Step-by-Step: How to Make a Disney World Dining Reservation On Your Phone

When I’m on vacation at Disney World and trying to manage my dining, it’s easy and convenient on my phone. I can make a same-day reservation for lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe while standing in line for Peter Pan’s Flight, and have my rear in a seat 2 hours later. If I’m running a little late for something I booked months ago, I love being able to shift it back by 15 minutes while I’m on the go.

Never tried making a dining reservation in the My Disney Experience app? I’ll walk you through it below. You can practice everything here (except checking in for a reservation) in advance of your trip – just make sure to cancel any reservations you don’t actually want to keep.

Click on any link below to skip ahead to that section. You can also click on any image to enlarge it. Looking for a website walkthrough? Check out Erin’s post.

How to search for reservations at a specific Disney World restaurant
How to search for reservations at any Disney World restaurant
How to book the Disney dining reservation you found
How to modify a Disney dining reservation
How to cancel a Disney dining reservation
How to check in for your Disney dining reservation
Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated/republished November 15, 2022.

A Quick Note

In order to use the app to book dining, you’ll need to have it installed. And it’s best if you’ve added a stored credit card as your payment method. You can do this by going to your Profile in the app and selecting “Payment Method”. Or, you can go to your profile online in My Disney Experience and select Payment Method; it should become available in the app as well.

Reservations can be canceled up to 2 hours in advance without penalty, but if you’re inside of the penalty window, certain options may not appear in the app. In that case you may need to use your phone … as a phone. You can call the restaurant directly if you have the number, or contact Disney Dining at 407-WDW-DINE (407-939-3463).

Searching by Restaurant

To book at a specific restaurant, you need to start from that restaurant’s card, which can appear in multiple locations, and tap it to open the restaurant’s page. These cards can be found on the Tip Board, on your resort hotel page – lots of places. If you’re not already at a card for the restaurant you want, then I find that search is the fastest way to get to the page. Just click on the looking glass and type the first few letters of the name. Once you’re on the page, click on “Reserve Dining” to get started.

find a restaurant in My Disney Experience using search

Next you’ll select the number of people in your party, the date, and the time you’re searching for. Dates that are available will be blue; if you’re not able to select a date then you may be searching too far in advance. Very important tip: if you search for a specific meal like Lunch or Dinner, that will match up with the meal times that are shown on the screen before you start searching. If lunch is only served until 2 p.m. but you’d be happy with a 2:30 reservation, then you’re better off putting in a specific time.

add details like date and time to your Disney restaurant search and select a result
New choices will fill in on the screen as you give information at each step.

If there are no times available, or you don’t see a time you like, change the date or time of your search and the results will adjust automatically. If you’ve found a time you like, select it and click here to jump to the section that shows you how you’ll finish booking.

Searching for Any Restaurant

Start on any screen and click the big “+” sign on the bottom icon bar, then click “Check Dining Availability”. You’ll enter your party size and the date, then select the time. Dates that are available will be blue; if you’re not able to select a date then you may be searching too far in advance. As soon as you’ve selected the time, search results will fill in below. Click on any time to begin booking the reservation.

screens showing how to do a dining search in My Disney Experience
New choices will fill in on the screen as you give information at each step.

Pro tip: If you select “Lunch” or “Dinner” instead of a specific time, that matches up with the meal the restaurant is serving. So if you’re searching for “Breakfast” on a weekend, you won’t see any results from restaurants that serve Brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Be a little careful with these options – sometimes it’s better to put in a specific time.

After your search results come back, you’ll see a little filter on the bottom right – this allows you to restrict the results to a specific park or resort, or narrow down by cuisine. Or both at once! The filter icon tends to disappear as you scroll around; just click the time you searched for again to redo your search and get it back.

scroll and filter results

Booking the Reservation

After you select the time you want to book, you’ll often (but not always) be offered the option to add a Celebration cake. Here I’ve simply skipped ahead to the next screen, where you’ll fill in the contact and payment information. By default, these will be filled in from your My Disney Experience profile, but you can edit all of them. I find that the app remembers these much better than the website does, and that makes it much faster to book dining in the app. You can also add Allergy or Accessibility needs by clicking the button underneath the credit card information.

After filling out all your info, make sure to scroll to the bottom and check the Terms & Conditions box. The green “Book Now” button will not become active until after you’ve checked this box. Once it’s active, click the Book Now button. After that, your reservation is booked! You’ll get a confirmation email to the address you provided, and you can click on the “Update Party” link to fill out the rest of the diners from your Friends & Family list if you choose.

How to book a restaurant reservation in My Disney Experience
Not all restaurants will offer the celebration option, and it’s up to you whether to fill in the rest of your party.

Modifying a Reservation

This is absolutely my favorite trick if I’m running behind schedule. It’s never guaranteed that you can turn your 6:15 ressie into a 6:30, but it doesn’t hurt to try. It’s also great if you make a reservation a little earlier or later than you’d prefer and you’d like to check every now and then to see if you can move it to a better time. One thing to note: if you’re within two hours of your reservation time you may not be able to modify, so if you think you might be behind schedule don’t wait until the last minute to try shifting your reservation.

