After a bit of a false start, the dining reservation search improvements have returned to the Walt Disney World website and the My Disney Experience app. We first noticed the improvements on the morning of June 23rd, and by that afternoon, Disney had rolled back the changes. For the rest of the 23rd and into the morning and early afternoon of the 24th, the old search interface was present on both the Walt Disney World website and My Disney Experience app. Later yesterday, the new search functionality returned to the website and app. This morning, the new search interface is still present on the website and app, giving us a bit of confidence that it’ll stick this time. Here’s a reminder of the changes that you’ll see!
New Dining Reservation Search Functionality Returns
Dining Availability Calendar
Disney has wisely leveraged its theme park reservation calendar to now display dining availability for individual restaurants. In our screenshot below, you can see availability for the Space 220 Restaurant by date. A green dot indicates that there is availability, whereas a greyed-out circle indicates that no reservations are available.
Time Slider for Granular Searching
Another update made to the dining search page for the Disneyland website is a slider that allows you to pick a more specific time range for your dining reservation search. Previously, you would either be able to pick “all day” availability, or “morning”, “afternoon”, or “evening”. Now, you can pick specific hours that you’d like to search.
Date Range Searching
This is a feature that has been available for individual restaurants, but it has not been available for multiple restaurants at a time. Now, if you choose a date range and you don’t choose a specific restaurant, you will be presented with all relevant restaurants that match the date range and any other search criteria you may have entered.
More Obvious Location Filtering
With this latest update, you’ll be able to filter by location quite easily. While more granular filtering options are available under the “Filter” button, Walt Disney World has moved some of the top-level locations to the top of the page to allow guests to narrow their search even more. This includes the theme parks, area resorts, and Disney Springs.
All of these updates have made it into the My Disney Experience app as well, giving guests an unprecedented level of control and granular searching capabilities. The end result of these updates is more control and more relevant info at the fingertips of guests. This is a wonderful update that has built upon the already wonderful March 2024 update to the dining search system.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
