How to Make Reservations for Disneyland’s Reopening
Disney has revealed details about the theme park reservation system that’ll be used when Disneyland and Disney California reopen on April 30, 2021. This post will cover how to reserve access, ticket & booking windows, and what to expect online when making plans to enter the parks. (Updated April 12, 2021.)
As previously discussed, Disneyland and DCA will reopen with certain health safety protocol in place, including capacity caps and attendance limits. At present, Disneyland could reopen at 25% capacity. If Orange County’s cases per day improve a bit more, that number gets bumped to 35%. We doubt that’ll happen before May, and even if it does, Disneyland will probably still start with a lower percentage and slowly scale up from there–just like what happened at Walt Disney World.
Also just like Walt Disney World is the reservation system. Anyone who is already familiar with Disney Park Pass in Florida will be pretty familiar with the reservation system at Disneyland Resort. The only difference thus far is that it doesn’t have a proper name attached, which is fine by me–descriptive names make complex things more comprehensible. Otherwise, it sounds like it’ll function very similarly, albeit with some unique-to-Disneyland wrinkles…
To enter Disneyland or Disney California Adventure, both a theme park reservation and valid admission ticket for the same park on the same date are required for guests ages 3 and up. Guests must have a valid theme park admission ticket in order to make a reservation.
Theme park reservations will be limited and subject to availability and, until further notice, only California residents may visit the parks, and in groups no larger than 3 households, in line with current state guidelines. (Note that California just announced the state will fully reopen by June 15, 2021–we now expect in-state rule to fall off no later than that date.)
The theme park reservation system will launch on April 12, 2021 and guests with existing valid theme park tickets can begin making park reservations for the days that their ticket is valid. Theme park ticket sales will resume on April 15, 2021 and guests without park tickets may begin purchasing tickets and making park reservations on that date.
As a reminder, ticket expiration dates were extended for many outstanding tickets. To accommodate as many types of ticket holders as possible, park reservations for select dates may be made available on a rolling basis. Ticket calendars will be updated on a rolling basis.
For those who had tickets to Disneyland prior to the closure, you can reference the above calendar for May & June 2021 to see what dates your tickets will be valid. On the back of printed tickets or in the Disneyland app, you should see “Tier [number]” on your ticket. That calendar shows what dates each tier and above is valid–for example, on May 18-19, Tier 2 and above is valid. Tier 5 tickets are valid every single day. There are not yet any days when Tier 1 tickets are valid.
Here’s how the reservation process for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure will work:
More explanation beyond that graphic is probably unnecessary.
Be sure to log in to your Disney account to link valid theme park tickets prior to accessing the park reservation system. Don’t get too frustrated if the above steps don’t go smoothly (see below for further explanation).
Guests with valid theme park admission tickets who are planning a stay at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa will also need to book a theme park reservation, as a hotel stay does not guarantee a theme park reservation.
If you plan to visit the theme parks during your stay, get your theme park reservation prior to making your hotel reservation. For room reservations and travel packages, visit Disneyland.com or contact your travel professional starting April 15 for stays beginning April 29. Theme park reservations will need to be made separately.
Guests with Park Hopper tickets may choose, pending availability, which theme park to start their day, when making their theme park reservations, and then will be able to visit the other park beginning at 1 pm that day. (Honestly a bit surprised to see Park Hopping return right from the get-go.)
Guests with multi-day tickets will be required to make a separate park reservation for each day they plan to visit the theme parks. Upon reopening, daily park hours for Disneyland park and Disney California Adventure park are currently planned to be 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Next, some key booking dates for Disneyland and DCA:
- April 9, 2021: If you currently hold a theme park ticket, you can check for available days for your 1-day ticket type. (Note: I don’t know what, exactly, this means. It sounds like current ticket holders will be able to check–but not make–reservation availability for their ticket type, which implies some dates might be blocked out for this group.)
- April 12, 2021: The theme park reservation system will open no earlier than 8 am Pacific on April 12 and guests who already have valid theme park tickets may begin making park reservations.
