Am I missing something on how to get dining reservations?

[Brittney Cornwell]

It looks to me like pretty much everything is booked for my trip in January alreay. Am I missing something or is it really the cut throat getting a reservation?

 

[kanerf]

Cutthroat it is. Try changing the party size, that sometimes works.

 

[Brittney Cornwell]

Cutthroat it is. Try changing the party size, that sometimes works.

Holy moly! What time do they release reservation at?

 

[Disnsyncey]

The morning of 60 days in advance, and on site guests can book 60 days plus the length of their stay....

 

[CarolynFH]

Holy moly! What time do they release reservation at?

The morning of 60 days in advance, and on site guests can book 60 days plus the length of their stay....

At 6:00 AM Eastern time!

BTW the suggestion to look for different size party is good, especially if you’re a group of 3 or 5, etc.For some reason the system has problems finding space for them but will happily book tables of 4 or 6. You won’t be charged if you show up with fewer people than you booked.

 

[HikingFam]

Make sure you are clicking on various times and not just “dinner.”

 

[Leigh L]

Make sure you are clicking on various times and not just “dinner.”

THIS!
We're at WDW now and I finally figured this out. In the app, I've found I had to click on every half hour at times to get stuff to show, other times it will show results within 2 hours.

Also, we are a party of two, before we got here 60-30 days out, 3 was the magic number for finding ADRs for us,

 

[etapi]

Earlier today, I booked a 12:30 pm table by searching for a 2:00 pm reservation. It wouldn’t show when I tried to search for “Lunch” or any other time slot, let alone 12:30.

THIS!
We're at WDW now and I finally figured this out. In the app, I've found I had to click on every half hour at times to get stuff to show, other times it will show results within 2 hours.

Also, we are a party of two, before we got here 60-30 days out, 3 was the magic number for finding ADRs for us,

 

[Deb & Bill]

Just don't book a smaller sized table than you need. They won't be able to increase to a larger table. Smaller table might be easier though.

 

[zoo2tycoon]

It was rough this morning! Got things but not exactly what we wanted
Tried tricks listed here

 

[loves to dive]

Can't say about now but pre-Covid things will open up on a daily basis as people tend to book more than one thing and then cancel. We actually never book in advance, we always book day of around mid-afternoon and have never had any problems finding something. Of course, that was when you could park hop and we didn't want character or buffet and liked trying new things.