Walt Disney World has revealed the official menu, including adult and children’s pricing, for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant in Hollywood Studios. Additionally, we have details about the Advance Dining Reservation drop and–surprise, surprise!–it did not go smoothly!
For those who are unfamiliar with it, the idea behind Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant is that Andy and all of his toys are inviting guests to participate in the fun of a backyard barbecue. However, we do not mean the walk-around variety when referring to Andy’s toys. Toy Story Roundup Rodeo Restaurant is NOT be a character meal! Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the other characters will continue doing meet & greets around Toy Story Land.
Rather, Roundup Rodeo is a regular all-you-care-to-enjoy, family-style restaurant with an art style similar to that of both Toy Story Mania and Slinky Dog Dash. Andy has built a rodeo restaurant consisting of Woody’s Roundup toys and other playthings. To create the restaurant, he cut and taped cardboard boxes together to create a new rodeo arena.
Previously, Walt Disney World announced that Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ opens on March 23, 2023 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. In preparation for that, Advance Dining Reservations were to be released on February 21, 2023 for the opening period (not just opening day).
Given the wording thus far, you can probably guess how that went if you have any experience with past ADR drop days for new or returning Walt Disney World restaurants or dining experiences…
February 21, 2023 UPDATE: Advance Dining Reservations have now opened in FULL for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant, going live at about 10 am EST. Word quickly started to get out, and the system slowed to a crawl and frequently errored out as a result.
On a positive note, we were able to make reservations after a few tries at around that time, again at 11 am, and once more at 1:30 pm EST. As of the time we last checked, there was still scattered ADR availability for select dates at Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant.
If you were unable to get what you want, or simply missed the ADR drop, we’d encourage you to check back later today, this evening, and tomorrow morning. It’s likely that many Walt Disney World planners scrambled and booked more than one reservation and will cancel their extra(s) in the coming days as they figure out their actual plans and what they need/want. Good luck!
Next, let’s take a look at the official menu with pricing for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant:
The pricing here surprises us...in a good way! For an in-park, all-you-can-eat restaurant, $45 for adults and $25 for kids is surprisingly affordable. If you recall, our guess for prices was $55/$29 on the low end and as high as $59/$39 on the high end.
This is so low that it has us suspecting that Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant will be Regal Eagle caliber cuisine, but in all-you-can-eat, table service form. I wouldn’t even be mad–Regal Eagle is quality stuff, and an unlimited version of that as a sit-down restaurant for $45 sounds about fair to me.
Anyway, as we’ve indicated previously, Advance Dining Reservations demand is going to be sky-high for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant and you’ll want to book reservations ASAP. Regardless of how good or bad the cuisine or themed design ends up being, this will be the most popular restaurant at Disney’s Hollywood Studios because Toy Story.
Again, this will be the most competitive ADR for Disney’s Hollywood Studios going forward, and probably one of the most coveted ones in all of Walt Disney World. Suffice to say, you will want to have a plan of attack if you’re hoping to score ADRs for the initial opening period. See our Top 10 Tips for Booking Difficult Advance Dining Reservations, specifically numbers 9, 8, 6, plus 5 and 4 if you’re booking further into the future. (What follows is the original article detailing the ADR problems…)
It’s difficult to tell what, exactly, happened with the ADR drop for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ. As has been the case in the past, it appears that availability was released early and trickled out starting sometime between 5 am and 5:30 am.
This happens a lot–we’ve seen precisely this occur with Artist Point, Space 220, Fantasmic Dining Packages, and Candlelight Processional. In other words, ADRs going live before 6 am EST and in a slow-drip manner is not unprecedented. To the contrary, it is very…precedented.
My assumption is that Walt Disney World recognizes that demand will far exceed availability, and purposefully loads reservations early to reduce strain on its servers and get the whole ordeal over with. Or it could be the same mistake/accident being repeated over and over again. Given the track record with Disney IT, just about any explanation is plausible.
