Improvements Made to Advance Dining Reservations at Disneyland
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Anyone who’s ever tried making an advance dining reservation (ADR) for a Disneyland restaurant knows how frustrating that process can be. Depending on the restaurant, the competition for a table could be fierce.
Making matters worse, using the website or app to find an available ADR was often annoying.. If there wasn’t anything available and you wanted to search for another day, you were forced to back out of the current page and begin your search all over again.
Recently, Disney announced a few changes to the ADR search process that have since been implemented. Among those changes is the ability to search for an available ADR over a period of up to ten days all at once!
Additionally, tabs are now displayed above the ADR results, indicating which meal period is being displayed. For example, if you don’t see a desired result for dinner, you can now just select the “lunch” tab for instant results, again, without having to completely start over.
This update is now available on both the Disneyland website and app (both iOs and Android). Below, I’ll discuss these changes in greater detail and what you can expect moving forward.
Issues with Advance Dining Reservations at Disneyland
Disneyland die-hards are well aware of the potential complexities of making an ADR. If you’re new to Disneyland and/or ADRs (and if you’re reading this I’m assuming you are), then you’re likely unaware of the common hiccups and loopholes involved.
For example, a seasoned planner would know not to take the unavailability of ADRs at face value. Often, one would simply need to continuously hit refresh between meal period and time searches and an available ADR would magically appear.
Additionally, with the cancellation policy instituting a per person fee if not followed, if you checked again in the days leading up to your desired date (or even day-of) you would, at times, find last minute availability.
Before these recent changes, there have always been a few rules pertaining to advance dining reservations guests had to follow. They are:
You may make an ADR up to 60-days in advance
You must provide a credit card to guarantee your ADR
You must cancel within the stated window to avoid a penalty
These are still true today and apply to all guests, regardless of whether you’re a resort hotel guest or simply visiting for the day. The problem, however, was that the playing field was not level for all, as casual guests often find themselves at a disadvantage due to not being aware of reservations.
If you weren’t a seasoned pro and didn’t look for ADRs first thing in the morning 60-days out, you would often find yourself out in the cold. Even worse, most casual guests aren’t even aware that you can make reservations that far out (or even at all). So they’ve arrived disadvantaged.
These new features won’t solve these issues entirely, as I feel Disney needs to do a better job at advertising the reservation policies to guests and said guests need to do their own legwork to secure them, but they certainly help to smooth out a previously bumpy process.
The New 10-Day Search Feature for Dining Reservations
As mentioned above, when searching for a Disneyland ADR, you would select your desired date, party size and meal period. You would then be presented with a list of restaurants with availability within the parameters of the information you have entered.
Assuming you weren’t satisfied with the results and wanted to search for another day of your visit, you would need to back out and begin the process all over again. Meaning, you would need to re-enter all of your information, not just a new date.
With the recent change, you can now search up to ten days at once, making the process much easier. You have two options in which to do this:
Select “Check all Availability” on the Disneyland website or “Check Dining Availability” in the app. Then select your party size, desired date, and meal period. You’ll then presented with a list of restaurants. Under each restaurant, you’ll see “Check Availability for Multiple Days”. Select that to search a range of up to ten days if you don’t see any initial times.
On the Disneyland website, go to the “Things to Do” tab and select “All Dining”. You’ll be taken to a list of all restaurants. Those that accept ADRs will have “Check Availability for Multiple Days” underneath them. Select that to conduct a range search right from the beginning.
For some reason, Disney IT decided to implement the ten-day search differently between device and method. In the first example above, you cannot conduct a range search from the start when using the app. For some reason, you’re forced to search a singular date before being presented with the ability to select a range of dates.
This presents a potential issue because by having to initially search for one day, you’ll only be presented with restaurants that have availability for that specific date. Other restaurants may have availability on days at either end of the selected date but because you’re presented with limited options, you won’t have a full list to work with.
For example, say you want to dine at Lamplight Lounge for dinner and you’re utilizing the app to conduct your search. You search for May 12 for a party of four, but since there’s no ADRs available, Lamplight wouldn’t be included in the list and consequently, you’re never given the opportunity to search for that particular restaurant.
To circumvent this, I recommend using a computer (or the browser on your phone) to access the actual website. This way you can select the “All Dining” option to see a list of ALL restaurants that accept reservations and conduct a date range search right from the beginning.
Additionally, there will be four tabs at the top of the search results for different meal periods. They’re presented in time ranges, but essentially are for breakfast, lunch, dinner and an “all” option. If you don’t see availability for dinner, you can now easily hit the “Dinner” tab for instant results, rather than having to start over.
As you can see in the image above, the search results will be presented in descending order from top to bottom according to date and for the reservation times, from left to right beginning with the earliest.
The amount of available reservations will vary depending on which restaurant you are trying for, as some are more in demand than others. You’ll seldom see wide open availability for the harder-to-get eateries. Some of these include:
Lamplight Lounge
Blue Bayou
Napa Rose
Carthay Circle
The less popular restaurants typically have many options for dining times, often in just a few days notice or even day-of. In the search results for these restaurants, you’ll often see availability in 15-minute increments, rather than a spatter of random times. Some of these restaurants include:
Wine Country Trattoria
GCH Craftsman Bar & Grill
Great Maple Modern American Eatery
Cafe Orleans
Ultimately, I’m happy with the changes Disney has made to the ADR process. There’s definitely some fine-tuning that needs to occur, along with additional changes for the quirks and annoyances that remain. Overall, it’s made the process less time consuming and more efficient for the guest, which should always be the goal.
Planning a trip to Disneyland? If so, be sure to read 10 Best Disneyland Tips: Park Tickets for tips on saving money on tickets and how to avoid getting scammed. If you’re visiting in May or June, be sure to read Disney Closing Critter Country Indefinitely in May. For information on Pixar Fest, read Pixar Fest 2024: 10 Things to Know. Finally, to save money on Disneyland tickets and vacation packages, visit our friends at Get Away Today.
