What to Book Before Your
Disney Trip — and When
The Complete Pre-Trip Checklist
Disney World rewards families who plan ahead — and punishes those who don’t. Here’s exactly what to book, when to book it, and what you can safely leave until you arrive.
One of the most disorienting parts of first-time Disney World planning is figuring out what to book before your Disney trip. Discovering how much needs to happen before you ever leave home feels daunting. Dining reservations that open 60 days out. Lightning Lane that becomes available the day of. Tickets that need to be linked to your account before anything else can be booked. It’s a lot — and the order matters.
This guide walks through everything you need to book, in the right sequence, so nothing important gets missed and you’re not scrambling at 6am on your travel day trying to figure out why your dining reservation didn’t go through.
What to do and when
6–12 months out: Hotel and flights. The earlier the better for on-site Disney hotels, especially peak season.
As soon as hotel is booked: Park tickets. Link everything to My Disney Experience immediately.
60 days out: Dining reservations. This is the most time-sensitive window — popular restaurants open at midnight and fill within hours.
2–3 weeks out: Any remaining planning — park days, rough daily plans, gear purchases, grocery list for arrival day.
Day of or day before: Lightning Lane Multi Pass. Individual Lightning Lane for the most in-demand rides at 7am on the day of your visit.
The Full Booking Timeline
Disney resort hotels — particularly the popular Moderate and Deluxe options — fill up months in advance, especially for peak season dates. If you want Art of Animation, Wilderness Lodge, Polynesian, or any of the more in-demand properties, booking 6–12 months out is not excessive. The Value resorts are more available, but even those sell out at their best price points during busy periods.
Why hotel comes first: once your hotel is booked, you can link it to My Disney Experience, which establishes your resort reservation and unlocks the ability to link tickets and make dining reservations at the 60-day window. You can’t fully set up your account without a reservation anchoring it.
- Book directly through Disney (disneyworld.com) or call Disney reservations — not third-party booking sites
- On-site hotels include Early Theme Park Entry — factor this into your park strategy
- Disney allows free cancellation up to a certain window — book early and cancel if plans change
- Off-site hotels: book through the hotel directly or a reputable travel site; read cancellation policies carefully
Disney periodically releases discount offers — free dining promotions, room discounts, and package deals — that can be applied to existing reservations. Book at full price now, then call Disney to apply any discount that becomes available before your trip. You don’t need to rebook to get the discount.
Disney park tickets should be purchased as soon as your dates are confirmed. Two important reasons: Disney’s dynamic pricing means tickets cost more as your visit date approaches, and you need tickets linked to My Disney Experience before you can make dining reservations at the 60-day window.
Buy directly from Disney at disneyworld.com or through the My Disney Experience app. Immediately after purchase, link the tickets to every member of your party’s Disney account (each family member needs their own profile within your account). This step is essential — without linked tickets, you cannot make dining reservations at the 60-day mark or access Lightning Lane on the day of your visit.
- Buy from Disney directly — third-party “discounted” tickets are almost never legitimate
- Multi-day tickets have significantly better per-day value than single-day tickets
- Park Hopper add-on: skip it on a budget trip unless you specifically plan to visit multiple parks in one day
- Link tickets to every family member’s profile in My Disney Experience immediately after purchase
- Under-3 kids are free — no ticket needed, but create a profile for them anyway
Disney’s dining reservation window opens exactly 60 days before each day of your stay — and for on-site guests, it opens 60 days before your check-in date for your entire trip at once. This means an on-site guest with a 5-day stay can book all 5 days of dining reservations on day one of their 60-day window, giving them a significant advantage over off-site guests who can only book 60 days before each individual day.
The most popular restaurants — Cinderella’s Royal Table, Be Our Guest, Topolino’s Terrace, ‘Ohana — release reservations at midnight Eastern time on the 60-day mark and sell out within hours. If any of these are priorities, set an alarm for midnight the night before your 60-day window opens.
