How to Make Dinner Show Restaurant Reservations
Hello lovely TDRExplorer readers! My name is Umbrielle and I’m a new contributor to this amazing site.
I’m really happy to be here and hope you all enjoy what I write. I’m going to be attempting to help with translating various aspects of the Japanese Tokyo Disney Resort Official site to hopefully provide some useful information for foreign visitors to the Resort. I hope you find what I write useful!
Important Note Before We Begin
I really recommend you read through this guide first before going ahead with a booking. I can only take you so far with the guide as it requires credit card details in order to get past a certain point.
So basically this guide will get you as far as entering your credit card details. I will be on hand to help with anything after that point so please leave a comment or tweet me (@winghearted) should you get stuck.
Important
Some people have said that you cannot receive a refund if you decide you don’t want to attend. As I have never personally visited, I cannot confirm this but please keep this in mind!
Now that’s out of the way, let’s begin!
Be Tokyo Disney Resort’s Guest!
As I’m sure many of you are aware, Tokyo Disney Resort offers some truly excellent dining options — my personal favourite being their buffet restaurants. But if you’re looking for more than a meal, the show restaurants might be just the ticket. In fact, there’s nothing quite like enjoying excellent cuisine and an amazing show with your favourite Disney characters to top off your trip to a Disney Resort and Tokyo has some amazing options.
The lunch and dinner show restaurants require advance reservations which can only be acquired one month in advance and up until the day before. It pays to plan ahead, as without an advance reservations you are unable to dine.
Reservations are made via the Show restaurants’ dedicated on-line reservations section. Unfortunately for many foreign visitors, this section of the site is entirely in Japanese.
We thought a guide on how to make that all important booking would be helpful. For all of you wanting to dine at one of the two show restaurants at the resort, help is here!
Two Restaurants, Four Shows
Both of the Show Restaurants are located within Tokyo Disneyland and each offer two different shows – one at lunch and one at dinner. The Diamond Horseshoe is located in Westernland and the Polynesian Terrace Restaurant is located in Adventureland.
It’s Reservation Time!
Important Notes Before Reserving Your Table:
- You will need your credit card to reserve a table so please have this in hand.
- You can make up to 3 separate reservations for restaurants per day (this includes other non-show restaurants).
- There may be a wait to enter the park on the day of your reservations, to prevent any delay please prepare your park tickets in advance.
- You can reserve a table for up to 8 people per booking only.
- You can reserve a table for your chosen show restaurant from 09:00 one month in advance and up until 20:59 the day before.
- During the reservation period there is a chance that restaurants will become fully booked or there may be other conditions resulting in Guests being unable to book. Please keep this in mind.
Additional Notes:
- Between 03:00 – 05:00 (Japan time) an automatic system maintenance takes place on the on-line reservations site. Please be aware that if you are in the process of making a reservation when maintenance begins your reservation will be stopped and won’t be processed.
- Seating arrangements: If there are more than 5 people in your party, you might be placed on separate tables.
Selecting your Show Restaurant
Firstly, open up the show restaurants online reservations section on the Tokyo Disney Resort website. You will be given a list of the two restaurants and the two shows available at each (see below).
Polynesian Terrace Restaurant at Tokyo Disneyland. Lunch show features Lilo’s Luau and Dinner is Mickey and Minnie’s Polynesian Paradise
Diamond Horseshoe at Tokyo Disneyland. Lunch is the Horseshoe Round-up and dinner The Diamond Horseshoe Presents “Mickey & Company”
Once you have selected your desired restaurant (keeping in mind that they are either lunch or dinner shows). On the section of your chosen restaurant, click on the box at the bottom middle (circled below).
You will then enter the screen as shown in the picture below. Use the image to help you enter your own information for your desired date and party members. Click on the image to see clearer.
Different Seating and Prices
The restaurant has a difference in pricing depending on where you chose to sit in the restaurant. Obviously the closer to the action, the more yen you’ll need to part with so make sure you decide if it’s worth the extra to see Mickey that little bit closer!
The seating is separated into S, A and B categories. S being the most expensive (and closest to the action) and B being the least expensive (and further away from the action). These maps are shown later on in the process but will help you decide where you want to sit:
Once you’ve decided on which category seems best for you, you’ll see that the dates/times are separated into seating categories. Scroll down to see all three seating categories and their corresponding time/date slots. I’ve translated the pricing format here for quick reference using the S category of seating:
Children are separated into three categories — Over 9’s are treated as “Adult”, ages 4~8 are lower in price and under 3’s can get in free (but please keep in mind that this doesn’t include a baby meal for them — this can be added on later on in the booking process for an additional fee).
