January 9th is a Major Milestone for Disney World!
It started as a two week closure of Walt Disney World. Nearly 4 years later, the parks & resorts are still in the process of resuming normalcy and restoring the guest experience to its 2019 status. The next major milestone is on January 9 when several policies that were highly unpopular with guests will be rolled back. (Updated January 1, 2024.)
I can still remember where I was when Walt Disney World revealed it’d be closing, and the subsequent post-reopening announcement that all Advance Dining Reservations, Disney Dining Plans, experience bookings, and FastPass+ selections would be cancelled and that a park reservation system would be introduced. (In between, things got a little weird around here from time to time.)
While the first story became a headline heard ’round the world, it was inevitable. It’s the second announcement that caught me somewhat by surprise, and made abundantly clear that things are going to be very different at Walt Disney World for a while. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect the next few years to play out as they did.
Of course, I’m not naive. We speculated from the very beginning that the pandemic was a pretext for Walt Disney World to make a lot of controversial changes that they’ve wanted to make for a long time. It was our expectation that free FastPass would not return. That park reservations would stick around for the long haul for Annual Passholders.
We also suspected that Walt Disney World would use excuses to find ways to manipulate guest behavior and maximize revenue (…but not that they’d be so successful at it!). Heck, even that Bob Chapek was a placeholder CEO–a hatchet man brought in to make difficult and unpopular decisions that would help Disney emerge stronger despite losing billions of dollars in the process.
All of that was correct. But those were pretty easy and obvious predictions. Bob Chapek was a convenient fall guy who became reviled among fans, but several of those decisions would’ve been made no matter who was CEO. They were set in motion under the original Iger regime, and the company was waiting for an opportune time to implement the policies. The closure gave them that, but I strongly suspect much of that would’ve happened by the start of Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary, regardless.
What I did not expect was for the Disney Dining Plan to remain temporarily unavailable for so long. In my “defense,” I think Walt Disney World was slow to react in restoring this. Based on capacity and the exhaustion of pent-up demand, it should’ve returned by this April at the latest.
I also expected park reservations to be dropped much faster for regular ticket holders and especially on-site resort guests. Honestly, I still can’t believe that Walt Disney World didn’t make it an on-site hotel “perk” to not need park reservations starting in, like, Spring 2021. Same goes for the Park Hopping restriction. I’m absolutely shocked that both of these friction points have existed for so long for regular vacation-goers. They’ve long outlived their usefulness and are now, quite literally, counterproductive.
(I also think the release of the full 2024 Disneyland events calendar, for example, is a signal that Burbank has learned lessons from Walt Disney World’s slow pivot. The company doesn’t want to see a repeat of that when pent-up demand dies down in the California parks. But I digress.)
It should go without saying, but that’s why so much is changing as of January 9, 2024–because it’s become actively counterproductive. If per guest spending were still reaching its stratospheric heights of late 2021 and 2022, if attendance and resort occupancy were still through the roof, and if guests were begrudgingly accepting of these changes–complaining, but still voting with their wallets and visiting en masse–then nothing would be changing.
As is obvious to anyone with eyes, Walt Disney World hasn’t used these policies for health safety in over 2 years. When it became clear that this was no longer the case, the spin shifted to being about preserving the guest experience and ensuring that everyone who is able to enter the parks has a magical experience and makes memories that last a lifetime. Or so claimed dearly-departed CEO Bob Chapek.
Chapek routinely invoked fictional families from Seattle or Denver to defend the reservation system and other unpopular changes, insisting it was for the benefit of guests. (You’ve gotta hand it to Chapek–he had gall. I can’t imagine getting up there and telling a bunch of people who hate me that the things I’m doing that make them hate me are actually for their own good!) This might sound plausible if you take it entirely at face value and don’t do any critical thinking.
If you’ve visited Walt Disney World in the last year or two, there’s a strong chance your anecdotal experience with congestion and crowds likely singlehandedly refutes those claims about “guaranteeing a great guest experience.” But we’ve been over all of this before in Disney Doesn’t Want Lower Crowds.
This may seem like a superfluous lesson in recent Walt Disney World history, but it’s important for understanding the why of what happened–and why it’s changing in 2024. The narrative since his return has been that Bob Iger wasn’t wild about how things had gone under Chapek and the degree to which there was disillusionment among fans.
A little over a month after returning, Iger started moving on that sentiment by announcing 3 BIG Changes at Walt Disney World to Improve Guest Experience & Value. A few months later came the announcement of 5 Major Improvements for 2024 at Walt Disney World.