The restaurants families most commonly miss by waiting:
Check the My Disney Experience app every morning starting about a week before your trip. Cancellations open up regularly as plans change — popular restaurants that seemed fully booked often have slots appear. Early morning checks (6–7am) tend to be most productive.
With your hotel, tickets, and dining locked in, this is the right time to build your park day structure. Which park on which day, where your rest day falls, and which 2–3 experiences are the priority for each park day. You don’t need a minute-by-minute itinerary — in fact, over-scheduling usually backfires with young kids — but a loose plan prevents decision fatigue in the moment.
Things to figure out at this stage: which rides need to be rope-dropped (Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Rise of the Resistance, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure), which parks align with which dining reservations you’ve made, and whether your rest day or slow day has anything specific anchored to it.
- Check height requirements for every ride your kids want to do — better to know before the trip than at the entrance
- Decide your Lightning Lane strategy: will you buy Multi Pass? Skip it on slow-crowd days?
- Note park hours for each day — Magic Kingdom evening hours and Extra Magic Hours for on-site guests
- Download My Disney Experience and practice navigating it before you need it in the park
This is the window for everything you’re buying or preparing before you leave. Ordering early gives you time to return or exchange anything that doesn’t work, and avoids the chaos of last-minute Amazon orders that may not arrive in time.
- Ponchos — buy on Amazon, one per family member, before you go. In-park ponchos cost 4–5x as much.
- Cooling gear — stroller fan, cooling towels, and a portable phone charger if you don’t already have one
- Mickey ears and souvenirs — buy on shopDisney or Amazon before you go; significantly cheaper than in-park
- Comfortable shoes for everyone — break them in before the trip; don’t arrive in brand-new footwear
- Snack bag items — granola bars, fruit pouches, crackers, individual snack packs to bring into the parks
- Sunscreen — SPF 50+, and enough for daily reapplication throughout the trip
- First aid basics — blister pads, pain reliever, bandages, and any medications your kids might need
Amazon Fresh, Instacart, and Garden Grocer all deliver to Disney resort hotels. Order breakfast items, snacks, drinks, and anything else you want to bring into the parks — scheduled to arrive at your hotel on check-in day. It costs a fraction of in-park prices and means you start day one prepared.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass (Disney’s day-of skip-the-line system for most rides) becomes available to purchase 7 days in advance for on-site guests and on the day of the visit for off-site guests. On-site guests can purchase it ahead of their visit; everyone can buy it the morning of.
The question of whether to buy it at all depends on when you’re visiting. During slow-crowd periods (January, early May), rope drop strategy often delivers the same results without the cost. During spring break, summer, and holidays, Lightning Lane Multi Pass genuinely saves significant time and is worth the $20–$35 per person per day.
If you decide to buy it: purchase as early as possible on your park day — 7am for on-site guests — and book your first Lightning Lane selection immediately. The best times for popular rides go first. Peter Pan’s Flight, Jungle Cruise, and Space Mountain selections disappear fastest at Magic Kingdom.
Individual Lightning Lane is the per-ride skip-the-line option for Disney’s most popular attractions — the ones not covered by Multi Pass. At Magic Kingdom, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure fall into this category. At Hollywood Studios, Rise of the Resistance. At EPCOT, Guardians of the Galaxy.
These sell out. On busy days, Individual Lightning Lane for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train can be gone within minutes of 7am. On-site guests can purchase at 7am for their park day. Off-site guests purchase at the park’s opening time.
Set your alarm. Have your payment method saved in the My Disney Experience app the night before. Know which ride you’re buying before 7am hits — there’s no time to browse once the window opens.
For Seven Dwarfs Mine Train specifically — one of the most beloved family rides at Disney World with waits that regularly hit 90 minutes — yes, for most families with kids who meet the 38″ height requirement. At $15–$25 per person, it’s a targeted spend that eliminates the longest standby wait in the park. For other Individual Lightning Lane offerings, weigh the cost against how badly your kids want to ride it.
