Walt Disney World has rolled out major improvements to the Advance Dining Reservations system, which simplify and improve the search for restaurant availability. Here we’ll share the news and offer commentary about these updates, and the latest on ADR availability.
This is actually the fourth or fifth round of modernizations to the My Disney Experience and Disneyland apps (and websites) aimed at streamlining the Advance Dining Reservation (ADR) booking process. And you know what? They’ve been fantastic. The Summer 2025 upgrades aren’t quite as massive of game-changers as last year’s improvements, but they’re still big wins.
This site is often critical of Disney IT or skeptical that things will go smoothly, but I can’t think of a single complaint about the ADR app changes of the last two years. They’ve been great. We have spent far less time doing the whole dance–searching, refreshing, rechecking, and so forth. In fact, Disney IT as a whole seems a lot more reliable and prone to fewer problems–we haven’t experienced any discount drop day downtime or interminably long virtual queues in the last couple of years. (With Oogie Boogie Bash tickets going on sale this week, I fear I’m going to regret typing this paragraph…)
Part of the reason we’re wasting less time searching for ADRs is because availability has improved and reservations are now less competitive than they were for a couple of years during the height of pent-up demand, staffing shortages, and reduced restaurant capacity. This is not a new development–ADR availability has been improving for a while.
In the last two years, the impact of the Disney Dining Plan has not been nearly as significant as expected. This is a major departure from what used to happen. Back in the good ‘ole days (2019 and earlier), the “best” restaurants on the Disney Dining Plan often had limited or no availability. That has not been the case in the last ~18 months.
It used to be much worse during Free Dining ‘season.’ Many restaurants ran out of reservations during Free Dining, including what was otherwise the off-season (mid-August through September). It was so bad that Walt Disney World would warn guests to make ADRs well ahead of time, or risk being shut out of many restaurants. We would frequently receive comments from guests fearful that the parks would actually be packed because ADRs were difficult. (ADR availability has no bearing on crowds–restaurant capacity is very different, and much lower, than the parks as a whole.)
That was not the case last year, and thus far it hasn’t been in 2025. Advance Dining Reservations are easier to book than they’ve been in a long time, even as compared to the ‘normal’ days pre-closure in 2018 and 2019. There are still some restaurants that can be challenging, and it’s always worse for larger parties than it is smaller ones.
This is likely because the paid version of the Disney Dining Plan (that includes table service credits) is prohibitively expensive and because there are now much better discounts (see 2025 Free Dining vs. Room & Ticket Deals at Disney World: Math on Saving Tons More Money!). Either way, it’s an entirely different dynamic than ~5 years ago. That could change again in 2026, though, with the Free Disney Dining Plan for Kids All Year in 2026 at Walt Disney World Deal!
The extent of the restaurant options we’ve been seeing is pretty remarkable. Restaurants like Chef Mickey’s, Story Book Dining at Artist Point, Akershus, Cinderella’s Royal Table, Topolino’s Terrace, California Grill, Space 220, and others all have had better availability for many travel dates in 2025. Of course, this still varies by party size and seating time. If you’re trying to find a table for 8 at Space 220, you’re still going to have challenges. But ADRs have gotten so easy that I actually had a tough time finding good illustrative examples for these new features!
The other reason finding ADRs has been is easier is the already streamlined search feature, which now makes it possible to find ADRs for the entire day. Not only is search simpler, but it’s smoother. In the past, we found ourselves having to toy around with our times to try to get seemingly “hidden” results to display–searching by half-hour instead of by meal service and so forth.
It used to be a running joke that The Algorithm™️ displayed the 3 least desirable times when displaying only a few results at a time. Whether this was a clever move to redistribute demand throughout the day to less busy times or a classic Disney IT fail was always up for debate, but we erred on the aside of always assuming nothing Disney IT did was a game of 4D chess.
That’s not a problem at all anymore–what you see is what you get. You can now see all available reservation time slots at a restaurant for the entire day on DisneyWorld.com, Disneyland.com, and the My Disney Experience and Disneyland apps. Reservations are sorted by breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, so you can easily choose a time based on the menu you’d like to enjoy. We simply search all-day and go from there. That alone made finding Advance Dining Reservations for popular restaurants much easier.