Underneath each table category is a chart for the date selected and the three days after and the time slots for each sitting (In case there are any fellow UK readers, the month is first and date second). If the time slot has a blue icon, it means you can book a table for that particular date/time. If it has two red characters then it is fully booked and unfortunately you are unable to reserve that slot.
Note: Japanese people often make the effort to cancel their bookings if they cannot attend so if you have your heart set on a particular day, keep checking back as often as possible because chances are they might have a cancellation and you can take it up. This is something you should definitely do in the last day or so before. I’d recommend having a back-up reservation though, just in case you can’t get the ideal date/time.
Here’s what the chart looks like for the S seating category:
It will likely be a case of going back and forth and changing dates until you get one that has a free slot. Just keep trying out all the different options (different dates, times and seating categories) until you find a fit.
Once you have selected your date/time, click the blue icon to continue with the booking.
You will be presented with this mass of information, which I have added notes to. As I realized when I lived there, Japanese people sure love filling out forms! Please check out the image below to help decipher what is going on here.
Note: If you would like any information on the under 3’s menu, I can take a look.
Also, make sure you check this box shown below. It’s basically confirming that you understand the difference in the seating categories and you cannot proceed without checking it first.
Inputting Your Name (Hard Mode)
If you continue down the page, you’ll arrive at this next section. This is where things get quite tricky. Why? Because you have to input your own name in Hiragana (Japanese writing system using phonetics). I’ve tried to write my name in regular English and Katakana (their other writing system which is used for loan words, i.e.. western names!) but it would only accept my name written in it’s Hiragana equivalent. You can easily use an on-line “Write your name in Japanese!” generator type thing but it usually produces your name in Katakana so if you comment on this post with your first and last names I will write them in Hiragana for you to copy and paste. Don’t worry, you can trust me to write your name as accurately as possible!
We recommend using the online Japanese Name Converter if you need them translated quickly.
I would also recommend inputting your number (if using your regular non-Japanese cellphone) with it’s international dialling code included.
Terms and Conditions to Keep in Mind
Seating
- You are unable to choose your seats
- Please be aware that different seating will provide different views of the stage
- Your party might be separated depending on seating arrangements
Changes and Cancellations
You can change/cancel your reservation up until 20:59 the day before your reservation date.
- If you cancel all or part of your reservation you might be charged
- If you fail to cancel your reservation before 20:59 on the day before the reservation the cancellation fee will be 100%
- If there is a surplus of seats, changes to allow more than a party of 8 will be allowed. However, this is not always guaranteed.
- Please note that when you alter a booking your credit card will be charged to reflect the new reservation
Important Notes About Your Reservation
- Please come to the restaurant at least an hour before the dinner show or half an hour before the first lunch show of the day to confirm your booking.
- When you come to the restaurant we will confirm your details (reservation name and number required) and give you a reservation ticket. If you do not come to the booth beforehand this will be considered a cancellation.
Note: If you have any allergies and need help with that, please leave a comment and we will try to assist.
In order to continue with your reservation you will be required to register an account with Disney. If you already have an account, log in on the left. If not, click the circled box below to register:
You must login with your Disney account. If you do not have one, it is free to register. This account is used specifically for Japan.
You’ll come to a page like below for New Members. All you need to do here is enter your birthday. Once you’ve done that, hit the circled button.
Enter your email address twice and your password.
The next part is pretty tricky. First fill in the simple parts — You’ll need to enter your name in hiragana again (which you should have by now from the previous part) and then male/female. Add your phone number (again with dialling code perhaps!) and then we come to another tricky part!
Entering Your Address (Hard Mode)
So this registration assumes you have an address IN Japan. OK so not many of you will have this. I found a way to get around it — I’m not 100% sure if it’s cool with Disney but needs must! My solution is to enter the address of the hotel/inn you’ll be staying at during your time in Japan. I used the hotel I was temporarily staying at when I first made my Annual Pass and the CM that helped process it all never had any problems but obviously this is just my experience.
So if you enter the address of your hotel in Japanese all should be well. If you need help finding out the address of where you’re staying in Japanese, hit me up in a comment with the name/location and I’ll take a look for you.
You’ll then need to check all the boxes at the bottom to continue and then hit the circled box to proceed.
Below will be a confirmation of all the information entered. Check it all out and then hit the circled box.
It’ll then ask you if you want to sign up for any newsletters via email. I just quickly hit Google translate as this isn’t all that important in the scheme of things. However the newsletters are pretty cute, so take a look. Check any that you want to sign up for and hit the circled box.
