Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday Dining at Disney World

A holiday trip to Disney World is a special event. You’re braving the crowds, you’re immersed in the seasonal vibe, and you also have some questions to answer. If you always go to Aunt Jane’s for Thanksgiving dinner, or Cousin Colin’s for Christmas, what are you going to do for a holiday meal at Disney World? Never fear, TouringPlans is here! We’ve got a rundown on your options, and the good news is that there’s plenty of lamb, ham, and turkey to go around.

Note: We’re focusing on U.S. Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas here. But much of what’s below applies to Easter or other holidays that have “traditional” menu items. Also worth knowing: most major food allergies, such as eggs, fish, shellfish, gluten, milk, peanuts, soy, tree nuts, or wheat, can be accommodated at Disney’s restaurants. This is true year-round, but you may also find allergy-safe alternatives for seasonal menu items.

A Traditional Meal, Quick Service Style

Throughout any holiday season, Quick Service menus will be dressed up with limited-time items, mostly desserts. These help to bring the seasonal feel, but they’re not going to make an entire seasonally themed meal. Without fail, on the day itself, many Disney World resorts will have a traditional Thanksgiving or Christmas meal on offer at one of the Quick Service dining locations.

This full-meal option goes from the food courts at the All-Stars to the Mara at Animal Kingdom Lodge. If the resort does not offer any Table Service dining, then there will definitely be a full meal available and not just a seasonal dessert or side. These day-of-only meals may not be published in advance alongside lists of the seasonal items, but they’ll be there. You don’t need a reservation for Quick Service locations, but if you plan to Mobile Order, you will want to keep an eye on pickup windows and confirm that the specials will be on the Mobile Order menu.

In the parks, you may find some Quick Service restaurants offering a variation on a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. But at EPCOT, there are interesting seasonal dishes spread throughout the World Showcase.

At EPCOT, the Festival of the Holidays begins the day after Thanksgiving and runs through December 30 every year. In addition to entertainment, the Festival features temporary kitchens set up throughout the World Showcase, serving seasonal holiday dishes from around the globe. You’ll find latkes at L’Chaim, traditional turkey at the American Holiday Table booth, Turkey Poutine at Refreshment Port, and a sushi Christmas tree at the Shi Wasu kitchen in Japan. You can spend a delightful afternoon wandering the booths here, even if it’s not what you’ll look to for your holiday feast.

A Traditional Meal, Table Service Style

There are two restaurants at Disney World that serve turkey, gravy, stuffing, and mashed potatoes 365 days a year. Those are Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom and Garden Grill in EPCOT. Whether or not you’re good at math, I think you can guess that those two spots alone can’t possibly meet the Disney World-wide demand for turkey dinner on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Disney has also figured this out, and nearly every Signature or Table Service restaurant tweaks its menu for holiday dining.

You’ll find both entrees and sides with traditional favorites such as roast turkey, ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pies, and the like. Turkey will be the rule on Thanksgiving; Christmas meals will offer more variety with some locations leaning to ham, lamb, prime roast, or venison, and Easter will find a lot of lamb and ham. What you won’t find is that these holiday menus are announced well in advance, which makes it hard to plan around them. Luckily, there’s still a good way to choose where to eat. Let’s take a look at some of those items that were available only on Thanksgiving Day in a past year.

• Jiko – The Cooking Place (Animal Kingdom Lodge – Jambo House)
  • Thanksgiving Day Feast: Turkey breast ballotine stuffed with braised leg, Doro wat, haricot verts, butternut gnopi, Yukon gold mashed potatoes, mealie stuffing, cranberry chutney, and turkey gravy
• Sanaa (Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village)
  • Thanksgiving Day Dinner: Spiced turkey, turkey confit, roasted squash, mashed potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, green beans with apricot butter, traditional stuffing, ginger-cardamom cranberries, and turkey gravy
• Flying Fish (The Boardwalk)
  • Chef’s Holiday Special: Slow-roasted turkey, herb gravy, and Yukon gold potatoes
• Citricos (The Grand Floridian)
  • Butternut Squash Bisque with guajillo spiced pepitas, chive oil, and coconut
  • Roulade of Turkey with corn cake “stuffing”, cranberry gastrique, and sweet potato
  • A trio of Autumn-inspired house-made ice creams
• Boatwright’s Dining Hall (Port Orleans, Riverside)
  • Thanksgiving Feast: Herb-crusted turkey roulade with Andouille cornbread stuffing, sweet potato purée, crispy brussel sprouts with apples and spiced pecans, cranberry relish, and apple cranberry gastric
  • Flavors of Fall: Pumpkin cheesecake with a sour cream bourbon topping, spiced cherry coulis, meringue, pumpkin bread croutons, and salty chocolate décor