What You Don’t Need to Book in Advance
Not everything at Disney requires advance planning. Knowing what you can leave for the moment is as useful as knowing what to lock in early.
- Quick-service meals. Mobile order through the My Disney Experience app when you’re 20–30 minutes away from being hungry. No reservation needed, no advance planning required — just open the app and order. This is genuinely one of Disney’s best conveniences.
- Most character meet-and-greets. Outside of a few special-ticketed events, walk-up character meets don’t require reservations. Check the My Disney Experience app for times and locations on the day of your visit.
- Shows, parades, and fireworks. These are first-come, first-served experiences. Arrive at your viewing spot 20–45 minutes early for the best position. No booking required.
- Park transportation. Disney’s buses, monorail, and boat transportation are all included with park admission. No reservations, no booking — just show up.
- Many table-service restaurants. Outside of the most popular character dining and signature restaurants, many solid table-service options have availability closer to your trip date or even walk-up on the day. Columbia Harbour House, Sunshine Seasons, and Satuli Canteen don’t require advance reservations at all.
The My Disney Experience App — Set It Up Before You Go
My Disney Experience is the operational nerve center of a Disney World trip. It handles mobile ordering, Lightning Lane purchases, park maps, wait times, dining reservations, and your entire trip itinerary. Everything flows through it.
Download it at least a week before your trip — not in the parking lot. Add every family member as a profile within your account. Link your hotel reservation and tickets. Practice navigating to the mobile order section, the Lightning Lane purchase screen, and the park maps. The families who struggle most with Disney’s app systems are the ones encountering them for the first time while trying to use them under pressure.
One practical thing to do before you arrive: save your payment method in the app and confirm it works. Lightning Lane purchases at 7am on a park day are not the moment to discover your card needs updating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Check the app regularly for cancellations — they appear daily, often in the morning hours. Many families successfully book popular restaurants within a week of their trip by checking consistently. If a specific restaurant is a priority and nothing opens up, ask at the restaurant podium on the day you visit — walk-up availability occasionally opens when reservations no-show.
Disney no longer requires Park Reservations for most guests as of 2024 — you can generally enter any park with a valid ticket. Check the current policy at disneyworld.com before your trip, as this has changed over time. Even without a formal reservation requirement, linking your ticket to the correct park day in My Disney Experience helps Lightning Lane and dining work smoothly.
For peak season dates (spring break, summer, holidays), 6–9 months in advance is not excessive for hotel booking. For slower periods, 3–4 months is generally adequate. The earlier you book the hotel, the earlier you can make dining reservations — since dining opens at 60 days from check-in for on-site guests, a hotel booking 6 months out means dining opens roughly 5 months before your arrival.
Yes, with some nuance. Hotel reservations can typically be modified or cancelled with adequate notice. Dining reservations can be cancelled through the app up to 24 hours before without a fee — after that, a per-person no-show fee applies at most table-service restaurants. Tickets are generally non-refundable but can sometimes be credited toward future tickets. Read the specific policies before booking each component.
If princess meets or character dining is important to your kids, prioritize those reservations at the 60-day mark before anything else. Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique — Disney’s in-park princess makeover experience — also requires advance booking and sells out fast. If that’s on your list, treat it with the same urgency as Cinderella’s Royal Table.
The booking sequence matters more than most families realize.
Hotel first, tickets immediately after, dining at 60 days, Lightning Lane on the day. That sequence — done in that order — puts your family in the best possible position before you ever step into a park.
The families who struggle with Disney logistics aren’t usually the ones who made bad choices — they’re the ones who didn’t know the windows existed until they’d already passed. A character dining reservation you try to book 30 days out, a dining reservation attempted at 45 days, an Individual Lightning Lane you go to purchase at 9am — these are the small misses that add friction to an otherwise great trip.
Book what needs to be booked when it needs to be booked. Leave the rest flexible. And download the app before you leave home.
Ready to start planning your Disney trip?
Browse all our Disney guides — itineraries, packing lists, and honest advice for families with young kids.