For whatever it’s worth, I do believe at least part of the official narrative. Leadership on the ground had sounded the alarm about souring sentiment and anemic guest satisfaction scores starting in late 2021 and continuing into 2022. By all accounts, Bob Chapek was not responsive to this, taking the perspective that guests are in control of pricing and that demand is the ultimate indicator of satisfaction. (This isn’t some secret–listen to his interviews!)
He certainly is not without fault, but to his credit, Bob Iger is much more responsive to actual fan feedback beyond ‘voting with wallet’ behavior. While a number of the changes are certainly circumstantial–the backside of pent-up demand–I do think they wouldn’t have occurred with the same promptness in the absence of Iger and some wouldn’t have happened at all. He may bear a lot of responsibility for the unpopular changes, but he also deserves credit for their demise. Other leaders would’ve stayed the course and let satisfaction suffer.
Regardless, here’s a rundown of everything changing in January 2024 and thereafter…
Refurbishment ‘Season’ Starts
Let’s get the negative news out of the way first. One simple trick for telling when Disney expects winter off-season to start is by looking at the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Calendar and seeing when the water ride(s) are scheduled for downtime. Right now, that means Kali River Rapids, which is closing for its annual closure starting January 8, 2024.
Not only that, but Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was a relatively last-minute addition to the calendar and also closes on January 8, 2024. There are a bunch of other refurbishments in January and February, which is a sure sign that the off-season has arrived. (This works similarly in the late summer and early fall, but sometimes refurbishment schedules are dictated by necessity–not crowds.)
Disney Dining Plan Returns
For arrivals beginning on January 9, the Quick-Service Disney Dining Plan (QSDDP) and standard or regular Disney Dining Plan (DDP) are now bookable–while the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan (DxDDP) and Disney Dining Plan Plus (DDP+) remain unavailable…for now. See our Ultimate Guide to the 2024 Disney Dining Plan for everything you need to know about the DDP, including whether it’s likely to be worth the money for you.
Although it’s very much a love-it-or-hate-it thing, the Disney Dining Plan is neither inherently good nor bad. It can be a great tool or a terrible waste of money depending upon how it’s used. For some people, the Disney Dining Plan is great. For others, it’s awful. Like so many things at Walt Disney World and in life, it’s not one-size-fits-all.
Although we’re hardly DDP diehards, we’re glad to see the Disney Dining Plan returning. Our major hope is that this leads to even more normalcy on the food front, as it’s one of the few areas at Walt Disney World that is still far from firing on all cylinders as compared to pre-closure.
Theme Park Reservations (Mostly) End
Theme park reservations are required to enter a theme park through January 8, 2024. Starting with visits on January 9, 2024, theme park reservations will no longer be required for date-based tickets. A date-based ticket requires you to choose a start date when you purchase. For other admission types, theme park reservations may be required.
If you’re a regular tourist who isn’t an Annual Passholder, there’s about a 99% chance you will not need park reservations for Walt Disney World starting on January 9, 2024. Pretty much all vacation packages include date-based tickets, with the only notable exclusions being student groups, tour groups, convention guests, youth sport event guests, military tickets, and (again) Annual Passes.
Park Hopping Restrictions Retired
Beginning January 9, 2024, guests with a ticket with Park Hopper benefits or an Annual Pass will be able to once again visit another Walt Disney World theme park at ANY TIME OF DAY during park hours. As a reminder, since returning in 2021, Park Hopper access has only been available after 2 p.m. each day. Now, there will be no more waiting!
The only limit going forward will be capacity limitations. This means that, in theory, you could get turned away upon arrival if your destination is already hit its attendance limit–but that was true even with the 2 p.m. Park Hopping rule. To my recollection, this has only ever been an issue once in the post-reopening era–on Magic Kingdom for a few hours on October 1, on the 50th Anniversary.
On the busiest days going forward, Walt Disney World will once again use capacity closures and prioritize on-site guests for admission. I can’t even recall the last time on-site guests were shut out of the parks during a phased closure. So if you’re worried about this happening with reservations being removed…don’t. (You really don’t want to be there for a capacity closure, regardless.)
Annual Passes Get “Good to Go”
Already, Annual Passholders may visit the theme parks after 2 pm without a theme park reservation, except on Saturdays and Sundays at Magic Kingdom. Applicable pass blockout dates apply.