What are you supposed to see here? Well, Jiko and Sanaa, which serve African-inspired cuisine, have African twists on their Thanksgiving dishes. Instead of cornbread stuffing, Jiko has mealie stuffing, which sounds exciting if you don’t know that mealie is basically cornmeal. A rose by any other name, right? And Jiko, which is “fine dining,” has fancy turkey breast ballotine, but Sanaa, which is a more moderate restaurant, hasn’t gussied up its turkey outside of some spices.

Continuing along this theme, you see that the Flying Fish, which serves American cuisine, has a very middle-of-the-road Thanksgiving menu. The lineup at Citricos reflects its reputation for gourmet dining and inventive food, and Boatwright’s at Port Orleans reflects the Louisiana and Southern cuisine of the resort’s theme.

The takeaway: Even when Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter dishes are touched with the cuisine and style of the restaurant, you’ll still easily recognize your holiday meal. Choose a restaurant where you want to eat off the regular menu, and make your holiday reservations there. And make those reservations you should!

The difficulty of making Advanced Dining Reservations has come down quite a bit over the last several years, but you’re looking for a meal during a peak time for Disney World attendance. Fortune favors the prepared, so reserve when your dining window opens according to the 60+10 rule. In 2025, 60 days before Thanksgiving is September 28. And in every year, 60 days before Christmas is October 26.

All that said … if you didn’t hop right on it, all hope is not lost. First, there is availability at some Disney World Table Service restaurant up to within 24 hours of Thanksgiving and Christmas every single year. You may need to be flexible about location and time, but you can get a meal. Second, even if the spot you wanted is booked up, keep checking – reservations can be cancelled up until 2 hours before time, and people do! If you’re looking for a table at a Disney Springs restaurant, check on Open Table; you may find reservations there even if Disney is “sold out”. And finally, keep an eye out; some restaurants will list their Thanksgiving meals as being available for takeout, even if they do not normally offer takeout.

A Traditional Meal, DIY

Do-it-yourself covers a wide range when it comes to Thanksgiving meals at Disney World. In one of those “wish I thought of it” experiences for all time, TouringPlans stats guru Steve Bloom and his family carried their Thanksgiving meal into Disney World and ate at the Main Street Train Station. There are other options for the less dedicated (or perhaps, you may be thinking, the less insane).

Disney World prohibits the use of hot plates and hot pots in its regular hotel rooms. But many local restaurants will offer Thanksgiving specials for takeout; advance planning can ensure that your food is hot at mealtime. If you’d like to secure items from local groceries that need last-minute reheating, microwaves can be found in Quick Service restaurants and food courts at the resorts. (And in Studio Villas at Disney Vacation Club Resorts.)

If you’re staying in a 1-, 2-, or 3-Bedroom Villa at a Disney Vacation Club Resort, you’ll have a full kitchen. That gives you options for grocery delivery and home preparation, or delivery of a prepared meal that you’ll simply reheat and serve. Pro tip: if you plan to do the cooking yourself, bring a ziploc with any spices you’ll need from home. And assess the pots and pans when you arrive so you can include any disposable baking gear or the like in your shopping if necessary.

A Non-Traditional Meal

I am Jewish, and we are famed for eating Chinese takeout on Christmas because, well, we don’t celebrate Christmas. (In actuality, many of us eat Christmas dinner and celebrate with friends, the same ones we invited to our seders at Passover.) If you come from a culture or ethnic background that does not do Christmas, you’ll find slim pickings as to your own cultural traditions. But Disney only adds to menus to create seasonal holiday meals, there’s no subtraction. No matter where you choose to eat, you’ll find all the regular menu still on offer on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc.

Are you heading to Disney World for the holidays? What are your dining plans? Let us know in the comments!