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Disney recently changed the cancellation policy for dining reservations. But you may want to think twice about cancelling them.
Disney World Dining Reservations
After some scheduled maintenance, Disney rolled out a new change for Disney dining reservations. Previously, guests had until the night before their reservation (11:59 pm to be exact) to cancel any dining and extra reservations (think Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and Savi’s Workshop).
This allowed them to successfully cancel the reservation without incurring a $10/person fee. If Guests did not show up to their reservation and did not cancel, they were charged for missing the reservation. In fact, you can be charged up to $100/person at one restaurant!
Guests can now cancel reservations with only two hours advanced notice.
Now, however, Disney allows cancellations two hours in advance. So far, this has been met with much controversy. People tend to hoard reservations and then decide at the last minute whether they want to keep them or not. This makes it even harder for people looking for reservations to find one in a timely manner.
It may not actually be cancelled
Before you get all excited about the prospect of cancelling a reservation last minute, you may want to think again. Many guests are reporting that their reservation is still showing in the app despite cancelling the reservation and receiving a confirmation email.
Does this mean your reservation is not actually cancelled? Cast Members at various restaurants around property have long paper lists of people reporting this issue. It is very apparent that even though Disney is sending out cancellation confirmation emails, Guests are still panicking thinking that the reservation is not actually cancelled.
Guests report receiving cancellation emails but still seeing the reservation on My Disney Experience. Does this mean the reservation is not actually cancelled?
We will continue to monitor the situation and see if anyone notices cancellation charges on their credit cards. Consider this a caution to check your credit card statements and verify that the reservation is 100% cancelled. If you are currently in the parks, please let us know what your experience has been!
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Lori
Saturday 5th of November 2022
I have 2 reservations I canceled and received cancelation confirmations. Both are still showing up in my app AND MDE website. And, I'm unable to book a new reservation at that time - it tells me I already have a reservation that I am unable to cancel. Was hoping to avoid it, but looks like I will spend some time on hold with Disney to get them cleared for certain.
Cathy Haslam
Thursday 3rd of November 2022
I think that as long as you have the cancellation confirmation there will not be issues. This is not odd at all. It often doesn't happen immediately. Keep your confirmation email.
Tami
Thursday 3rd of November 2022
This doesn’t seem unusual. Even in the past, when I have canceled a reservation, it has not shown canceled in the app. Many times you have to refresh the app or sometimes even delete and reinstall the app to get the changes to appear. If they check the actual MDE website they will have a more accurate accounting of their reservations.