Apparently gone are the days of frantically stressing about being online at 5:45am 60 days prior to the start of your trip, strategizing about booking the dining for the last days of your trip first.
This morning I casually slept in until 6:30 (real casual), figuring I might be screwed for our September trip since it’s only a 3 nighter, theoretically putting us at a disadvantage behind anyone staying for the full week who could already start booking our dates several days ago. Instead I had no issues whatsoever booking dining for our party of 4. I easily booked meals at Round Up Rodeo (super popular currently since it’s brand new), Storybook Dining at Artists Point, Topolinos, and Akershus. Just for kicks and giggles I checked the availability at Cinderellas Royal Table, Ohana, Garden Grill, and Be Our Guest also. Tons of options for every day of our trip. For each of these restaurants I could select between multiple reservation times for whichever mealtime I had input. As the true clincher, I even checked my nemesis, Space 220 (the one place I’ve failed to book via stalking obsessively on prior trips), and again there were several options of times to book.
I’m not one to panic about dining reservations, since I usually fail at 60 days out and end up grabbing things that pop open during our trip with pretty consistent success, but whew, it sure is a nice change to easily get all the reservations I was hoping for right off the bat.
I am not on the “Disney parks are empty” bandwagon particularly, although our experience in April was definitely that wait times were shockingly low. I do think there’s a bit of a post 50th anniversary lull right now, which is to be expected. Also I’m booking dining for September, a historically low crowd month in Disney World (back to school and hurricane season). It sure is nice to see so many character dining options open these days though, and I’m so excited to try out two restaurants we’ve never been to on our next trip ! Woohoo!
**Just as a tip, if you do encounter trouble booking your dining, play around with your party size. Even going up in party size can open up more availability as they hold different tables for different party sizes.