Walt Disney World has announced the new Advance Dining Reservation booking dates for Beak & Barrel Bar, the new Pirates of the Caribbean tavern coming to Adventureland in Magic Kingdom! This covers the latest about when you can book ADRs, following the drop day delay due to excessive demand and a Disney IT meltdown.
Let’s start with quick Beak & Barrel Bar basics. At this tavern, you’ll be immersed in an adventure across the Seven Seas with nods to both the classic Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and beloved films. As you join the pirate fun, you’ll enjoy thirst-quenching tropical beverages, delicious small bites, sing-alongs, storytelling, and enchanting surprises. The Beak and Barrel Bar opens on August 29, 2025 in Adventureland at Magic Kingdom, right outside the exit to Pirates of the Caribbean. ADRs were supposed to open on August 14.
In case you missed it (lucky you!), we cover the problems plaguing launch day in Walt Disney World’s Beak & Barrel Bar ADRrrr Drop Day Debacle. The short version of the story is that Disney IT was unprepared for the sky-high demand, and the entire Advance Dining Reservation system crashed and went into maintenance mode for a couple of hours. When it finally returned, Beak & Barrel Bar ADRs had been disabled and delayed. Many Walt Disney World vacation planners wasted hours playing the refresh game.
What dates do ADRs open for Beak & Barrel Bar?
There are two different timelines for Beak & Barrel Bar ADRs:
Normal Days & Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party – Advance Dining Reservations for Beak & Barrel launch on August 20, 2025 at 7 p.m. ET.
Although Walt Disney World has stated as much, this is subject to the 60+10 rule for on-site guests, which means that on-site guests will be able to book more distant dates and off-site guests won’t.
Everyone will be able to book 60 days in advance, though. This is strategically significant, as will be discussed below.
Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party – Starting September 3, 2025, on-site Walt Disney World Resort hotel guests can make reservations for Beak and Barrel during Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. ADRs will be available for dates up to 60 days in advance of arrival, for the entire length of stay (up to a 10-night stay). All other guests can book Beak & Barrel during MVMCP starting September 8, 2025.
(This info was previously released, but removed from the bulletin when the meltdown occurred last week. There’s no reason to believe it has changed, though.)
What time do ADRs open for Beak & Barrel?
Here’s the official ‘party line’ from Walt Disney World on ADR timing: “Ahoy, me hearties! Those seeking the treasures of The Beak and Barrel can begin charting their course when reservations launch on August 20, 2025 at 7 p.m. ET.”
We have confirmed with Walt Disney World that time is correct, and it’s not another classic AM/PM mixup. That time is correct—ADRs reopened at 7 p.m. at night. Not the morning!
While it’s possible that they might go live at 7:00:00 p.m. on the dot, you might miss out if you wait until then. You’ll want to be online by 6:45 p.m. Sometimes, Walt Disney World quietly loads ADRs into the system early as a ‘release valve’ on demand.
It’s also possible ADRs won’t be loaded until 7:14 p.m. or some random time. Point being: ADR release days are very hit or miss! I know this is a frustrating non-answer, but don’t shoot the messenger.
I’ve been doing this for years, and have experienced many of these frustrations firsthand. The only consistent with Disney IT is inconsistency. You probably now have firsthand experience with this if you were around for round one of the Beak & Barrel drop day debacle.
Beak & Barrel ADR Competitiveness
As you’ve probably already gathered from the entire system crashing when ADRs were supposed to go live, reservations will be incredibly competitive, on par with or even exceeding GEO-82. It’s a perfect storm of sky-high demand colliding with limited supply. You will absolutely want to be up bright and early on xxx if you’re hoping for a chance of an ADR at Beak & Barrel on August 29 or anytime over Labor Day weekend.
That is Destination D23 weekend, a time when diehard dorks like me are descending upon Walt Disney World, and there will be thousands of us who all want to experience the new PotC bar on opening day or opening weekend. That is on top of the army of Annual Passholders and locals who are always first to everything, plus regular ole tourists.
You know how GEO-82 was highly competitive for opening day and is still impossible to book unless you’re 60+ days out? Beak and Barrel will be like that on steroids for Labor Day weekend. (A better comparison might be the crazy lines for the original Figment popcorn bucket.) One thing that will benefit Beak & Barrel over time is that it’ll have higher hourly capacity by virtue of being a larger venue and having a strict time limit.
However, demand is also likely to be higher because “tavern themed to Pirates of the Caribbean” is a more interesting and attractive concept to both Walt Disney World fans and casual audiences, and because this is a family-friendly lounge in Magic Kingdom. On balance, it’s our expectation that Beak & Barrel is the #1 most difficult ADR for years to come. Demand for Oga’s Cantina has just started to cool, and that opened back in 2019. So if you want “easier” Beak & Barrel ADRs, check back in 2028.