Whenever this does occur, we always hear from readers who claim that Advance Dining Reservations never opened. In reality, what usually happens is that they did open, but were gone so quickly–and all before 6 am–that a lot of Walt Disney World vacation planners never even saw them. For a new restaurant, there’s exponentially more demand than there is ADR supply, and thousands of people are online simultaneously hitting refresh and booking quickly.
The story is somewhat similar here, but with an odd twist. Advance Dining Reservations were available briefly, but I truly do not believe they were released in full. Now, I recognize it’s possible I’m making precisely the same mistake as those aforementioned readers–confusing what I saw (or didn’t see) with what actually happened (or didn’t happen). But here’s the evidence…
First, we didn’t see anything ourselves outside of opening day, and we checked a range of dates when we had the chance. At one brief point, we could have booked opening day, but nothing else. (We can’t do opening day, so we didn’t even try for that. Maybe it would’ve errored out or not let us book that, either.) We know all of the ‘tricks’ for making difficult ADRs, and have never been totally shut out before. This would be a first.
Second, we’ve heard from many readers–more than normal–who were unable to book anything. By contrast, we have not heard from a single person who had success in booking Advance Dining Reservations for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant. Usually, amongst all of the defeat, there are a few people who emerge victorious in booking ADRs.
Finally, Walt Disney World has actually updated the official website for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant to remove the reservation button and add this language: “Check back on February 21, 2023 for information on how to book reservations.”
Even after Advance Dining Reservations fully book, that usually does not happen for the simple reason that more ADRs are released on a rolling basis, every day thereafter. To my knowledge, Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant is not a limited time pop-up location (even though it kinda looks like one!). It’s going to be operating on an ongoing basis at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Honestly, I don’t know where this leaves us. To the best of my recollection, Walt Disney World has not had an issue like this with Advance Dining Reservations anytime recently. (The closest thing was probably the delayed release of Fantasmic Dining Packages.)
However, it has happened at Disneyland and I can tell you how that played out: ADRs were simply dropped later in the day, totally at random and without warning. Those filled up pretty quickly, with reservations being gone by the time ‘heads up’ reports hit social media and blogs. Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant is sure to be more popular than any returning restaurant at Disneyland, so if this is how things go, expect ADRs to be gone instantaneously once ADRs do drop in full.
Hopefully, what Walt Disney World does is reschedule the Advance Dining Reservation release date for this restaurant. While that’ll mean another early wake-up call for all of us, it’s exponentially better than sitting online for hours in the hopes of being there for a stealth drop.
Compounding the popularity of all things Toy Story is the fact that Roundup Rodeo BBQ is opening on March 23, 2023, which is during the heart of spring break season at Walt Disney World. It’s just after local school breaks conclude, but it’s still before Easter–the peak week of spring break.
Frankly, that doesn’t matter that much. Roundup Rodeo Restaurant could open during the slowest week of 2023, and it’ll still book up in minutes. This restaurant will likely be on par with Space 220 Restaurant at EPCOT in terms of demand. And that’s despite it not having a highly-themed or immersive component. Toy Story Land is incredibly popular, and people love barbecue.
Ultimately, we shall see what happens next with this Advance Dining Reservation saga for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant. After a relatively quiet 6+ months free of Disney IT woes, this is now the second time in the last week that there has been a release with major issues (TRON Lightcycle Run’s AP preview being the other–not to get conspiratorial, but I think there were unpublicized issues with that given my own problems with the virtual queue). Feels like things are back to “normal,” in a way. Oddly reassuring, even. (Okay, not really.)
In any case, we’re just glad that Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ will finally open on March 23, 2023. So long as we’re able to secure one, we’ll be booking an Advance Dining Reservation for shortly after opening night–so stay tuned for a full restaurant review coming soon!
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Your Thoughts
What do you think about the addition of a table service restaurant to Toy Story Land? How does the menu look to you? Excited to dine at Roundup Rodeo BBQ Restaurant starting on March 23, 2023? Thoughts on its themed design and details as compared to other exquisitely Imagineered restaurants at Disney’s Hollywood Studios? Do you agree or disagree with our thoughts? Any questions we can help you answer? 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!
