” to all of that!

No more waiting on hold and no more trying to play with the system. Under the updated reservation system, things should be much more convenient as you should be able to see ALL available reservation spots available at your selected restaurant and timeframe.

Another interesting thing is that the images Disney has shared of the new system seem to indicate that you’ll be able to search for reservations for the ENTIRE day (you can see the “all day” option selected), not just a specific time period. (You can even see how lunch reservations are shown below for 50’s Prime Time Cafe while breakfast reservations are shown for Akershus Royal Banquet Hall.)

So if all you care about is eating at 50’s Prime Time Cafe, for example, but you don’t care if you eat there for lunch or dinner, this should also make your reservation searching process simpler, as you should be able to see ALL available reservations throughout the day.

That’s just one big way that this dining change could save you an HOUR (or maybe more!) when it comes to your reservation planning. Again, the service is set to roll out soon on the Disney World website and My Disney Experience app, so be on the lookout for updates there.

And stay tuned for all the latest Disney news!