This third video in a tutorial series of 10 describes how to set and manage your MouseDining.com alerts. These alerts help you get last-minute and hard-to-find dining reservations at Disney restaurants. To set an alert, you can do this from the main navigation menu of the site, or from any restaurant page within the availability calendar.

A MouseDining alert consists of 5 things: Date, Restaurant, Party Size, Meal, and Preferred Time – in that hierarchy. It’s important to note that Alerts are simultaneous and limited. Free accounts get 6 alerts, monthly subscribers get 50 alerts, and annual subscribers get 100 alerts. Notifications, however, are limitless. Notifications are the email or text messages MouseDining sends to notify you of a match to your alert. Think of an alert as an alarm that you set. When this criteria is met, we sound the alarm in the form of a notification. When setting alerts, you can prioritize and strategize your alerts to get more from the MouseDining service.

My recommendation is to start out broad, snagging any dining reservation at the restaurant(s) you most anticipate dining at. Then, once you secure a less-than ideal dining reservation, narrow the parameters of your alerts to try for a more ideal dining reservation. Another tip is to consider planning your days around your dining plans instead of trying to fit your dining plans into your day. You’ll find it much easier to get dining reservations this way.