Does anyone else find it a little ironic that a restaurant that is literally named, “Be Our Guest” can be so hard to get in to?
Anyone who has ever called 6 months in advance just to find out they are completely booked knows what I am talking about here. But guess what? Last night I got a seemingly impossible dinner reservation at Be Our Guest and you can do it too. In fact, you can use these tips for any popular Walt Disney World restaurant.
Now please don’t hold it against me that I have had a little practice with this process. If you called Disney Dining at 407-WDW-Dine at any time between 2008 and 2011 or so – I might have been the one that answered the phone and got you in at your favorite Disney restaurants. However…I wasn’t a miracle worker then and I am certainly not one now. Anyone has a chance to get into the most popular Disney restaurants at the last minute by utilizing these simple tips I am about to share with you today.
I’m going to start by stating the obvious. You best bet is to plan way in advance. There are lots of articles out there with tips on how to go about doing this. However, this particular blog post is for those of you out there who for whatever reason didn’t have the luxury of planning so far ahead.
So here is step one: try getting in 2 days before and even 1 day before you want to dine. First go on-line to WaltDisneyWorld.com and if that doesn’t work, make the phone call to Disney dining reservations at 407-WDW-Dine. In training we were always told that table inventory was exactly the same on-line and over the phone, however, for whatever reason, the system CAN show different times of availability. I have seen it happen with my own eyes. So go ahead and try both methods. You can book dining as late as 3 hours in advance but either 2 or 1 day before you are wanting to dine is your best bet. Why? Because guests will cancel either 2 or 1 day before their reservation so that they don’t get hit with the $10 per person penalty depending on the policy of the respective restaurant. That is when you can hit the jackpot, swoop in, and score your dream dining reservation.
Even if you aren’t able to accomplish your booking with step one, there is still a glimmer of hope in step two. Don’t go out of your way, but if you are close to a restaurant that you would really love to try, ALWAYS walk up to the hostess stand and ask politely if they are taking walk-ins. You just never know. This works best if you are in a smaller party of 1 to 4 people. When we dined at Be Our Guest for our late dinner, we were told they had been taking walk-ins all evening. Please be nice and be understanding if they are completely booked. They can’t give you what is not there…but it never hurts to ask…especially if you are very nice about it.
It’s OK to keep asking too. Don’t be annoying and keep bugging them every hour – BUT do try again later if you are close by and notice there aren’t a lot of guests waiting around with pagers. I have experience with working at a hostess stand at Disney as well — and I can tell you there were many days where one hour we could not take walk-ins and then an hour or two later on that same day – we were able to. It all depends on how busy the parks are and how many people just didn’t show up for their dining reservations.
Finally, if all else fails, remember you are still at Disney World! All the restaurants are special in their own ways. Check the internet for those hidden gems that often have availability at the last minute, simply because they don’t get as much “hype.”
Just a few examples:
I have found a real treasure in Biergarten! The food is terrific and they’ve got a German polka band! Restaurant Marrakesh has belly dancers! Don’t forget about the Lava Lounge in Downtown Disney. It shares a kitchen with the Rainforest Cafe – and you never need a reservation because they only take walk-ins. Many Disney resort lounges and bars serve appetizers and even full meals. You can walk right up and order fast.
Best wishes in your last minute search and “Be Our Guest” to use these tips and score some great dining! If you enjoyed this post be sure to check out our next WORLD SECRET: HOW TO GET A PRINCESS MAKEOVER WHEN THE BIBBIDI BOBBIDI BOUTIQUE IS FULLY BOOKED!
There are even more World Secrets to be found HERE. Have a magical day!
Disneyways 
Krista — so true. My daughter booked Chef Mickey’s 3 hours before she wanted to go on a Sunday IN JULY!! for a party of 4, When she arrived, there were 20 empty tables (I think people are double and triple and quadruple booking and no one is taking advantage of their cancellations).
20 empty tables?! Wow! Glad she got in though, that’s good news. 🙂
My wife was able to score us a reservation at “Be Our Guest” within minutes of our plane touching down at Orlando International Airport @ 8/4/14, 6:30 am. While waiting at the car rental booth my wife checked for a reservation using the Disney World phone app. Lo and behold there was one available for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, she tried to get this time but it would not go through. She went ahead and called the WDW dinner reservations about it and they said that someone else probably booked that time. She tried a couple of more times while we were still waiting in line and another time slot opened up for 4 p.m. (8/4/2014). After a very short conference she went ahead and booked it for later that afternoon. Yes it was a bit hectic to head to the Magic Kingdom having just arrived that day, but it was well worth it. We had possibly the best seat in the house, in the very middle of the main window, we could see the entire main dining hall.
Your tips on this page did help us score these reservations. Our advice: Try calling reservations a couple of days before your arrival 7.a.m. Orlando time. If there is one other thing else that helps, it is being flexible, while 7 p.m. on Wednesday would have been our preferred time, it was not meant to be. Monday @ 4 p. .m. (the day we arrived) worked out just as well, in fact maybe even a little better.
It makes me very happy to know this post helped you a little – and I love that you had the best seat in the house — wow!! That’s fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing, Paul!
Just got a dining reservation at 8am today for Be our Guest at 4:45 tomorrow in June!!! Thank you so much this article helped a lot!!!
YAY!!! So glad to know this. Thank you Nicholas for sharing! 🙂
When we went to WDW last November, I hadn’t been able to book a dinner reservation for BOG, even though I’d been trying every day for months. I was finally able to get a reservation for our last park night (a Saturday) two days before! My husband and I were at the Magic Kingdom, riding on the Railroad and I thought, “I’ll give it a try one more time,” and was able to book it through My Disney Experience on my phone! When I told my husband it worked, we high-fived each other. Lol! So it CAN happen! We had a fantastic meal, with a really wonderful server,and we were the last guests to visit with Beast that evening. It was a great finale to our trip!
Thanks for the tip. I am going on New Year’s Day 1/1/16. I started looking at the 180 days before and had no luck trying multiple times a day for a week until one day found a dinner reservation I really wanted (only times for ordering cakes for special occasion). Made it for 6 people. But now having the problem that my party has changed to 7 people and can’t find reservations for just 1 more person they told me to keep looking to add 1 person within 15-20 minutes of My original reservation…. So hard but trying
I know they will do the best they can to fit her in. No promises but…even the day of – at the podium tell them again. Don’t give up! Let me know how it goes.
I have walked up to the podium on two different occasions and got a table for two within minutes during the dinner hour.