Newbie Reservation Question...

[AngSim]

Hello all!
I am very new to all of this Disney craziness. I planned a last minute trip to New Smyrna the week of June 6 and we thought we would bop over to Magic Kingdom for the day. I had no idea that we should have started planning this months ago to get into a restaurant!
My question is about dining reservations that open up. If someone cancels, does it automatically pop up, or does it reset the next day and become available? Just wondering if I'm spinning my wheels looking at the dining reservation page every hour.
Thanks!

 

[sharonabe]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I do have some advice that might calm your nerves.

There is a 24 hr cancellation policy at Disney. If you don't cancel and you don't show, you are charged $10 pp. Because of this policy, there are a lot of reservations (ADRs) that open up the day before/day of. So if you don't find something between now and your day trip, be sure to load the app on your phone, so you can look for what's available as you travel.

Also, going outside of MK to one of the MK resort restaurants might be an option. When you're on the website, the only parameters you should set are "lunch" or "dinner" and the size of your party, then see what is available. There may be availability in some of the resort restaurants around MK even now.

 

[Lavitz]

It opens up as soon as someone cancels. This can easily be seen when you're switching your own reservations. As soon as you change your reservation to another time/place, you can search and see your old reservation immediately pop up. This is the basis for the numerous ADR Cancellation threads we have going on here. Check there for the month you need and see if someone is cancelling so you can coordinate so you can grab it.

http://disboards.com/forums/disney-dining-reservations.180/

One thing to note since I've given up a few ADRs to people. Although it usually works as I listed above, sometimes you'll cancel a reservation but it doesn't immediately show up for others, may take up to 15 minutes for it to go through. But the vast majority of the time, it opens up within seconds.

Also don't worry, keep checking. Even if you have to check the week before or a day or two before, people regularly get last minute cancellations, even to popular locations.