Well, more changes have now rolled out as of late June 2025!
At-a-Glance Availability Calendar
Walt Disney World now offers a reservation-style calendar that’s enabled from the restaurant page after you input the party size. This should look familiar to anyone who has used the theme park reservation tool, and we’re going to assume it’s built on the same or similar infrastructure.
You can view multiple months at once, as opposed to searching a limited date range and repeating the process over and over again. This should help guests quickly identify days that still have ADRs for specific restaurants.
A green dot indicates reservation availability, whereas a greyed-out circle indicates that no reservations are available. The slash shows when a restaurant is closed, which is relevant for certain restaurants that still aren’t operating on a nightly basis (Toledo in Gran Destino Tower comes to mind).
This is going to be most helpful for high-demand restaurants, which are basically just limited-capacity lounges and a handful of character dining experiences at this point. It may also be helpful to super-sized parties of 6+ guests, but frankly, I had few issues even when searching for those.
The two above examples, GEO-82 and Space 220 Lounge, are two extremes. These small spaces in EPCOT are undoubtedly where this tool is most useful, as both routinely run out of reservations 60+ days in advance. In fact, neither had anything for any party size when I did my search–and this is during the summer slow season!
Here’s a better example:
This is Space 220 Restaurant for a party of 8. Note that Space 220 Lounge and Restaurant are two very different things despite being (quite literally) tables apart. We ate in the “lounge” recently and the table no more than 5 feet from us was in the “restaurant.”
The advantage of the lounge is an a la carte menu, as opposed to prix fixe. I also like the location of the lounge better, as you’re guaranteed to be on the highest tier of the dining room, which offers the most expansive view of the screens. There’s also the Space 220 Lounge’s bar, which (as the name suggests) is bar seating. This is a tricky one because your back is to outer space, but there’s a mirror in front of you reflecting the view. Anyway.
Space 220 Restaurant was only a challenge once I expanded the party size. For just the 3 of us, we would’ve had our pick of dates anytime between today and late August 2025. This should underscore how easy ADRs have become, and hopefully is a signal that Space 220 will participate in the 2026 Disney Dining Plan (fingers crossed!).
High-Level Date Range Search
This should look familiar, because date-range searching has been available for specific restaurants for over a year. Basically, this was the screen you’d see before for Space 220, GEO-82, etc., as opposed to the calendar view.
As of late June 2025, date-range search has been expanded to the Walt Disney World booking engine as a whole, meaning multiple restaurants at once. You can now choose a date range when starting your WDW-wide search (without picking a specific restaurant), and the system will return restaurants that match the date range and any other limiting search criteria you may have entered (below).
ADR Time Slider
From there, you have granular control over the time you’d like to search for reservations via a slider that allows you to choose a window. Or, you can leave it undisturbed for all-day availability.
Previously, you’d have the option for all-day availability or could narrow your results to morning, afternoon, or evening. This is a huge change, as there’s a tremendous amount of variance in some of those. Evening included the first seating for dinner, which could be 4 pm or 5 pm, as well as the last, which could be 10 pm or later.
As a recently-minted Disney Dad, I really appreciate this change. In the past, we’d simply eat whenever there was availability–as childless Disney Adults, we could make the first seating or the last seating work. As parents, we basically have a 90-minute window for each meal. And even then, we routinely find ourselves telling servers that we’ll take the bill with the meal. (For the non-parents out there, this is basically the plot of Gremlins, going from adorable Gizmo to mischievous Stripe.)
Choose Your Destination
Location filtering has always existed, but this refines that and makes it more user-friendly. Walt Disney World has moved the major high-level locations to the search flow to allow guests to narrow their parameters even on the basis of what’s most logical. This includes the theme parks and their accompanying area resorts, as well as Disney Springs.
I’m especially a fan of the “nearby resorts” checkbox for each park. Well, except Animal Kingdom. From my perspective, this should be limited to restaurants that are accessible by novel transportation or walking–not via a bus. Once you’re waiting for a bus, it’s a roll of the dice as to whether Animal Kingdom Lodge or Riviera Resort will take longer to access.