You’ll then be shown a confirmation with a list of all the chosen newsletters. Check these are all OK before hitting the circled button.
You’ll then be taken back to your reservation slot. The red text at the top is just telling you that you haven’t yet finished your reservation. Here you just need to enter the names of any Adults in your reservation in hiragana (again if you need more names translating, let me know) and then it’s all about the payment!
And here is as far as I can take you, brave Tokyo Disney fans! You must go on without me! (No seriously, I can’t put my own CC details in here because I live in the UK currently, d’oh!) but if you enter your own CC details and continue on, I can help with what comes next if you post a screen shot or ask for my e-mail if you want it private. If not, just try good ol’ Google translate. If you get stuck at all, please just leave a comment and I’ll help!
Bonus Japanese Phrases
Have your name (in Hiragana) and the names of any other adults underneath and reservation number printed on a piece of paper for ease of checking in.
You can always first try the good ol’ “Do you speak English?” but if you want to try your hand at some Japanese, try these sentences when you arrive at your selected restaurant:
I made a reservation online:
- Intanetto de yoyaku shimashita
- in-ta-net-to deh yo-ya-ku shee-mah-shee-tah
- インタネットで予約しました。
This is my name and reservation number:
- kore wa watashi no namae to yoyaku bangou desu
- core-rey wa wa-ta-shee no nah-my-eh tow yo-ya-ku ban-go de-sue
- これは私の名前と予約番号です
For more Japanese phrases, read our basic and food related Japanese language articles.
I hope this helped you all get a grasp of what the show restaurants are and how to go about making a reservation. If you need any help at all, just hit me up with a comment or I’m on Twitter @winghearted.
I’d love to hear about successful reservations and how it all went once at the park so let me know about that, too!
All the best and happy show restaurant-ing!
[…] requires a reservation ahead of time and is one of two dinner shows at Tokyo Disneyland. Read our guide on how to make your reservation. Walk up reservations are possible, but are not a guarantee. Enjoy an excellent meal while being […]
[…] The Polynesian Terrace Restaurant requires an advanced reservation (Japanese Only). If you wish to make a reservation for any dinner show please follow our full guide. […]
This is so helpful! Would you mind translating my name into Hiragana? It’s Drew Hackney. I can’t find any useful Hiragana translators online that their site will accept. Thanks so much!
Hi Drew! We went and translated your name into both Katakana (used for foreign names) and Hiragana.
Katakana: ドリューハックニー
Hiragana: どりゅーはっくにー
Good luck!
OMG this is so useful I have looked for a way for booking this for 2 years now and I never made it because of the name in Hiragana…could you translate the names Sabrina Mittermeier, Stephan Mittermeier and Markus Bauer for me? That would be so awesome!
Also, I hope it is fine to use a credit card registered to a German address for booking? Thank you!
Here are the translated names for you.
Sabrina Mittermeier: サブリナ ミッターマイヤー
Stephan Mittermeier: ステファン ミッターマイヤー
Markus Bauer: マルクス バウアー
Using a German credit card should be fine. If you have any issues you can phone the resort and ask to speak to an English speaking Cast Member!
Thank you so much!
Hi there hopefully you can help me out! I booked accomodation in Tokyo not realising I couldn’t do this. The names I need translated are:
Deanna Lee
Adam Younis
Thank you!
Hi there! I’m in the Diamond Horseshoe shows and need to make reservations for my family to come see them soon! 🙂 I was able to translate the names into Hiragana but I’m having issues with both the address in Hiragana and also my email address to register. It keeps saying I’m entering the address incorrectly, and I’ve tried it multiple ways, taking out some of the symbols etc. – not really sure what to do! And it keeps saying that it will not accept my email as it’s already been used – but I haven’t registered before. Also tried my alternate email and it said the same thing for that. Does it need to be a Japanese email?
Thank you SO much!
Hello! You are going to have to contact the resort and ask to speak to an English speaking Cast Member. I am unsure on the issues you are seeing. Hope this helps!
Hello Deanna,
Here are the names translated:
Deanna Lee: ディアナ リー
Adam Younis: アダム ハンユニス
Hope this helps!
Hello! I would be so appreciative if you could kindly translate our names as well.
Andrea Reed
Robert Reed
Thanks so much for this wonderiful information!
Andrea Reed: アンドレアリード
Robert Reed: ロバート・リード
I hope this helps!
Awesome!! Thanks so much!!
Oh this post is SO awesome!!! Thank you so much!
Can I have these names translated please?