Tips & tricks for Pillaging ADRs
For starters, if you can’t find anything for your desired dates, try refreshing or adjusting your parameters in the My Disney Experience app. There are options, they just don’t always appear at first. If you’re not having success, try some techniques from our Top 10 Tips for Hard to Book Advance Dining Reservations at Walt Disney World.
Here are more specific recommendations:
Use the Restaurant Booking Page – At the risk of stating the obvious, you don’t want to be scrolling through results for other restaurants when trying to book Beak & Barrel. This is one of those ‘fast fingers’ scenarios where milliseconds matter. You’ll want an on-point strategy and a honed approach.
This means going directly to the restaurant website or its page in the My Disney Experience app and booking from there. Unfortunately, the blue “Check Available Days” button has vanished from the official website and app. Fortunately, the direct link still works: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dine-res/dining-event/beak-barrel
Note that when we say “works,” we mean it hasn’t been disabled. Not that you can currently book ADRs ahead of everyone else. You cannot! But that direct link might give you a leg up on the competition once ADRs are loaded into the system because, again, milliseconds matter!
Multiple Devices, Computer Priority – Before ADRs go live, my strong advice is to login to disneyworld.com on your computer and the My Disney Experience app. Sure, this all goes down at the crack of dawn, so there might be the strong temptation to do this all while lying in bed. But there are few better ways to cut your teeth on the Walt Disney World planning machine than by setting up a veritable command center, ready for every contingency.
If you’re really serious, go into private browsing, login, and open a new tab for Beak & Barrel. If something goes wrong–and let’s be real, this is Disney IT, so something probably will–switch over to the My Disney Experience app or a different device and keep rolling.
Bounce Around – One of the things we’ve noticed with past ADR drop days (especially Candlelight Processional) is that not all dates are loaded into the system simultaneously. Or all times.
Honestly, I have no idea how or why this would be the case, but it’s nevertheless bouncing around dates that might work for you at Beak & Barrel to see what’s available. Equally as important, don’t freak out if your first priority doesn’t appear. It might be that it fully booked up instantly, but it also might be that it hasn’t yet loaded for whatever reason.
This actually supposedly happened with Beak & Barrel on round one, with a single date loading into the system and briefly being bookable before the system crashed.
Book “Backwards” – If you have an on-site stay that’s over 60 days in advance, you should use this perk to your advantage to reduce the competition. The best approach is to put Beak & Barrel as far out beyond 60 days as possible, as you won’t have to compete with locals and off-site guests for those dates.
This is especially advantageous is you have a trip that’s a week or longer. With each day closer to the end of the +10 limit, the pool of eligible guests to book that date is reduced. As a result, booking for those dates should, in theory, be easier. Beak & Barrel is going to be incredibly competitive, so it may not feel easier, but it will be. (Note that this same strategy applies to Lightning Lane pre-arrival availability and, obviously, other ADRs.)
Use A Notification Service – We don’t recommend a notification service from the jump, as this is going to move too fast. This really only applies if you get shut out of Beak & Barrel ADRs when they launch on August 20th. And many, if not most, of you will miss out, so we’re including this here.
There are several ADR finder services, some free and others paid. These dining reservation finders notify you when an ADR you want becomes available. It’s then up to you to act fast and get it reserved.
Our strong recommendation would be to not pay for a reservation finder far ahead of your trip or for a year-long subscription. Several of these services have vanished overnight due to Disney backend system changes that effectively shut them down.
Failing All Else, Look Last Minute – With the big exception of newly-introduced dining (like Beak & Barrel), which we almost always reserve on drop days, we seldom make ADRs far in advance.
Fortunately, many restaurants are not dropping all of their ADR availability ~60 days ahead of time. This is happening in part due to staffing–restaurants release a conservative number of reservations two months out, and then open up more as the dates draw nearer if Cast Member scheduling allows.
On top of that, many Walt Disney World visitors hoard ADRs, and cancel their unwanted ones the night before or even a couple of hours prior to their meals to avoid being penalized. As a result of both of these realities, there’s usually pop-up last-minute ADR availability even for the most popular restaurants.
The most common times that we check for Advance Dining Reservations are between 9 pm and 11 pm the night before, as well as around 10 am and 2 pm same-day. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen nothing for many restaurants ~30 days in advance, only to find numerous options for lunch and dinner released the morning of or one day in advance. This is my manual version of an ADR finder!
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Your Thoughts
Will you be trying to book a Beak & Barrel Bar ADR? Hopeful that it’s easier the second go-round? Do you think Beak & Barrel will run out of ADRs within seconds or minutes of launch, or will reservations last hours? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!