Planning Out Your Dining Reservations

After booking your vacation to Disney World, the first decisions you probably have to make are your dining reservations.  This is because you can reserve them 180 days prior to your visit, or 180 days prior to your first day, if you are booked at Disney Resort.  But, it is not as simple as just deciding where you would like to eat, especially if you are not staying on WDW property.  You see, you need to figure out where you are going to be, so that your meals are both convenient and special.

What I do is create a little chart, even before the 180 days ahead.  It has the dates we are going to be in WDW, including Disney Springs, the booking date 180 days prior, the park or place we will be, which meals we might consider doing sit down dining (or Be Our Guest quick service for breakfast or lunch), how many are going to be dining, and a spot for the restaurant chosen and time assigned.  I start with the park or location, because I need to consider that before I decide where I am going to dine.  It is true that you can always transport over to a resort (or another park if you have Park Hopper), but saving time through thoughtful planning is well worth the effort. Not only that, but several resorts are located right near a park, and become a convenient place to eat.  The number of guests were an issue for us, because a few times we have met up with our parents in the park, or for a meal.  Another consideration is a special event such as a birthday or anniversary, because that person may have a specific place that they want to celebrate.

In our case, planning the parks first was important because our parents only wanted to go to certain parks with us, on certain dates.  After the parks, I researched the menus due to a child that is a picky eater, vegetarians in our party, and one of our parents who is lactose intolerant.  We were also celebrating birthdays, our kids’ and my father-in-law’s (which happen to be three days apart!)  One trip we celebrated them all over breakfast at Chef Mickey’s prior to visiting the Magic Kingdom.  On our most recent trip, we celebrated my kids at T Rex (a surprise, and our choice) and for my father in-law, he chose 50 Prime Times Café in Hollywood Studios.  For Be Our Guest, on our must do list, we decided we preferred the lunch menu, and only got a reservation after much persistence for one of the three days we planned to spend in the Magic Kingdom.

As we were not staying in a Disney Resort, I would get up for 7am on each of the booking dates on my chart, and was able to get reservations at reasonable times for every restaurant we wanted, including some tough ones like Chef Mickey’s, Crystal Palace California Grill twice, and 50s Prime Time.  Be Our Guest only started to offer lunch reservations weeks before we arrived, so that we just had to wait for, and got extremely lucky following a day of frustration and perseverance.  The bottom line was that the chart that I created was very effective, and helped me get my desired dining selections.  I know there is the argument that these kinds of reservations, take the spontaneity out your time at WDW, but if you really want to try a particular dining experience or character meal, it makes sense to have thought everything through.  Also, be aware that a credit card is needed for each reservation, but it can be cancelled up to a day ahead.

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Be Our Guest is a quick service restaurant during breakfast and lunch, that requires a dining reservation, usually 180 days in advance.