To be among the fortunate few who score an advance reservation, try the following. First, call on the correct morning. Use a calendar and count backward exactly 90 days from (but not including) the day you wish to dine. (The computer doesn’t understand months, so you can’t, for example, call on February 1st to make an advance reservation for May 1st because that’s fewer than 90 days.) If you want to eat on May 1st, for example, begin your 90-day backward count on April 30th. If you count correctly, you’ll find that the correct morning to call is January 31st. If you don’t feel like counting days, call #407-WDW-DINE, and the Disney folks will calculate it for you. Call them during the afternoon when they’re less busy about 100 days before your trip. Let them know when you’d like your advance reservation, and they’ll tell you the morning to call.
To get a table, you must dial at almost exactly 7 a.m. EST. Disney does not calibrate its clock with the correct time as determined by the U.S. Naval Observatory or the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but we conducted synchronizing tests and determined that Disney reservation system clocks are accurate to within 1 to 3 seconds. Several Internet sites will give you the exact time. Our favorite is
www.atomictime.net, which offers the exact time in displays that show hours, minutes, and seconds. Once the Atomic Time home page is up, click on “html multizone continuous” and look for the Eastern Time Zone. Using this site or your local “Time of Day” number from the phone directory, synchronize your watch TO THE SECOND. About 18 to 20 seconds before 7 a.m., dial #407-WDW-DINE, waiting to dial the final “E” in “DINE” until 7 seconds before the hour. Hang up and redial until your call is answered. When it is, you will hear one of two recorded messages:
1. “Thank you for calling the Disney Reservation Center. Our office is closed . . . ” If you get this message hang up the instant you hear the words “Our office” and hit redial.
OR
2. You’ll get a recording with a number of prompts. The prompts change periodically. Call a few mornings before the day you actually make your reservation to learn what prompts are being used. Once you know the prompts, you can determine which numbers on your touch-tone phone to press in order to work through the prompts at warp speed. Some prompts begin with “If,” others may request info such as your phone number or resort reservation number. Do not listen to the entire prompt. Immediately press the appropriate numbered key(s) as determined by your previous trial run.
Your call will be answered momentarily by a Disney Reservations Center (DRC) agent. Don’t get nervous if you’re on hold for a bit. The worst thing you can do now is hang up and try again. As soon as a live DRC agent comes on the line, interrupt immediately and say, “I need Cindy’s breakfast (lunch), for May 1st, for four people, any available time” (substituting your own breakfast (lunch) dates, of course). Don’t engage in “good mornings” or other pleasantries. Time is of the essence. You can apologize later to the DRC agent for your momentary rudeness if you feel the need, but she already knows what’s going on. Don’t try and pick a specific time. Even two seconds to ask for a specific time will seriously diminish your chances of getting an advance reservation.
