Hello there! Thank you so much for purchasing the DFB Guide to Walt Disney World Dining 2024 e-Book! Read on for the latest updates.
Things are constantly changing at Disney World. That has been particularly true over the last few years, and we expect that there will be many more changes made in the future.
We’ve put any and all details we had at the time of publishing into The DFB Guide to Walt Disney World Dining 2024. But to ensure that you have the latest Disney news, we’ve created this Post-Press Updates Page. This is where we’ll post any news or updates that come out after the date of publication. Be sure to check back often as we’re continuously updating this page throughout the year.
Disney World Vacation Packages
Bookings for 2025 Walt Disney Resort Vacation Packages are NOW OPEN (as of February 27th, 2024)!
Disney World has announced that in 2025, those staying at Disney Resorts (including DVC properties) will get a FREE park ticket to the water parks on their arrival day! You’ll be able to use this perk at either Blizzard Beach Water Park or Typhoon Lagoon Water Park and only on your check-in day.
Currently, when you stay at a Disney World hotel, you can get access to longer theme park hours, and Disney just announced that these perks are carrying over through 2025!
According to an official Disney press release, 2025 arrivals for room-only reservations can cancel their reservations UP TO EIGHT (8) DAYS before their arrival without penalty. (Previously, reservations could be canceled up to five days before to avoid penalty.)
Disney World Theme Park Tickets, Park Pass Reservations, and Park Hopping
As of January 9th, 2024, Park Pass Reservations are NOT needed AT ALL for those who have date-based tickets! In other words, people who buy theme park tickets that are tied to a specific date or set of dates don’t need park passes to get into the parks at all.
Also as of January 9th, visitors who no longer need a park pass reservation can book one attraction Virtual Queue at any theme park where they have valid admission.
Park Passes continue to be required, however, for Annual Passholders, Cast Members, and others with non-date-based tickets. However, Good-To-Go Days are NOW visible in the Annual Passholder and Cast Member calendars. On these days, Annual Passholders and Cast Members can visit ANY of the four Disney World theme parks without a Park Pass Reservation.
AAAAAAND ALL-DAY PARK HOPPING returned on January 9th, 2024!
Ticket prices for 2025 have been revealed.
Disney World Technology and App Updates
A major dining reservation change has gone live on the Disney World website and the My Disney Experience app — you can now search availability for multiple days at one time!
Disney Dining Plan Updates
The Disney Dining Plan is BACK AT LAST as of January 9th, 2024!
We’ve got a STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE for using your Disney Dining Plan credits in the Disney World App HERE.
We also show you how the Disney Dining Plan works specifically with Mobile Order at participating Quick Service restaurants around Disney World.
Several lounges around Disney World now accept Table Service meal credits! How does it work, though? We walk you through it here.
More Disney Property-Wide Updates
Guidelines for the Disability Access Service at Disney World are changing; You can read about the 4 changes coming to the service HERE.
Magic Kingdom
Attractions
An opening timeline has been announced for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure!
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will open in Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland THIS SUMMER!
Disney has also announced that a NEW SHOW is coming to Country Bear Jamboree in Magic Kingdom!
In 2024, the beloved bears will be learning an all-new act — they’ll sing their usual songs in new styles like country, rockabilly, and bluegrass. And these changes are coming SOON… Country Bear Jamboree CLOSED on January 27th, 2024, for the refurbishment. Disney announced that the new show should make its debut THIS SUMMER.
A new experience is coming to Fantasyland’s Storybook Circus in May 2024: Check out Smellephants on Parade!
BEWARE…
The Hatbox Ghost has materialized in Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion at long last…
EPCOT
EPCOT Festivals
2024 Festival of the Arts
The 2024 EPCOT International Festival of the Arts ran from January 12th – February 19th, 2024.
This EPCOT Festival — the park’s first in the calendar year — made its debut in 2017, and celebrates three artistic disciplines: the Culinary, Visual, and Performing Arts.
2024 Flower & Garden Festival
In 2024, the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival kicked off on February 28th and will run through May 27th!
