I'm in the process of planning our first trip to Disney World in many, many years, and I'm realizing that things have changed a lot there since the last time I visited!

Many people who plan a Disney World vacation, choose to go with one of their dining plans. If you want to eat in the park and not worry about what things cost, it's not a bad idea to sign up for one of the daily dining plans - that way it's paid for before you ever arrive at Disney World.  

However, I've realized since booking my trip that I have to plan where I'm going to eat, or I won't get a lot of the reservations that I want. It seems strange that with more than 100 restaurants that they'd fill up - but the most popular ones fill up quickly!  

Here's a few tips to help you plan your Disney World Dining well in advance! 

- Check out all of your available options early! Read up about them on the Disney World websites. You can also view menus and reviews at lots of other websites, like Trip Advisor. 

- Make a list of all the places where you'd like to eat. Make sure that you also list what park each restaurant is in and what meal you'd like to have. If it's a character meal, write down the characters that are present so you don't miss anyone that your kids really want to meet. 

- Consider the amount of time that it takes to eat. You might want to plan some character meals or dinner shows outside of the theme parks for later in the evening so that you can enjoy more time in the parks. Consider planning to dine at the park that you are visiting each day. Without park hopper tickets, you won't be able to go into another theme park to eat, so plan carefully! 

- Make a final list of each restaurant where you'd like to eat, where it's located, and what time you'd like to eat there. It may be easiest to use a spreadsheet for this purpose. 

- Make sure that you remember to call Disney World exactly 7:00 am to make your reservations. Disney World starts taking reservations at 7:00 a.m. EST and if you want to dine at some of the most popular restaurants, you may want to start calling early.  Plan to possibly be flexible with your times and dates. 

- Have another blank spreadsheet ready to enter the actual days and times that you get your reservations.  

- If you don't get reservations that you really want, call back every day or every few days to try to pick up those reservations. People do cancel and change their plans, so it is possible to get things that you couldn't get your first day. 

- Don't get overwhelmed!  I'm learning that trying to plan a Disney World vacation can be a lot harder than what I thought it would be, just try to remember that it's supposed to be fun!