Disney World Dining System Down Again
In honor of Walt Disney World’s 54th Anniversary, vacation planners were treated (or tricked?) into another WDW dining system outage on both the website and My Disney Experience app. Here’s everything we know.
The last time we reported on something like this, it was a system crash for the original launch day of Beak & Barrel Advance Dining Reservations. Rumors were flying during and after that–about unprecedented demand, bot farms overloading the system, etc.
I’m not sure what was actually true, but it wasn’t the biggest shock to anyone battle-hardened by a Disney Drop Day. We’ve experienced similar issues with the launch of other reservations in the past, ranging from the Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween Party to GEO-82 to the reopening of reservations for the parks.
In this case, it doesn’t appear to be any of that. Walt Disney World’s dining reservation system fails to even load on the website (instead displaying a blank screen and no error message). In the My Disney Experience app, a pop-up notifies guests of the unexpected downtime with the following message:
“Pardon the Inconvenience: At this time, we are unable to make or modify dining reservations online or over the phone. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
When I first opened My Disney Experience this morning, long after the typical ADR load time, my heart skipped a beat–that it was the Candlelight Processional Dining Package launch day and I had set my alarm for the wrong day. It’s not and I didn’t, but I guess this offers a dry run for that.
At this time, it’s unclear what is causing the Walt Disney World dining reservation system-wide outage. All we do know is that it’s confined to ADRs and there doesn’t appear to be a launch that would’ve triggered an influx of demand. All other reservations appear to be working as normal, meaning you can book the Save Up to $250 Per Night at Walt Disney World in Winter to Summer 2026 special offer, for example.
The same error message displays when launching the Disneyland app, indicating that this is a backend outage for the shared infrastructure that both coasts utilize. We’ve seen messages in the past like this, most recently when Disney was in the midst of a system-wide upgrade to the ADR system.
I’m skeptical that’s the explanation here, both because one just happened and since that seems a bit too late in the morning for that to have occurred. But this also doesn’t strike me as driven by an overwhelming influx of demand, especially since it’s impacting both coasts. It’s possible a problem occurred during routine maintenance, or even that a third party vendor is experiencing an outage that’s giving rise to this.
UPDATE:Â Both the Disneyland and Walt Disney World dining reservation systems are once again working as normal!
These outages happen from time to time with Disney IT. Any longtime Walt Disney World fan probably has their own horror story with system outages. These woes are much less common than they used to be a few years ago, as Disney IT seems to have upgraded from the ‘ole Gateway 2000 they use to run the Go.com servers.
Nevertheless, problems still occur from time to time. In addition to the Beak & Barrel launch, Walt Disney World had issues with the Parisian Breakfast Buffet at Chefs de France and had to delay the ADR drop day for that by a day. So perhaps the company upgraded from Gateway 2000 to regular ole Gateways, circa 2001. Or perhaps it actually is Hei-Hei’s fault, as he’s the new head of Disney IT. That would check out.
Check back on October 14, 2025, when the next Disney IT debacle is likely to occur. That’s when Candlelight Processional Dining Packages can be booked online, and there’s likely to be a ton of demand for that all slamming the servers on the same day. I would be more surprised if that goes smoothly than if there are issues.
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Your Thoughts
Did you experience problems trying to make Advance Dining Reservations this morning? Excited to experience the launch of Candlelight Processional Dining Package ADRs and whatever issues await on October 14th?!? Will you be trying to score ADRs on that morning? Hoping for the best but prepared for the worst? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I just set an alert in Candlelight Processional on the off chance the system glitches again. Last year’s launch day was hectic so kudos to MegaFigmentFan for snagging one early!
As someone obsessed with a particular correlation (or in this case, coincidence), I would like to say I find it highly likely that Disney would forget to make a New Fiscal Year payment on a contract related to IT, particularly a big one that covers *both* domestic resort complexes.
Oh man, I wonder if you’re right. A really good and amusing theory, at least!
Actually it looked like a 500 error when requesting static site labels for the registration page. Probably some sort of null pointer exception…code issue
But your theory is more fun
We’re arriving Nov 30th, so today was our day. Ugh! having it just be a blank white screen for over an hour was frustrating because I didn’t know if it was just me (though I suspected not as I was trying on both a laptop and a phone). I finally got to chat through the app with a cast member a little after 7 and learned the problem. By that point I was already on hold with the dining phone line only to be told that the wait would exceed 2 hours. Guess everyone else had the same idea.
I randomly tried again about 9:40 and got a Beak and Barrel for the 30th at 11:25 pm. I was hoping to get into that one before MVMCP began that day, but we’ll take what we can get and keep checking back. I also got O’Hana for the next day before Jollywood Nights because my daughter loves it–Id really rather be going to Steakhouse 71. Now I definitely dreading the 14th when I go for the last of my ADRs for our holiday party trip!
It came back up around 9:30ish when I was able to finally make my dining reservations. It definitely caused a little panic this morning.
Tom,
I wonder if this had to do with ADR’s for Candlelight Processional Dining opening for a short time yesterday afternoon? I had preset alerts on one of this Disney Dining watch systems for Candlelight dining on opening day 11/28, just incase I either forgot on the 14th or wasn’t able to get what I wanted. Then I got strange notifications yesterday afternoon of there being availability for this, so I followed the link and actually booked Candlelight Processional Dining reservation for 11/28/25. Now, I just hope Disney doesn’t cancel it if it was a mistake.
Are you serious?!
I haven’t seen this reported on anywhere, no one messaged me, and you’re the first reader to post anything about it. In a normal situation like this, we’d hear something. Not doubting you, to be clear, just wondering if you have any more details???
This happened to me once! Albeit in 2013, but I was able to get Candlelight Processional dining reservation about in a week in advance of the actual drop date simply because I lucked into poking around the ADR system at the time. I later talked to a CM on the phone who had absolutely no idea how I’d managed it but posited that IT was testing things. Perhaps they still test in live.
I’d be happy to share details if you’d like. How?