Walt Disney World also is introducing “good-to-go days” for Annual Passholders and Cast Members starting on January 11, 2024. That’s when the first calendar of good-to-go days will be published, not the first good-to-go days. It’s unknown when they’ll actually begin, but around that date certainly makes sense–it’s when the winter off-season arrives.
On these “good-to-go days,” Annual Passholders and Cast Members may visit theme parks without needing a park reservation. Once introduced, Walt Disney World will roll out these “good-to-go days” on an ongoing basis. Our expectation is that a majority of dates in 2024 end up being good-to-go at Walt Disney World.
Lightning Lane Advance Booking
In response to guest feedback, advance booking of Lightning Lanes is coming to Walt Disney World in 2024. While the aforementioned changes will all go into effect on January 9, it’s unlikely that pre-arrival Lightning Lane reservations will be on that list. We nevertheless wanted to mention it because it was announced alongside the other changes, so there’s been a lot of confusion and many fans are assuming this will also happen on January 9, 2024.
Our expectation is that it will not. From what we’ve heard, Walt Disney World made the decision to offer advance booking of Lightning Lanes before figuring out the logistics, and there’s no reason to believe it’ll be ready in less than a month at this point. Given how little is still known, it wouldn’t be surprising if the new system doesn’t launch until Spring 2024. Our guess is that the goal is to have this ready for Spring Break, which would mean a launch of early March 2024.
Pretty much everything else is also unknown about advance booking of Lightning Lanes, including how many days prior to arrival guests will be able to make ride reservations. Our guess is that it’ll be a much shorter timeframe than the old FastPass+ system, but far enough in advance that people with weeklong trips can book Lightning Lanes for the duration of their trips ahead of traveling. It’s also unknown what the reservation limits will be, but our guess is 3 to start, and likely with a tier system for some of the parks. In all likelihood, this is going to look a lot like FastPass+ but paid.
Whenever it does change, it’s likely that advance booking of Lightning Lanes will (again) radically overhaul the entire line-skipping system. We also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Walt Disney World overhauls DAS again, as it sure seems like the DAS Abuse Crackdown from last month was simply an opening salvo.
Free Dining
As discussed at great length in our Guide to the 2024 Free Dining Deal at Walt Disney World, we’re expecting a return of that popular promotion. In fact, the prospect of Free Dining probably explains (at least) half of the excitement for the return of the Disney Dining Plan. Can’t have Free Dining without the DDP!
This is another thing that will not happen on January 9, 2024. It’ll either occur on January 3 or sometime later in Spring 2024. For the January release, we think there’s about equal odds on “real” Free Dining or on an extension of the “Free” Disney Dining Card Deal for 2024 and/or 50% Off Tickets & Dining Plans Discount for Kids in Spring & Summer 2024.
We will be closely monitoring both the 2024 Walt Disney World discount situation and advance booking of Lightning Lanes, keeping our ears open for more news about both. Should something–anything–be released or rumored, we’ll send you an alert if you sign up for our FREE Walt Disney World newsletter.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you feel about Walt Disney World’s changes that start on January 9, 2024? If you’re a tourist, do these changes give you welcome freedom and spontaneity? Does this not go far enough for you–do you want to see more restored to 2019 normal? Think Walt Disney World regrets requiring resort guests and theme park ticket holders to make reservations, or implementing any other changes? 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!
What about comp tickets? I have 4 dated 2022 that expire Dec.31,2024. Will be using in March.
They say they require a theme park reservation, but will that change after Jan.9?
Tom, I’m gonna’ make you a ‘gentleman’s bet’ that Disney rolls out advanced Lightning Lane reservations sooner rather than later as a way to boost demand from families like mine.
I have repeatedly mentioned that my family will not arrive with ride uncertainty that is compounded by waking before 7am to manage a daily lottery of computer generated return times.
If any family has an ADR and wants to enjoy attractions around those same hours, they are currently at the whimsy of both having to be awake at 7am and the fickleness of algorithms.
FastPass+ was marketed (and delivered) as a way to help families maximize time that allowed them to spend more money. We did. The present system harms that very idea – by only maximizing Listing Lane profits (at the expense of having time for souvenir shopping, ADR cancelations, and limiting poolside cocktail hours) . For instance – should a family honor their ADR if the Lighting Lane algorithm gives a conflicting return time; no time to shop if we waited 2-hours for a single ride.
