Christmas Day at Disney World 2026: Park Hours, What Is Open and Where You Can Still Get Dinner

Walt Disney World is open on Christmas Day. All four parks, Disney Springs and the hotel restaurants run on Friday, December 25, 2026, and on Christmas Eve the day before. What the day does not have is spare tables at the famous restaurants.

When we checked availability on November 10, 87 restaurants still had a dinner time open for Christmas Day, yet Cinderella's Royal Table, Liberty Tree Tavern and Le Cellier had nothing on either day. So this page does two jobs: the hours and shows for the two days, and then a restaurant-by-restaurant account of what is left.

In this guide

• Is Disney World open on Christmas Day?
• Can you still get Christmas dinner at Disney World?
• Christmas Day dinner: what is left
• Christmas Eve is easier than Christmas Day
• Party of two or party of four?
• Where to eat on Christmas Day without a hard reservation
• Special Christmas menus for 2026
• Where to get a turkey dinner on Christmas Day
• Getting a Christmas dinner table that is fully booked
• Dinner and the evening shows

Is Disney World open on Christmas Day?

Yes. This is Disney's calendar as it stood on November 10. Christmas Eve park hours were the same as Christmas Day's.

What that means for the two days:

• No special ticket is involved. The last Christmas party at Magic Kingdom is December 22, and Jollywood Nights skips December 24 and 25. A regular park ticket covers everything in the table.
• The Christmas fireworks are open to everyone. From December 23 to 29 Magic Kingdom runs Minnie's Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks at 8:00 PM for every guest. Before that week they are only seen at the ticketed party.
• Christmas Eve is the last day for Santa. Disney lists him at EPCOT's CommuniCore Hall and at Disney Springs through December 24, so plan that visit before Christmas Day.
• Parade times were not posted yet. Disney's calendar had no Magic Kingdom parade times for Christmas week when we read it. We will add them here when it does.
• Jodi Benson narrates the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT on both nights. Our Candlelight guide covers getting a seat.

Disney can extend or change hours closer to the date, so look again in the week before you go.

Can you still get Christmas dinner at Disney World?

Yes. The supply is closer to normal than most people expect.

So Christmas Day has about one-seventh fewer dinner times for a family of four than an ordinary Friday in December. That is tighter, not sold out.

The squeeze is in where the open times are. They are concentrated at Disney Springs, at resort restaurants and at the less famous park restaurants. The character meals at Magic Kingdom and the signature restaurants are where it runs dry.

Christmas Day dinner: what is left

Reservation times open on December 25 at 4:00 PM or later, when we checked on November 10 at 1:48 PM Eastern.

How to read it:

• Four on this list had no dinner time at all: Cinderella's Royal Table, Liberty Tree Tavern, Le Cellier and 1900 Park Fare.
• The signature restaurants have nothing for a family. California Grill, Topolino's Terrace, Citricos and Yachtsman Steakhouse each had a few times for two and none for four.
• Magic Kingdom's best-known tables are nearly gone. The Crystal Palace had 2 dinner times for two. Be Our Guest had 1.
• What is left is late. Be Our Guest's dinner times for four all started at 8:35 PM or later, 'Ohana's at 9:25 PM or later, and California Grill's two times were 9:30 and 9:45 PM. Chef Mickey's had one early time, at 4:15 PM.
• Animal Kingdom Lodge still has room for four. Boma and Jiko each had 14 dinner times.

Christmas Eve is easier than Christmas Day

At a few restaurants the gap between the two days is enormous. These counts are every reservation time open that day, breakfast through dinner.

If the restaurant matters more than the date, eat there on Christmas Eve. Every Magic Kingdom restaurant in this table had at least three times as many openings for two on December 24 as on December 25.

Two cautions:

• Christmas Eve is not easier everywhere. Cinderella's Royal Table, Liberty Tree Tavern and Le Cellier had nothing on December 24 either, apart from a single Le Cellier time for four.
• Raglan Road on Christmas Day showed only four times, the last at 11:45 AM, and no dinner at all. It serves a turkey dinner that day and also takes bookings through OpenTable, so check there. More on that below.

Party of two or party of four?

It cuts both ways on Christmas Day, and it is worth checking both before you give up.

Restaurants with times for four but none for two:

• Garden Grill: 0 for two, 19 for four
• Jiko: 0 for two, 14 for four
• Rose & Crown Dining Room: 0 for two, 16 for four

Restaurants with times for two but none for four:

• Topolino's Terrace: 8 for two, 0 for four
• Yachtsman Steakhouse: 6 for two, 0 for four
• Citricos: 5 for two, 0 for four
• California Grill: 2 for two, 0 for four
• Yak & Yeti Restaurant: 26 for two, 0 for four

A couple shut out of Garden Grill is not unlucky. There was nothing for two on either day while it had 19 or more times for four. If you are a party of two looking at one of the first three, an alert is the realistic route.

Where to eat on Christmas Day without a hard reservation

These had the most reservation times open on December 25, at any meal.

• Disney Springs is the safety net. Four of the top five are there, each with 45 or more times at both party sizes, and no park ticket is needed.
• Want characters on Christmas Day? Tusker House at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood & Vine at Hollywood Studios each had 30 or more times. Tusker House's last time was 5:55 PM; Animal Kingdom closes at 6:00 PM.
• In EPCOT, La Creperie de Paris and San Angel Inn had the most room.