Then again, maybe this is a tease of the long-speculated Skyliner extension to Animal Kingdom? Maybe we’re finally getting a route for Coronado Springs to Animal Kingdom?!? (No, we definitely are not–this is just continuity to make the appearance consistent with the other parks.)
ADR Results Screen
Once you’ve input your parameters, the search results spit back everything that matches. This results screen should look familiar to anyone who has searched for Advance Dining Reservations in the last year or so.
If you’re getting “too many” results, you can tweak the 4 quick filter boxes at the top of the screen:
The easiest option is narrowing your time range even further or adjusting your date range. Presumably, your party size is going to remain unchanged.
It’s funny–a few years ago, we would’ve loved these tools in order to cast a wider net because ADR availability was so limited. There were so many times when we’d search over and over again, only to keep coming up empty. We even resorted to searching for parties of 3 when it was just the two of us, as many restaurants didn’t offer tables for solo travelers or couples.
Now, it’s the exact opposite. ADRs are so abundant that I found myself usually the granular control to really tailor and limit my results. That’s definitely not a bad problem to have, especially for the obsessive planner types who read blogs like this one. It’s also great that the ADR system can be used to narrow options so they fit alongside Lightning Lanes and other reservations.
ADR availability is so easy at this point that I would probably make my Lightning Lane selections before even bothering with most ADRs–except the lounges above and a few key character meals. That probably sounds like heresy to longtime Walt Disney World planners, though.
A condensed version of these same booking tools are also now available in the My Disney Experience app. Obviously, it displays a bit differently with more limited screen space, but the idea is exactly the same. It’s impressive how fluid and well all of this works.
Disney IT has been working on these improvements for a couple of years now, and it really shows. Everything is thoughtfully done, intuitive, and actually works. The user experience and interface are fantastic.
It’s honestly unfortunate that this same time and attention to detail weren’t given to the original Genie system. It still would’ve been hated for being a paid system replacing free FastPass, but maybe not quite as much!
All of these changes are great for both diehard Disney fans and first-timers, as they make searching for ADRs easier and more intuitive. As with just about all facets of the planning process, making Advance Dining Reservations was surprisingly unintuitive for the uninitiated in the past. This changes that, and helps bridge the gap between first-timers and power users. As advocates for removing as much friction as possible from Walt Disney World vacations as possible, we’re big fans of these improvements.
Many visitors are unaware that it’s even possible to make ADRs a couple of months prior to their trips, or the ins and outs of booking reservations. These first-timers or casual guests are at a distinct disadvantage as compared to power users who book far in advance and find loopholes for securing multiple simultaneous reservations. (To that point, see our Guide to Advance Dining Reservations (ADRs) at Walt Disney World for tips & tricks to score elusive ADRs, info about the 60+10 rule, and more.)
Walt Disney World has done a lot to even the playing field and make it easier for casual guests to dine at table service restaurants. When the parks reopened, Disney shortened the ADR window from 180 days to the current 60 days. While some fans bemoan this, it has been a positive change for most average visitors. It’s difficult to make firm plans at Walt Disney World that far ahead of time given all of the moving parts of the vacation destination. Few people know where they want to eat so far in advance, final park hours aren’t set, and Lightning Lanes still need to be booked.
Ultimately, these are incremental improvements to Walt Disney World’s dining reservation system that don’t deserve a ton of fanfare in isolation. But in aggregate, there have been multiple phases of improvements to the ADR systems on both coasts aimed at making the process easier for average guests.
We’re very pleased with these enhancements to the Advance Dining Reservation systems at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. We’ve been big fans of all of the updates to the restaurant reservation booking systems on both coasts in the last year or so. It’s exceedingly rare that we find ourselves giving two unequivocal thumbs up to anything Disney IT does, but that’s exactly the case here. Credit where credit is due!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about these enhancements to the ADR systems at Walt Disney World? Any other procedure or policy changes on your ‘wish list’ for Advance Dining Reservations? If you’ve visited or booked ADRs for Walt Disney World in the last few months, what has been your experience? Have you had success at the last-minute (0-3 days in advance)? Had challenges at the 60+ day mark? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