- April 15, 2021: Theme park ticket sales will resume no earlier than 8 am Pacific on April 15, and guests without park tickets may begin purchasing tickets and making park reservations.
This is undoubtedly going to raise some eyebrows with Disneyland fans (to put some of the irate comments we’ve seen on social media into more PG terms). It essentially puts Legacy Passholders at a disadvantage, as it’s highly unlikely that group would have day tickets sitting around. Honestly, that does suck and we get why people are mad. It definitely doesn’t make the most loyal fans feel appreciated–and is another blow after the AP program was retired.
In Disneyland’s defense, I invite you to read the our “We’re in Orbit!” post (or its comments) from Walt Disney World’s reservations launch day last summer or our “A Touch of Disney” post comments or our Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge reservations now live post comments or or or…
If you don’t want to read any of those (can’t blame you!), the commonality is that they were all slow-motion train wrecks. During the headache-inducing process, many of the participants got intimately acquainted with the details of Disney’s virtual waiting rooms, spending multiple hours in a queue only to have the system crash. Some spent the better part of a day doing that only to come up empty handed. Anyone who has tried to do a Disney opening day “thing” probably has their own “unbelievable” horror story. (I believe them all.)
Starting with a significantly smaller pool of potential guests creates less of an opening day burden on Disney IT and allows the company to see potential problem points and fix them before the deluge. Think of it like an attraction “soft opening” but for reservations. I can’t say I’m wild about this approach, but it’s absolutely better than the very predictable alternative. Until Disney IT upgrades the ‘ole Gateway 2000 they use to run the Go.com servers, this lemonade out of lemons option is best.
Finally, for some predictions for the Disneyland reservation system and demand. Even with the two-stage approach to reservations, we anticipate issues both days. That’s just a given. It wouldn’t be a Disney ‘drop day’ without them. There probably won’t be as many reports of problems the first day, but only because fewer members of the online fan community will be participating (and thus, complaining) then. Rest assured, there will still be people cursing at their computer screens on that day.
The second date will also likely have problems because it’ll have more moving parts and an exponentially higher number of guests trying to access the system. It still likely won’t be nearly as bad as it would’ve been without the phased approach, which many of you will likely find unbelievable given how bad it’ll still (probably) be.
Then on April 16 (or even late on the 15th), the reservation system will work smoothly and still have plenty of availability for the vast majority of dates. Those of you who made park reservations for September 7, 2021 might thus wonder why you wasted your time. (Reservations beyond June 2021 probably won’t even be available on day one, but the point stands. Personally, I wouldn’t bother with any dates beyond June 14.)
These predictions are made with such specificity because we’ve already been down this road many, many times.
As for demand, it should go without saying that there’s a lot of pent-up demand for Disneyland among Californians. The ease with which tickets to the pricey picnic at DCA sold out should tell you everything you need to know on that front. Our expectation is that the parks book up quickly for opening weekend, and probably have no trouble selling out the month of May 2021. That’s more or less a sure thing.
The bigger question for us is how the rest of the summer looks without Annual Passholders and with fewer tourists than normal. Once the pool of vloggers, bloggers, and other diehard fans is exhausted, how crowded will the parks be? (Especially come mid-June when California fully reopens.) Some ex-Annual Passholders are used to paying less for their AP than a 5-day park ticket, and that group may be reluctant, unwilling, or unable to buy day tickets.
Obviously, we don’t know what’ll happen, but we absolutely do not expect the entire summer to book up as soon as reservations are released. There will be at least a few weeks with demand significantly exceeding the supply of reservations, but then it’ll likely drop off a cliff after that. (In a way, sort of like vaccines!) This is why we’re of the belief that Annual Passes are not gone forever, and will return in some modified form–probably before the year is over.
Ultimately, it’s just nice to finally have some clarity on how Disneyland’s system will work to make advance theme park reservations. We know many of you have been (understandably) stressed out about this, and while it doesn’t provide every single answer or complete certainty, it’s a step in the right direction.