Special Christmas menus for 2026: what is confirmed

As of November 10, no Disney-owned restaurant has posted a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day menu for 2026. What is confirmed so far comes from the hotels beside Disney property and from a few Disney Springs restaurants. We have marked last year's menus as last year's, because that is all they are until the restaurant says otherwise.

Confirmed for 2026

Things to know about this list:

• The Waldorf Astoria and Signia restaurants take reservations by phone and must be cancelled by December 20, or you pay $35 to $70 per person depending on the restaurant. That is far stricter than Disney's rule.
• The Four Seasons page does not print a year. The prices above are what it showed when it was checked on November 10. Confirm them when you book.
• The Swan and Dolphin dishes are additions to the regular menu, not a fixed-price dinner. In our data on November 10, Il Mulino, bluezoo and Amare all had Christmas Day dinner times for two and for four. Bourbon Steak showed none on either day.
• Raglan Road's turkey dinner is in Disney's own holiday food guide, yet only four Christmas Day times were bookable there through Disney, the last at 11:45 AM. Raglan Road also books through OpenTable from its own site, so look there before deciding it is full.

Served last year, not yet announced for 2026

These ran on Christmas Day 2025, as recorded by WDWNT and AllEars last December. None is confirmed for this year.

Whispering Canyon Cafe is the one to watch. It had only two Christmas Day dinner times left at each party size when we checked, and 52 new times appeared there in the past week.

We will move these up the page as each restaurant confirms.

Where to get a turkey dinner on Christmas Day

• Liberty Tree Tavern, Magic Kingdom, serves turkey with the trimmings every day of the year. It had nothing open on December 24 or 25.
• Garden Grill, EPCOT, serves rotisserie turkey at its character meal every day: $62 per adult and $43 per child. It had Christmas Day times for four and none for two.
• Chef Mickey's, Contemporary Resort, carves turkey at its dinner buffet: $72 per adult and $46 per child. Three dinner times for four were left.
• Oscar's at the Waldorf Astoria has turkey on its Christmas Day buffet, $85 per adult.
• Raglan Road serves a turkey dinner on December 25 only.

The details on the three Disney restaurants are in our Thanksgiving dinner guide, which covers every year-round turkey dinner on property.

Getting a Christmas dinner table that is fully booked

Both days are already inside Disney's 60-day booking window, which opened on October 25 for Christmas Eve and October 26 for Christmas Day, so there is no opening day still to wait for. Anything new from here is a table someone gave up or one Disney added.

A restaurant showing nothing today is not finished. In the seven days before we checked, new times for December 24 and 25 appeared at almost every hard restaurant in this guide:

Counts are for parties of two and four together.

Two things stand out. Tables do return, even at Liberty Tree Tavern and California Grill. And at the very top they are rare: Cinderella's Royal Table had one new time in a week. That is not something you catch by opening the app now and then.

What works:

1. Hold a second-choice table today. Pick one from the easy list for the same evening. Disney's standard rule lets you drop it up to 2 hours before with no charge; after that, or if you do not turn up, it is $10 a person. Cinderella's Royal Table is the one that bills the whole meal. Every exception is in our cancellation policy guide.
2. Keep the two reservations apart. Disney will not let one person hold two bookings within 2 hours of each other, so place the backup earlier or later than the time you are really after.
3. Search as a two and as a four if your group can sit either way, for the reasons shown above.
4. Move the special dinner to Christmas Eve if it is a Magic Kingdom restaurant.
5. Put a watch on the table itself. Cinderella's Royal Table produced one new time in a week, and nobody finds that by looking now and then. A PixieWire alert on the restaurant's page tells you when a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day time appears, and you make the booking with Disney yourself. Alerts are what PixieWire sells, from $4.99 as a one-time charge; the numbers on this page are free to use.

Dinner and the evening shows

• At Magic Kingdom, the fireworks are at 8:00 PM. Every dinner time left at Be Our Guest started at 8:35 PM or later, and The Crystal Palace's earliest for four was 7:25 PM, so with today's openings dinner comes after the show.
• At EPCOT, a Candlelight Processional dining package is the only guaranteed seat for the show, and packages for December 24 and 25 showed nothing open when we checked.
• At Animal Kingdom, dinner in the park means eating before 6:00 PM. Boma and Jiko at Animal Kingdom Lodge and Sanaa at Kidani Village are the nearby evening options, and all three had dinner times for four.

For December 31, see the New Year's Eve guide. Every other holiday event, park by park, is in our Christmas at Disney World 2026 guide. For how Disney reservations and cancellations work, see the dining reservations guide.

Sources for this page

• Park hours, fireworks and Candlelight times: Disney's daily calendar for December 25 and December 24, read November 10, 2026.
• Booking and cancellation rules: Disney's advance reservations and cancellation pages.
• Hotel Christmas menus: the Waldorf Astoria Orlando holiday dining page, the Four Seasons Orlando Christmas page and the Swan and Dolphin's holiday dining menus. Disney Springs items are from Disney's holiday food guide.
• Every availability number: PixieWire's availability tracking, for parties of two and four, taken November 10 at 1:48 PM Eastern. See how we measure availability.

The counts are re-run weekly, and twice a week from December 10. The date under the title shows the latest pass.