Does this mean one calendar day or 24 hours?
For example, if I have a reservation at 9:05am Friday, do I have to cancel it by 9:05am Thursday, or can I cancel Thursday night?
Cancel
- You must cancel at least one day prior to your reservation to avoid a per person cancellation fee. If you fail to cancel timely and are a no show, the credit card provided at the time of reservation will be charged $10.00 per person.
I would play it safe and say 24hrs. But if you have to cancel via phone you need to add in much much time on hold to speak to someone 
Yeah, I know I could do the 24 hours thing to be safe, but my plans may change last minute, so want to be sure. And I would cancel via the My Disney Experience app.
Thanks!
At a certain point… don’t know the timing, but you won’t be able to cancel or modify on MDE and will see a message to call in.
Ah, nertz!
even if the app says you can’t cancel you can usually ‘modify’: bump it out to a future date, (change the party size to 1 to make it easier to find a future spot). THEN cancel.
Nice workaround! Thanks!
I don’t think that always works… maybe if it’s w/in a certain time frame??? 
Disney IT being what it is, I’m sure you’re right! But I can also attest to once moving a Beaches and Cream ressie out same day, so it’s worth trying if you find yourself wishing you didn’t have to trek out or sit on hold.
I’ve been able to modify on MDE too… but it was days out. I wish I could remember when MDE doesn’t allow any modifications or cancelations. I know I’ve been caught in that limitation and had to pay the $10 fine before. I have fought it successfully once before too though when I missed the deadline b/c of being on hold for TOO long.
I modified to one, day of, and moved a reservation out almost 60 days during my last trip. Other times it will not let you cancel a month out. The dining system is broken and you never know what will happen.
Worst case you could go to Guest Services and ask them to cancel it for you, And I’m fairly sure the day before will be fine if you do that.
I’m pretty sure it is 24 hours from near the reservation time bc I had a hard time canceling some reservations the day before on my last trip. I was always able to modify to a later date and then cancel though. Some popular restaurants I had to search for quite a long time to modify.
Pre covid it was by midnight the night before, but that may have changed along with everything else.
I was going to say this. I went to the front desk and they canceled for me. MDE said to call, the wait time was crazy, the front desk did it right away. Worse case scenario you can walk up to the restaurant (if it is in a park you are visiting) and cancel. I have done this when I had a cranky child, when it was my reservation time. They don’t bat an eye, and did not charge.
Another tip to add - try both the app and MDE website. In my experience, I’ve been able to cancel on the website when the app said it was already too late, or modify on the app when the website said I couldn’t.
