Disney World Guests Wake Early for Candlelight Processional Booking Chaos

Once again, thousands of Disney World guests were stuck in browser refresh limbo this morning. Reservations for Candlelight Processional dining packages were supposed to open at 6 AM Eastern Time. As you can guess from this article’s title, that didn’t happen. Instead, they were greeted by error screens featuring Hei Hei and that three-eyed pink guy from Monsters, Inc.

So what went wrong? A few things.

Dining reservations and packages typically open at 6 AM. A planDisney post confirms that time for this year’s Candlelight Processional dining packages. That’s 5 AM here, which means my alarm went off in the 4 o’clock hour. And I don’t drink coffee.

Guests hoping to book those dining packages were repeatedly refreshing the website or pulling down to reload the My Disney Experience app. Meanwhile, guests trying to make regular dining, non-Candlelight reservations were getting the same errors.

Imagine waking up this early to stare at Hei Hei when all you want is a table at 50’s Prime Time Café.

Disney has been through this before. Demand for special event reservations has repeatedly overwhelmed its booking system. Disney had to pull the plug on its first attempt at Beak and Barrel reservations in 2025, although that one may have been caused by web bots slamming their servers.

Disney opened reservations days later, at a different time and using a virtual queue. It worked beautifully. They used that model for Diamond Horseshoe pop-up menu reservations earlier this month, again without any issues.

It should be the blueprint for any of these special event bookings.

But even if Disney had done that this morning, today’s rollout had another layer of “what the heck is going on here?” Many guests were able to book dining packages well before 6 AM ET through the individual restaurant webpages. By the time we tried that a few minutes after the top of the hour, we were getting error messages. That’s because everyone was hitting the server by then.

Meanwhile, Walt Disney World’s main Candlelight Processional webpage continued to say reservations were coming. The booking button didn’t appear until 7:30 AM, 90 minutes after the expected opening time. By then, availability within the 60-day window was picked over.

Fortunately for us, our hotel reservation allowed us to book beyond that window. That’s where the 60+10 rule comes in: Disney hotel guests can book dining for the length of their stay (for up to 10 days) once their 60-day booking window opens.

We could’ve booked a dining package for a Neil Patrick Harris performance, our first preference. But availability only appeared when I searched for parties of three or more. Disney wants to maximize the profits from a four-top table, so date night with my wife at EPCOT wasn’t happening. Sure, I could’ve booked a larger party and invited someone to join us. However, by then, sleep-deprived as I was, I was done jumping through hoops.

I understand Disney wanting to fill those tables. But the messy rollout is harder to defend. Judging by the mood of Disney fans on social media, I’m not alone.

I blame Hei Hei.