Elevate Your Disney Dining Game

This episode highlights essential strategies for securing Disney dining reservations, ensuring listeners maximize their dining experiences during their magical trips. Listeners will learn tips for utilizing the My Disney Experience app, the importance of off-peak reservations, and the value of exploring lesser-known dining spots.

• Overview of the importance of Disney dining reservations 
• Strategies for booking early and utilizing the My Disney Experience app 
• Recommendations for off-peak dining to increase availability 
• Tips for managing larger groups when making reservations 
• Hidden gems: dining options available at Disney resorts 
• Successful strategies for last-minute walk-up options 
• Encouragement to explore new dining experiences and restaurants

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

hey friends, justin here with the people mover podcast, and today, in episode 9 of 2025, we are going to talk about disney dining reservations, so let's kick off the episode right now.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Welcome to the people mover podcast, the length of the iconic ride and your ultimate guide to disney world and disney cruises. Whether you're a first timer or a seasoned fan, we've got tips, tricks and the iconic ride and your ultimate guide to Disney World and Disney Cruises. Whether you're a first-timer or a seasoned fan, we've got tips, tricks and options to elevate your magical journey. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to our Facebook, instagram, tiktok and YouTube at Magic Vacation Family for more Disney magic. Buckle up and let's dive into the world of Disney.

Speaker 1: 0:45

As always, these episodes are brought to you by magicvacationfamilycom. Once again, if you want help planning your next magical vacation, make sure you visit us magicvacationfamilycom, click, book a trip and my wife and I will get back to you and help you plan your next magical vacation. Once again, magicvacationfamilycom. So, like I said earlier, today we are going to talk about Disney dining reservations. So if you're hoping to dine at some of Disney's best restaurants, you're going to need to know how to score a spot. So let's get into it. First off, why are Disney reservations important? Disney World is a popular vacation spot probably one of the most popular vacation spots in the world and the restaurants get booked up fast, especially the fan favorites like Be Our Guest and Cinderella's Royal Table. So if you want to eat at these spots, you need to plan ahead Now. Remember, you can start booking your dining reservations 60 days in advance if you are staying at a Disney resort. So staying at a Disney resort, like I said again in a previous episode, definitely has its benefits. They give you a first shot at trying to get those Disney reservations Now. I highly recommend setting an alarm for 6 am, eastern time, when the reservations open. So basically, the first day of your arrival 60 days prior to that is going to be the day that you're going to want to start booking those reservations. I know from my experience as a travel agent working with our customers. We all help you plan that out and make sure that you know what those dates are and also, based on what your tastes and needs are, I can make recommendations for you as well. Now, one of the biggest things is to understand how to utilize the Disney my Experience app, and that's where you're actually going to be. Making all of these dining reservations is directly in the my Disney Experience app. It's quick, it's easy to use. Plus, the great thing is, while you're actually on your vacation, let's say you wanted to try something else, or you want to maybe try to find a last minute dining reservation somewhere that you may have not tried before. You can actually use the app to find a last minute dining reservation somewhere that you may have not tried before. You can actually use the app to find that. So simply open up the app, search for the restaurant you want and you pick a time. It's really that simple. Now, if the restaurant you want is fully booked, I recommend checking back often, because cancellations can happen up to two hours prior to your reservation time. So if I have a reservation at noon at Cinderella's Royal Table, I could actually have until 10 am to cancel that reservation without any penalty. So make sure you hop on the app and you stay up to date on the app, because the ones that you might try to get that you might not have thought that you could land you might actually be able to get last minute. So always keep up to date on the app.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Another big thing I recommend is, if you're having a hard time trying to get your reservation, try booking off those off-peak hours. The busiest times are usually going to be 12 to 1 pm for lunch and then 5 to 7 for dinner. So if you try to maybe book maybe a late lunch around like 2 or 3 or an early dinner from like 3.30 to 4.30, these times are typically less crowded and you're going to have better luck getting a reservation. Something else I'm going to call out here as well that a lot of people overlook let's say you're traveling with more than four people, let's say it's five people, eight people, whatever it might be, break the party up. So, for example, I was helping out a family that had a party of eight. So instead of doing a reservation for eight, which is really going to be hard to get, we broke it up into reservations of four and we were able to get more reservations available to us because we weren't restricting ourselves to just eight people. So keep that in mind when you are also trying to book those reservations. Keep that in mind when you are also trying to book those reservations.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Another thing that gets overlooked all the time is the resort that you're staying at actually has a lot of amazing dining options. So, for example, if you're staying at Disney's Polynesian Village Resort, ohana is a fantastic option. If you want to dine whether you want to do breakfast or you want to do dinner highly recommend either one of them. We love it all the time. Stitch is out at breakfast and then at nighttime. It's kind of luau style, right. So a luau and plus, depending on the time that you're eating and dining, at Ohana, you can actually see the fireworks from Cinderella's Castle. Also another tip resort hotels are a hidden gem. They usually offer great food and unique experiences and a lot of the times they have more availability because most people are trying to just get to a park and dine there. So don't rule out the different Disney resorts, because they have a lot of great options that do get overlooked and usually have quite a bit of availability. So, like I said again, what if you can't get the reservation that you want? Don't worry, there's still options available.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Now I have had a lot of luck doing walk-up requests and actually walk-up availability. Like I said earlier, there could be a time or there could be people that canceled their reservation last minute or a couple hours prior and people weren't checking back on the app. Go to the restaurant themselves, say, hey, what is the wait time? Is it possible to get on a standby line? Is there any walk-up availability? A lot of the times they can try to figure something out. Now I'm not saying it's going to work every time, but I have had a lot of great success being able to walk up and find a table. Now, like I said, a family of four is going to be easier than a family of eight or a couple of two, but guess what? You're going to be able to hopefully get something that's going to meet your expectations or exceed them, and the other thing that I recommend is be open to other dining spots. You might be on these different blogs, you might go to the different Facebook groups and you only see maybe some of these certain restaurants.

Speaker 1: 6:21

I know that I've brought up Ohana, I know I've brought up Cinderella's Royal Table, but Jungle Cruise Canteen, that's a great one that you don't hear people talking about a lot. That's one of those ones that we had kind of ruled out in the past, that we had never really tried. We've walked past it a thousand times going through the park, never stopped there. Now, my wife and I and the kids, we couldn't find any dining reservations available. It was like peak season Everything else was packed. But Jungle Canteen we were able to actually do a walk-up and get on the wait list and I will tell you I really regret the fact that that was the first time I tried that restaurant and I had probably been to Disney at least 50 times prior to that. So be open to new dining spots. Don't just try everything that is trendy. Try something new, because it might be one of those restaurants that becomes one of your favorites, just like ours was.

Speaker 1: 7:16

I know this episode is kind of short, but there you have it, your go-to tips for Disney dining reservations, from booking early to exploring new spots. Also, like I said, making sure you're staying up to date on your app as well. Right, keep checking back. If there's a real certain place that you want to eat at and you want to dine out with your family or your friends, keep checking back. Also, feel free to walk up, try to see if there's any walk-up availability, but also if there's anything else that you need help with with your Disney dining or your upcoming vacation, you want to plan a vacation, let us know. That's why we are here at Magic Vacation Family. We're here to help you make your trip stress-free and full of magic. But until next time, let's keep the magic alive and I will see you at episode number 10.