No Disney vacation is complete without dining at one of its table-service restaurants. However, it can be difficult to find a dining reservation that fits your schedule at the parks and often times requires planning months in advance to secure it.

Tips to help secure your dining reservation

• Start planning which restaurants that you would like to go to at least 2 months before you trip as this will give you time to figure out which restaurants you would like to go to
• You can start booking a dining reservation 60 days in advance
• The time slots will typically start opening up at 6 AM ET on that day. Be sure to be on the Disney World app (My Disney Experience), the Disneyland app, or their individual websites right before this time to have the best chance at securing the reservation
• If you are staying at a Disney hotel during your vacation then your booking window will open up 60 days in advance for your entire stay (for up to a 10 night stay). This comes in very handy as you can book restaurants before many other people are even able to. This is especially important for the harder to book restaurants such as character dining.
• Is your restaurant already booked for the time/day you are looking for? Consider utilizing a service such as MouseWatcher. Using this website allows you to pay a small fee to have them monitor reservations for a specific restaurant and then notify you when it becomes available
• Some sit-down restaurants also offer the ability to join a walk-up list. In this way you do not need to have a reservation in place but can join the list to be notified when your table is ready. Keep in mind that you do need to be near the restaurant to be able to join the walk-up list

Be Our Guest Restaurant at Magic Kingdom

Other things to keep in mind

To help keep the cost of any table-service meal down, consider booking a dining reservation earlier in the day for breakfast versus lunch or dinner, as it is typically lower in price.

For Character meals, booking a breakfast dining time will still offer the same ability to see all the typical characters at any given restaurant.

Cinderella’s Royal Table at Magic Kingdom

As at all Disney restaurants, you do not need to pay for a child less than 3 years of age unless you want them to have their own meal. However, make sure you include all persons in your dining reservation when booking to ensure you are given a table large enough to accommodate your party.

When making a dining reservation consider what other events and activities may be going on at this time such as parades and nighttime spectaculars. You aren’t going to want to miss some of those events during your vacation so make sure to plan accordingly.

Do you have any tips for getting a reservation for your favorite Disney restaurant? If so, please let me know in the comments below!