The Garden Rocks Concert Series returns with the Flower & Garden Festival, and you can find the full performance lineup here!
2024 Food & Wine Festival
The dates for the 2024 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival have been announced!
It will run from August 29th through November 23rd!
EPCOT Dining Updates
Shiki-Sai Sushi Izakaya has a new seasonal program. With these new stamp cards, you’ll get a stamp at each visit, and if you return through the changing seasons, you’ll earn stamps to complete the card, and ultimately earn a prize!
Fireworks and Entertainment
A BRAND NEW nighttime spectacular made its debut on December 5th, 2023 in honor of Disney 100 Years of Wonder: Luminous The Symphony Of Us!
Disney shares that the show is meant to “reflect the commonality in all of us,” and that the show invites “everyone to gather around World Showcase Lagoon for a show that will unite us through commonalities of the heart in a dazzling display of fireworks, lasers, music and light. Featuring an original composition along with select songs from the Disney songbook, this new spectacular will remind us that we’re more alike than different, connecting our hearts together as one.”
Click HERE to find out more about Luminous!
And a NEW live show has arrived to entertain guests in World Celebration. Forces of Nature is a 15-minute acrobatic performance, and it comes from the same company that provides the Art Defying Gravity entertainment during the EPCOT Festival of the Arts!
Five AMAZING acrobatic performers who perform impressive stunts on a large globe-like stage.
Park Transformation Updates
The Walt the Dreamer statue officially opened to guests in EPCOT on December 5th, 2023–in celebration of Walt’s birthday. The statue features Walt sitting, “dreaming up the overall Florida Project and the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, EPCOT.”
Walt sits in the new World Celebration Gardens, at Dreamer’s Point, overlooking all that he dreamed up as it sits today.
Four gardens can be found in the center of World Celebration, including Dreamer’s Point, and connect together at a central planter that is based on the EPCOT logo.
The area evolves with the seasons and includes lighting elements that “take on a whole new life” at night.
EPCOT’s historic — and lengthy — transformation is at last coming to a close! The final touch will be the opening of CommuniCore Hall and Plaza on June 10th, 2024!
The new area will serve as a central location for EPCOT’s rotating festivals throughout the year, providing a communal space to celebrate rather than having to trek around the whole park. In addition to providing dedicated spaces for EPCOT’s seasonal Festivals, CommuniCore Hall will also be the location of a new Mickey & Friends Meet-and-Greet.
Check out EVERYTHING coming to CommuniCore HERE!
As part of the CommuniCore opening celebration, also kicking off on June 10th will be a BRAND NEW Encanto stage show! ¡Celebración Encanto! is a sing-along that includes popular songs from the movie.
The show will be running several times a day and will take place on the CommuniCore Plaza stage. You’ll even be able to see Bruno and Mirabel throughout this show, which will run through September 6th, 2024.
Find out MORE about the new Encanto show HERE!
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Hollywood Studios Attractions
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster closed on January 8th, 2024 for a lengthy refurbishment. It will reopen in the summer.
Disney announced in December 2023 that a NEW show — “The Little Mermaid — A Musical Adventure” — is coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Fall 2024!
It’s also been confirmed that Voyage of the Little Mermaid is permanently closed in Disney World.
NEW adventures can now be experienced at the Star Tours attraction as of April 5th, 2024!
A few Character Meet-and-Greets have changed around the park!
Hollywood Studios Dining
Ice Cold Hydraulics is a brand-new snack stand with some brand-new eats in Muppets Courtyard in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Newly open in February 2024, this spot serves a couple of truly unique spotlight items like Candy Painted Cinnamon Rolls, savory Bouncin’ Mini Churros!
You’ll also find plenty of park classics like Mickey Bars, Mickey Pretzels, Frozen Slushes, and more.
Check out our first REVIEW of Ice Cold Hydraulics here!
There has been a major change to the side items served as part of the Family-Style meal at Roundup Rodeo BBQ.
