Planning
Every deadline for your trip
The short answer
Three deadlines matter. Dining opens 60 days before check-in at 6:00am Eastern — and if you are staying at a Disney resort, that single booking covers your whole stay, up to ten days, which is a head start of up to nine days over anyone booking day by day. Lightning Lane Multi Pass opens 7 daysahead for resort guests, 3 days for everyone else, this one at 7:00am Eastern. Everything else can wait.
Put in your check-in date and we’ll work the rest out, including the ones that move. No signup, no email, nothing to install.
The whole timeline, counted back from check-in
- 499 days beforeabout 16 months out
Rooms and packages open
Disney releases dates roughly 12–18 months out. This is when the best availability exists for popular resorts and holiday dates — if you want a specific room type at Christmas, this is the moment, not later.
- 330 days beforeabout 11 months out
Peak-season availability starts tightening
Around 11 months out, the good rooms at busy times begin disappearing. If your dates are flexible and your resort is not, book now.
- 180 days beforeabout 6 months out
Decide tickets and budget
Ticket prices vary by date at Walt Disney World, so the ticket decision and the date decision are the same decision. Worth settling before dining, because park days shape dining choices.
- 60 days before
Dining reservations open — 6:00am ET
The single most time-sensitive moment in the whole trip. If you are staying on site you can book your ENTIRE length of stay at once from this morning; off-site guests book day by day. The hard-to-get restaurants go within minutes, so be logged in and ready before six, not at six.
- 30 days before
Final payment, and online check-in opens
If you booked a package rather than room-only, the balance is due now — miss it and the reservation can cancel. Online check-in also opens, which is worth doing promptly because it is where room requests are recorded.
- 21 days before
Be ready to buy Lightning Lane
Not a deadline, a preparation point. Decide whether you actually want Lightning Lane Multi Pass and for which parks, so you are not making that call at 7am on the day the window opens.
- 7 days beforeDisney resort guests
Lightning Lane Multi Pass — resort guests, 7:00am ET
Staying at a Disney resort? You can buy and make selections for your whole length of stay from 7:00am ET today. This is the biggest single advantage of staying on site.
- 5 days before
Check park hours again
Hours get extended and trimmed right up to the week of. What you saw at 60 days is not necessarily what you will get.
- 3 days beforestaying off site
Lightning Lane Multi Pass — everyone else
Off-site guests can buy and select from three days out. The popular attractions will already have been picked over by resort guests — plan around that rather than being surprised by it.
- 2 days before
Pack, check the forecast, set up the app
Make sure everyone in the party is linked in My Disney Experience and that you can actually log in. Sorting that out in a queue on day one is a miserable way to start.
These windows were last checked against Disney’s official sources on September 6, 2026. Disney does change them — always confirm the two that carry a clock time before setting an alarm.