Hopefully next week everyone is able to get the theme park reservations they’re after, and with that out of the way, we have even more certainty about how Disneyland will operate for the next month in this era of temporary abnormal. (That is, until June 15, 2021 when California opens the floodgates.) We’ll keep you posted on new developments, and update this post accordingly if/when we learn more.
If you’re preparing for a Disneyland trip, check out our other planning posts, including how to save money on Disneyland tickets, our Disney packing tips, tips for booking a hotel (off-site or on-site), where to dine, and a number of other things, check out our comprehensive Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Will you be trying to make advance theme park reservations for Disneyland or Disney California Adventure next week? Worried about availability for your travel dates? Worried about wasting your entire day on the task? Do you have plans to visit California this summer or fall, or will you hold off until 2022? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or concerns? 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!
I’m trying to decide what to do. We have tickets (purchased last year with the intent of going over Easter 2020), and have updated hotel reservations for the week of June 20th – but we are out of state. Do you think it’s worth making the reservation for the park right now, even before the 4/15 deluge, banking on the hopeful opening of the state June 15th or waiting a bit but risking everyone else making their reservations just the same?
So lucky to be able to book our Disney days on April 12th. I logged in around 7:30am and was routed to a virtual waiting room. 30 minutes later my screen told me it would be a 7 min wait (really was less than 7 mins) and sent me to my Disney login screen and boom, I was in! Booking was super easy and fast.
Hopefully, April 15th will be smooth for most guests as well. BTW, park reservations were only allowed through June 28th. Hope this helps!
Thanks Tom – new to your website as we are planning a trip to California from London in August 2021 (already delayed from August 2020) and loving the detail/practical information.
Still confused by our inability to book hotel/tickets for August but will keep checking – what do you think of our chances?
FYI Update today.
Remember ONLY California Residents will be allowed into the parks and to purchase new tickets. You WILL be asked for ID AT THE GATES and all new ticket sales will require a California address to finalize purchase (or so we’ve been told♀️). Children do not need ID if accompanied by an adult. California DMV does issue IDs to children if you wish to get one. Children can also bring a school ID but it isn’t necessary but might be helpful for the teenagers without ID.
As of 1:15 PM PST on April 12, every single day on the calendar still has open reservations for both parks. Reservations were quick and easy this morning for most of the folks I know that tried (myself included). The deluge on April 15th is going to be torrential lol
I thought current ticket holders were supposed to be able to view the availability on 4/9 (today). So far I’ve been unable to find anything. Am I crazy? What am I missing?
This is what’s available today:https://disneyland.disney.go.com/park-availability/
“Until Disney IT upgrades the ‘ole Gateway 2000 they use to run the Go.com servers, this lemonade out of lemons option is best”
Laughing out loud….priceless!
You are too funny!
Tom and All — I’m a SoCal resident and they WILL check ID. They have SoCal discount tickets all the time, and you have to provide a zip code/ address to buy tickets and show a proof of residency — if not a DL then a utility bill or something like that at the gates. I’m sure that there will be something similar otherwise it will be difficult to manage attendance. Cast members get to go next week. They’ve remodeled Main St. I suggest anyone wanting to go, check out the Disney Parks Blog, and the many Facebook groups for Disneyland. When California opens on June 15 — this morning news said that means no more tier limits. But Masks and Social Distancing still required. But for concert venues etc, we are not sure how that will all work out still.
Thanks Tom for your blog — it made our Oct 2020 trip to WDW great!!
Thanks for the update, Tom! Do you think they’ll still hold onto their policy regarding expired tickets, where you can put the value you paid towards new tickets at a later date? Husband and I had the 3-day SoCal resident tickets and were planning a multi-day trip for my 30th birthday in March 2020, which of course was canceled right before we got to go. We chose to hold onto our tickets for now instead of asking for a refund, but I think we’ll want to wait until things are normal (or as close to normal as they’re ever gonna get) again – since it was supposed to be a special occasion I’d rather wait and go when all restaurants/shows/etc. are up and running again!