Maryanne Schembri
Charlie Schembri
Sasha Pete
Josefa Pete
Apollo Pete
Phoenix Pete
Marita Schembri
Tarkan Mustafa
Hoping to follow this and get a reservation for July 13 – mum’s 60th birthday dinner!
Hello! I have them translated in the order you provided:
メアリーアン スケンブリ
チャーリー スケンブリ
サシャ ピート
ジョセファ ピート
エーポロ ピート
フォエニックス ピート
マリタ スケンブリ
ターカン ムスタファ
Thank you!
Hello.
Thank you for that very helpful article.
I would really appreciate it if you could translate my name:
Kathleen Morris.
Thank you!
Thank you so so much. I was able to book the Diamond Horseshoe Mickey & Co for my group.
I had soo much trouble regarding the user address. They want a ridiculously specific format for the address that I kept getting errors. If it weren’t for my disney addiction, I honestly would’ve given up. I did figure it out without calling though! It turns out the “space” format in between my “house number” and building name was wrong! I suggest you copy and paste the format shown as an example below each field and replace each number and words along the field. Do NOT delete the spaces or “-“. Use arrow keys! The numerical letters will change format but that doesn’t seem to prompt errors. Also the “zip code” is usually seen formatted as”###-####” but the “-” threw off the 7 digit field so enter the zip code without the hyphen.
Also unlike the other dining reservations, it looks like the meals are charged when reserving? My credit card company declined this international purchase which was not the case for regular dining, so I also suggest letting your credit card company know ahead of time that you are about to make this purchase. Once my card got declined TDR never let me use the card again even after my cc company told me I was all good.
As always, TDR guests are persistent and will book exactly 30 days in advance so set your alarms to the 9:00 AM japan time to book to leave room for error. I am going midweek in the summer so maybe it is just a popular time but I tried to book 18 hours later and all S and A seating areas were sold out.
Thank you again for this step by step. It would not have given me the courage to attempt this step in my planning process.
This is a wonderful guide! I was just wondering, is it possible to make reservations for meal/shows if you don’t have reservations for one of the in-resort hotels? And has anyone else had difficulty getting their credit card to go through?
Good Morning!
Here’s your name translated:
キャスリーン・モリス
Thank you!
You can make reservations online as a non-hotel guest but it’s only offered in Japanese.
http://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/reservation/ps/
People have had various issues with their credit cards. One of the common ones is the card being declined. Phoning your credit card company should fix it.
Thank you!
[…] Reservations (Priority Seating as it’s called) are required for all table service—including dinner shows. […]
Your post is wonderful – so very helpful – hopefully I’ll be able to book restaurant reservations for our October trip when the time comes now.
To help with the process, Can you please translate our names?
Maxine Braithwaite
Dallas Braithwaite
Also, we are staying at the Hilton Tokyo Bay, do I just copy and paste their address from their website?
Thank you so much for your help 🙂
Hello Maxine! You can use this handy website to translate it quickly for you.
http://apps.nolanlawson.com/japanese-name-converter/
Yes, you can copy the address of the hotel into the appropriate boxes.
Thank you!
Hello, I have been trying to set up an account and can get all the way to confirm your details page, the page before the news letters sign up and I get an error message. “An error has occurred. Sorry, your return received reservation and purchase site to the top, thank you for your procedure again.”
Any help?
Hi
We have a reservation for TDH in Nov and want to book The Horseshoe Roundup for lunch. I already have a TDR account for our reservation – will this make my lunch booking easier (less steps? and will I need to still have our names in Hiragana etc)?
TIA
I would double check your address and that your names are inputted correctly. If the error still occurs you will have to contact the resort (they have English speakers you can ask for).
If you login to your account you should see the list of places you can make reservations. I am not sure if this restaurant is in that list. If it’s not you will have to go through this process. If you’re able to do it with your reservation, please let us know.
Thank you!
[…] dining. Most you can reserve the day of, but a couple does require online reservations (Read our guide on how to make these reservations). Check at the restaurant for show […]
Hi, can you please help me to translate these names to Hiragana?
1. Cindy Sze
2. Sze Chee Fun
3. Andy Lim
Thanks!
Hi, can you help me translate the following names please?
1. Lim John Lester
2. Lim Melody
3. Lim Mikel Alonso
4. Chua Susana
Morning Lester, you can use the online Japanese name converter which is fairly accurate 🙂
http://apps.nolanlawson.com/japanese-name-converter/
Hello. I’ve tried using the translator site, but with no luck. It keep giving an error when I try to paste the result in the reservation form. Could you help? The name is: Kevin Tharp. Thank you!
Can you translate into hiragana
Susan driscoll
Jesse driscoll