More Hollywood Studios Fun
You can now have your VERY OWN PHOTO SHOOT in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge!
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
One of our FAVORITE snacks has returned to Animal Kingdom! Check out the Mango Pie!
We were visiting Animal Kingdom recently and we ran into our favorite Junior Wilderness Explorer, Russell from Up. You can meet him again on Discovery Island at the Wilderness Explorers Club House! Our favorite talking dog, Dug, is also meeting guests in that same location.
Disney Water Parks
Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park reopened on March 17th, 2024! The water park had been closed since November 2023 while Disney worked on some refurbishments and sprucing up the place.
In recent years, Disney has only been operating one water park at a time based on demand and staffing capabilities, and therefore Blizzard Beach closed on that same date.
Dates have also been announced for H2O Glow Nights — an after hours, extra-ticket event at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park.
Disney Springs
Dining Updates
EET — a new restaurant by James Beard Award-winning chef and Food Network star Maneet Chauhan together with hospitality entrepreneur Vivek Deora — has officially opened in Disney Springs!
You can find our FULL REVIEW of this new spot HERE.
Terralina Crafted Italian is a popular table-service restaurant in Disney Springs, and they announced recently that they promoted Claudio Daggio to serve at the spot’s new Executive Chef.
Summer House on the Lake opened on December 14, 2023 in Disney Springs! You’ll find it on the West Side near Jaleo, Splitsville, and Salt & Straw.
So that means YOU can look forward to California-inspired bites including everything from pizza and pasta to fresh salads and sandwiches during your next visit to Disney Springs! (Oh, and don’t forget the weekend BRUNCH!) You can enjoy any of these meals on one of the three expansive patios. And tucked inside Summer House on the Lake you’ll find The Cookie Bar! The Cookie Bar is “a dessert-focused market” that serves “freshly baked cookies and house-made pastries.”
Click HERE for our full review of Summer House on the Lake, and HERE for our review of the goodies at The Cookie Bar!
Entertainment Updates
To celebrate their two-year anniversary, Cirque Du Soleil: Drawn To Life has added a new finale to their show! This new finale honors the heart of the show, which is the relationship between father and daughter.
Disney World Resort Hotel Updates
Disney’s BoardWalk Inn
Take a complete Photo Tour of one of the newly refurbished rooms in Disney’s BoardWalk Inn!!
In 2023, we were told by Disney that Blue Ribbon Corndogs, the anything-but-normal corndog stand, would be making its debut at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn “later this year.” However, Disney recently announced on Instagram that we won’t be seeing this fun corn dog stand until next year, 2024. (If you’re unfamiliar, Blue Ribbon Corn Dogs currently serves Hand-dipped Corn Dogs and other unique Corn Dog creations over in Disneyland at the Blue Ribbon Corn Dogs kiosk in Downtown Disney.)
Please be aware that Big River Grille & Brewing Works permanently closed in January 2024.
Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground
Many Disney fans are STOKED about the upcoming Disney Vacation Club cabin additions over at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground. If you’re stoked too, we have some news…
The refreshed Cabins at Fort Wilderness are projected to start opening on July 1st, 2024!
Disney has also confirmed that guests staying in the Cabins will be eligible for the Extended Evening Hours benefit!
Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort
1900 Park Fare reopened at long last on April 10th, 2024! This restaurant, which is located in Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort, is one of a few that had yet to reopen since the temporary closure of Walt Disney World Resort in 2020. But now, it’s back… with an entirely new Character Dining experience: Wish Makers Enchanted Dining!
During a buffet-style Breakfast or Dinner, guests enjoy tableside visits by characters including Aladdin (in his Prince Ali look), Cinderella, Mirabel from Encanto, and Princess Tiana in her new look for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure “as they celebrate the power of a wish.”
Click HERE to step inside the reopened — and refreshed — 1900 Park Fare!
You can check out our review of Breakfast at 1900 Park Fare here, and Dinner at 1900 Park Fare here!
In other Grand Floridian restaurant news…
Victoria & Albert’s has been awarded a Michelin star!