The park hopping rule will be interesting.
So a DCA guest with a hopper ticket can enter DL at 1pm without a reservation to DL.
So, imagine I have a hopper ticket and I want to enter DL but all reservations are gone, Simple solution – I would book a DCA reservation, enjoy some rides in the morning, then hop to DL at 1pm… only to be refused entry because hardly any guests have left DL and there are more hoppers trying to enter DL than there are spaces.
Maybe Disney thinks the numbers will be so low that it won’t be an issue, but I too am surprised they are willing to risk a potentially unknown number of guests turning up without reservations, expecting to be granted entry.
Couple of possibilities:
1) They plan on limiting reservations below the 25% threshold, giving something ‘breathing room’ for Park Hopping without closely monitoring numbers.
2) They figure it’ll be easy to turn away Park Hoppers if Disneyland hits capacity, since it’s only a matter of walking back across the Esplanade, and not a long drive or bus ride like at WDW.
Had multiple DVC reservations. Have cancelled and rebooked many times due to Covid. I’m in Canada. I need the borders to open, tickets to go on sale to international folks (I’m short one 5 day ticket and need to add a day onto two 4 day tickets), I need to get park reservations and a vaccine appointment. I think Canada is one of the slowest countries in the world at getting its population vaccinated. Currently booked for October trip. Hopeful it will all come together but losing my mind just a little.
I suspect Canada will be among the biggest beneficiaries once the United States has surplus vaccine supply, which shouldn’t be more than a month from now. Hopefully that accelerates things and helps facilitate that border reopening sometime this summer! 🙂
I’m curious to see how many of the lessons learned from Rise of the Resistance East have made their way to Rise of the Resistance Westview, and how the two compare for uptime/reliability.
I miss my Gateway.
This is fabulous news! Thanks Tom! I also appreciate the down to earth reasoning that all reservations for the foreseeable future won’t be gone in seconds. Thinking our trip may be less stressful to book than I feared 🙂 Keep the updates coming!
Thank you as always Tom. As an out of state guest, would I be able to buy tickets on 4/15 and roll the dice on my early July trip, or will I be blocked from even purchasing tickets until the rules change?
I suspect you’ll be able to roll the dice, if you so desire. How this has worked with other places in California that are required to follow the rule is a checkbox affirming that you’re a California resident…and that’s it.
Who knows what enforcement will be like upon arrival, but my guess is totally nonexistent. What incentive does Disney or any other business have in 1) spending money on extra staffing for enforcement, and 2) denying entry and thus subsequent purchases? They’ll follow the letter of the rule and not go one step further.
EDIT: I read that as early *June* trip for some reason. Early July should totally be fine unless things take a serious turn for the worse. You also would probably be fine waiting.
Mildly annoyed that it looks like, once again, they’re ignoring DVC folks at Disneyland. Can’t exactly wait to book those rooms until we have park reservations… We’ve got a week in late June booked so I guess we’ll be joining the fray on the 15th – which is also the same day vaccination opens up to call Californian adults, so sounds like I’ll be spending a bunch of time on my computer buying tickets, finding park reservations, and getting a vaccine appt for my husband.:)
I’m going to pretend I didn’t read this and refresh my browser over and over again on the 15th like a sucker, punch my computer, try again from my phone, break my phone, wait a week, buy a new computer, then easily get a one or two day ticket for some time in June. Which is good timing, because I will be invincible at that time, but unreachable by phone.
*95% invincible
That number is no coincidence–you don’t get the other 5% until Gates activates the 5G. Or so I’m told by fellow anonymous members of this fun internet group I’m in. Either way, rather looking forward to having whatever super powers that entails. I’m imagining something like Iron Man, minus the suit.
We have 5 day park hoppers that we bought back in early 2020. Based on how the reservation system went with WDW, do you think it’s possible to get Disneyland reservations for 5 days in a row? Since we’re out of state I’ll try for the end of June or July. I’m glad they will be having park hopping, I didn’t expect that! Thanks for all the great information, as always!