Find the reservation card. If it’s the current day, you might find it on your home screen and you can definitely find it under “My Genie Day”. If it’s a future date, you can find it on your Future Plans.

Click on the reservation card to open up the reservation, then press Modify. Select the new time you’d like to search for, and search results will populate below. You might find that no times are available. If there are times found, then clicking one will take you through the same booking process as when you made the original reservation. When you’re done, you’ll get an email confirmation with the new reservation.

How to modify an existing Dining Reservation in My Disney Experience
If new times are available, they’ll show in the bottom half of the screen after you select the time to search for.

Although you can change the date of a reservation this way, I don’t recommend it. I’ve had issues with reservations where I modified the day not appearing in the restaurant records when I showed up on the new date. In these cases, I recommend simply booking a new reservation on the new date and canceling the old one.

If you need to change the party size, you should be able to decrease it while keeping the same time. To add people, you may need to contact the restaurant.

Canceling a Reservation

Start by finding the reservation card. If it’s the current day, you might find it on your home screen and you can definitely find it under “My Genie Day”. If it’s a future date, you can find it on your Future Plans. Click on the restaurant card, then select “Cancel”, and confirm in the following screen. After your reservation is canceled, you should receive a cancelation email to the address you used when you made the reservation. Note that if you’re within two hours of your reservation time, you may not see the option to cancel – it’s possible you’ll have to call instead.

How to cancel a dining reservation in My Disney Experience - find the reservation, then choose cancel.

Checking In For Your Reservation

Checking in on the app, instead of at the hostess stand, is a new feature that was added post-reopening – it’s called Mobile Dine Check-In. I like to check in while I’m walking in from the parking lot or the monorail station, sometimes my table will be ready just as I’m walking in the restaurant door! Find the restaurant card on your home screen or the “My Genie Day” tab. If it’s close to your reservation time, you’ll see the button to begin checking in.

The Check-in button for your dining reservation
You won’t see the button to check in if it’s too early.

You’ll start by selecting your party size. If some people on your original reservation aren’t with you, now is the time to adjust the number. Next are sections about Accessibility options, Allergies, and Celebrations – click here to see these screens. At the end, you’ll be asked how you want to be notified when your table is ready. Push notifications from MDE are automatic, but I recommend checking the box to get a text and entering your phone number as well.

How to check in for your dining reservation in My Disney Experience

Frequently Asked Questions

If I cancel my reservation in the app, will I be charged the cancellation fee if it’s less than 2 hours away?

Up until recently, reservations needed to be canceled by midnight of the previous day in order to avoid the fee. Now you can cancel without penalty until two hours in advance. If you’re less than two hours out, canceling in the app doesn’t save you from the $10 fee – and you might not even see the option to cancel. Your best bet is to call the restaurant directly (or Disney Dining at 407-WDW-DINE) and see what can be done.

I’m within 2 hours of my reservation time: if I modify it to a later time or a different day and then cancel, will I be charged the cancellation fee?

In my personal experience, this did not incur a fee. But I wouldn’t recommend this except as a last-ditch resort. It won’t work unless you can actually find an open reservation to modify the time to – something that can be difficult for hard-to-get spots. And I couldn’t find an official policy on this, so your mileage may vary. Your best bet is to call the restaurant directly unless you actually want to keep your new time. Keep in mind that if you’re within the 2-hour penalty window, you may not even see the option to Modify.

I need to change the number of people in my group but it doesn’t work when I try to modify the reservation. How do I do this?

In my experience, you can’t modify the number of people in your party by modifying the reservation in the app. If you need to add people, your best bet is to call Disney Dining (407-WDW-DINE) or stop in at the restaurant if you’re already at Disney. If you need to remove people, then unless it’s a significant change you can simply adjust the number when you check in for your reservation.

I’m going to be late for my reservation, what will happen?

First of all, take a deep breath. Next, see if you’re able to modify your reservation time in the app. If not, you can try calling the restaurant directly to let them know you’ll be late. Even if that’s not a possibility, you should know that there certainly won’t be any issue if you’re within 15 minutes of your reservation time. And if you’re later than that, my experience is that Disney World restaurants are very accustomed to having guests appear late because they were stuck on the monorail/bus/Spaceship Earth/etc. Usually it’s not an issue.

I keep searching, but I can’t find a time. What can I do?

For popular spots, this is a common complaint. You can try our free Reservation Finder tool that will search for you and let you know if a reservation is found. You should also try checking the day before; spots tend to open up last minute as people cancel last-minute to avoid the fee.

What are your thoughts on managing Disney Dining in the app? Do you have a favorite tip? Let us know in the comments!

 

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Jennifer Heymont

Jennifer Heymont has a background in math and biology, but since she couldn't pick between the two she ended up in Data Science where she gets to do both. She lives just north of Boston with her husband, kids, and assorted animal members of the family. Although it took three visits for the Disney bug to "take", she now really wishes she lived a lot closer to the Parks.

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