Note: Advanced dining reservations open for booking 60 days beforehand at 6am ET online or 7am on the phone. If you’re staying at a Disney resort, you can book every day of your resort stay starting 60 days before your check-in day, so that gives you a little leg up on those subsequent days. If you’re not staying at a Disney resort, you have to book one day at a time 60 days before each day of your trip.
One of our favorite parts of a Disney trip is trying all of the fun foods! We make a point of trying at least one new restaurant each trip, but even after all of our trips, we still haven’t eaten at all of them. There are so many great restaurants, and new ones are always opening.
We also love trying the different foods at the kiosks during the various Epcot festivals. That’s another fun thing to do itself – eat your way around the World. We’ve even canceled a dinner dining reservation or two because we felt like staying and eating at more of the kiosks instead. In fact, when we asked the kids what they’re looking forward to most for our next trip, they said it’s doing the food kiosks at the festival at Epcot! I think we’ve accidentally trained them to be foodies. I’m glad they’re willing to be adventurous and try new foods from various countries. See, Disney can be educational!
Types of Dining
There are several categories of dining available at all of the Disney parks and resorts. You can go eat at the resort restaurants even if you’re not staying there, but to go to a park restaurant, you will need a park ticket and reservation that gets you into the park that day.
There are small carts and kiosks pretty much down every path in the parks selling snacks and drinks. That’s where you can get the obligatory Mickey pretzel and Mickey ice cream bars. Yum!
Then, every park and resort has what they call Quick Service or Counter Service restaurants. They’re basically food-court type restaurants where you go up to the counter to order your food and take it to a table yourself. You don’t make reservations for these. You just walk in whenever you want to eat.
There is a great Mobile Ordering feature now where you can preorder from some Counter Service restaurants and some snack counters on your smartphone in the My Disney Experience app. This will usually save you tons of time waiting in line just to order. Sometimes, I’d even do the mobile ordering while waiting in line, and the order will be ready before I even move a few steps up. I can then hop off the line to go to the pickup window. Definitely use it!
TIP: Some places even have secret menu items on their mobile ordering menu not listed on the in-restaurant menu boards.
Finally, every park, Deluxe resort, and some Moderates have Table Service restaurants. These are the typical dining-out restaurants where you get seated and get helped by a server for your entire meal. The most important thing to remember is that these are the ones where you have to make reservations at your 60-day mark, especially if you want to dine at the more popular restaurants and character meals. Many of the popular ones will be booked right away, so set your alarm for 6am ET (actually set it for 5:45am and load up the app or browser tabs early) on your 60th day and hop on to the Disney site or app to book if you have your heart set on any specific ones. Look for the most popular ones first; don’t go in chronological order of your trip days.
Disney Springs also has many of these types of dining options. You can reserve those Table Service restaurants on the Disney site or app. Some are also bookable through Open Table, so check there if the Disney app is not showing availability.
NOTE: If you have allergies or other dietary restrictions in your group, be sure to note that in your dining reservations and ask to speak to a chef when you get there. Disney is great about handling dietary concerns and has allergy-friendly options at most restaurants.
The Disney site/app lists all the restaurants, so you can see their menus and which ones are located where. When making your dining reservations, you’ll want to have an idea of which park you’ll be at on which day or be willing to change your park days based on when you can get a particular reservation.
There are some strategies you can employ for booking restaurants too. If you’re able to get up early, get a very early breakfast time before park opening time. This way, you’ll be done a little before the park opens and be already in the park to get ahead of the crowds. For dinner, book a restaurant that has a view of the fireworks so you can watch them from there. If you love characters, book a character meal with several of the characters that you want to meet, so you don’t have to wait in multiple character lines in the parks.
NOTE: Make sure to cancel any dining reservations at least 2 hours before the reservation time so that you won’t incur a penalty fee for canceling late or not showing up. It’s a $10 per person penalty. Plus, then it frees it up for someone else.
Dining Plans
Update January 2024: Dining plans are back and available to add to any Disney resort booking.
Disney offers several dining plans that you can purchase ahead of time if you are staying at a Disney resort. You are basically pre-paying for a certain number of meals. They can be for Counter Service meals or Table Service meals and snacks. I have more details in my Dining Plans post.
You’ll have to do the math to see if you’ll be able to eat all of the allotted meals to make it worthwhile. Usually, this means eating one of the most expensive entrees and getting the most expensive drink (usually an alcoholic one, if included). Some plans include an alcoholic drink with the meals, so that may tip the cost value over the edge for you, but again, it goes back to what you usually order. Kids over 9 are charged as adults for the table service plans and meals, so you also have to see if your kids will eat like adults. If you add the dining plan to your room package, you have to get it for everyone in your booking for the whole length of your stay.
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Adventures By Anne 