Another 60 day booking window
Our 2nd 60 day booking window opened today for our June 2023 WDW trip.
We have talked about what a 60 day booking window is in our last blog post. After our cruise on the Disney Magic we will be heading back to Disney, staying this time at Bay Lake Tower for an 8 night stay.
Our latest 60 day booking window opened at 6am EST, 11am BST. We had already made a list of the experiences and dining we wanted to book in the weeks prior. This is highly recommended so that when your window opens, you know exactly what you want to book and where.
As we had made our park reservations in advance of our window opening, we were ready to make our reservations. We had already added a payment method to our Disney account and made sure all our party members were linked.
With phones in hand and the My Disney Experience app open, we started to make our bookings.
The first thing on our list was the ‘Behind the Seeds’ tour at Epcot. This tour takes you behind the scenes at the Land Pavilion in the World Nature section of Epcot. The tour costs $35 per person plus tax and takes about 45mins. As with all tours a park ticket and park reservation are required. This is one of the cheaper tours on offer at Walt Disney World, and the only one on offer at Epcot.
Booking an experience follows a similar process to making a dining reservation. In the app it’s easier to search for the experience and then click on ‘Check Availability’. This tour is offered at multiple times of the day and we opted for the 4.30pm. We had to pay for the tour at the time of booking but if we cancel with 2 days notice we will receive a full refund.
Once we had secured our tour we then moved on to dining reservations. 1st on the list was the ‘Fantasmic’ dining package at Hollywood Studios. The ‘Fantasmic’ show is free to watch, however if you want a guaranteed seat, and don’t want to queue for hours, then you can take advantage of a dining package. A dining package offers a 2 course meal and a reserved seat for the show. Dining packages are also offered for the fireworks at Epcot.
There are a number of restaurants on offer at Hollywood Studios, all with prixe fix menu’s, and different prices. We decided to book the ‘Brown Derby’ at 6.25pm which will give us enough time to have dinner and then head to the 9.15pm show.
We had managed to secure 2 bookings by 11.15am and then moved on to ‘California Grill’ at the Contemporary Resort. We had a fantastic meal at this restaurant for the 50th Anniversary last year and the menu has now changed to a market-inspired cuisine. This is a prixe fix 3 course meal for $89 plus tax and gratuity per adult. As this is a Disney Signature Dining experience you are expected to dress more formally. We managed to get a 7.35pm reservation which will mean we can watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the private balcony at 9pm.
The open plan kitchen at California Grill
As we are travelling over the week of 4th July, the parks are going to be busy, (I have a feeling that might be an understatement!). This is why making dining and experience reservations 60 days before our trip is important. If we didn’t we would always be able to eat at quick service restaurants but we would probably struggle to get any table service reservations on the day. There are days when we haven’t made any dining reservations like our Epcot park day as it will still be the Flower and Garden festival and their will be multiple food booths to try.
If you are unsure which restaurants to book remember the My Disney Experience app has all the menus and prices so you can budget and plan for those picky eaters.