At a minimum, being able to make [1] Lighting Lane / Genie selection goes a long way to managing a day in the Parks. Moreover, there would be no need for a Park reservation if a family has made a LL / Genie reservation. It’s a wonderful perk for on-site guests. And like MaxPass, once you’ve entered the Park (or something), you can then make another selection (after everyone else has a chance to make [1] selection.
Said differently, [3] advanced Fast Passes was always too much (for which my family was grateful].
is there any speculation that at some point APs won’t need park reservations if also staying on property? We have a trip coming up in March and we’re confused that wee still needed to book park reservations post the changes taking effect. It was on us how we interpreted the statement and got confused by it, but I just would have thought that all on site guests would be good to go. Silly me…
Learning yet another system to get onto rides more easily is not my idea of a vacation. I don’t love, or even really like, Genie +, but at least I’ve figured out how to make it work for me. Not excited about figuring out a new system, especially since I’m sure Disney will need to make tweaks to the system so I’ll need to make tweaks to my system . . .
Bringing back the Magic Express would lift a lot of clouds…all at once.
I am with you on this, but I do not see it happening. Ever. I saw an interview with Iger and he said it is not necessary with Uber, Lyft, Minnie Vans, MEARS having their own service, etc.
If they brought it back to any degree, it would be a paid service, which would equate to paying MEARS from your own pocket. However, Disney used MEARS drives for ME and they would have to negotiate a heck of a deal. Plus, it is not just the transportation…it is also luggage retrieval and delivery.
There still are some significant things missing… like certain restaurants. Any word on the fate of 1900 Park Fare? Are there others still MIA?
I am dreading the day when guests can start pre-booking their Lightning Lane choices. The FastPass+ system was a mess. WDW does not have enough rides, and most people are only interested in the top 2 or 3 attractions in each park.
I could not disagree more. FP+ was a great system. You could book it far in advance and once you used your 3, you could book anything that is available. With G+ you are limited to only booking an attraction once a day.
I expect they’ll use the existing structure of the DAS preselects for the advanced LL process. Hopefully they’ll make a lot of improvements to the process along the way. There’s a common sentiment in the DAS community that the preselect reservations aren’t worth the hassle. This is partly due to the online registration process which wouldn’t be in play for Genie+ users. The other big negatives are that the preselect process has limited rides available (read as excludes headliners) and doesn’t really let you pick your ride window (morning, afternoon, or evening are the options). It’s not uncommon for people to be given a 1 hour ride window that conflicts with an ADR (something you’d expect the reservation system would recognize and avoid).
This is another thing that will not happen on January 9, 2023. (should have been 2024)
Good catch–thanks for the heads up. I need to get used to writing 2024…going to be here in only a few weeks!
Any word on bringing back Tables in Wonderland? As AP’s and locals, we really miss that!
Short answer is that we’ve heard absolutely nothing. But this probably won’t be the type of thing that has rumors…it was previously supported by a small team, so it’ll likely just happen one day (if at all).
Long answer: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/tables-in-wonderland-card-review/
Great timing on this article: I just bought a Nikon Z6II a few months ago and am still collecting lenses.
Thanks for reminding me about the Sigma 35mm f1.4: that goes to the top of my list for 2024.
On the 50mm f1.8, I assume that’s the old D lens with a converter? I have the new Z version and it’s the sharpest lens I’ve ever used. That being said, the old 50mm f1.4D lens really had some nice bokeh, while the newer 50mm f1.8Z is so clean and perfect it borders on sterile. But I’ll give it a few more months.
Whoops, sorry! I got mixed up and commented on the wrong article :-(.
I remember booking Fastpass+ in advance was STRESSFUL, since the booking window was a certain number of days before the first day of your visit. You’re competing against everybody for the same half dozen rides, and the people whose vacations started a day before yours have already taken all the best time slots!
Our first trip to WDW is a week after these changes… starting Jan 16. Should be a fun time lol – glad we’ll have the week beforehand to see how the changes play out so we aren’t totally flying blind. My biggest question is how this will affect G+ and the virtual queues for Tron and Guardians. I wonder if they (or even Slinky!) will get more competitive because now more people will try for the hardest virtual drops, then swap parks if they don’t win that particular digital lottery.
Thankful for no reservations and no advance genie though – we don’t know which parks we will or won’t like and reservations would have locked us in. And as someone that’s lived around Disneyland CA for my whole life, advance reservations sound so frustrating for rides lol. Just let me play the game day of please…
I always appreciate honesty in your columns. it’s clear you love Disney but do not have rose colored glasses. Do you have any thoughts on how the need for reservations would work for incredipass AP staying on property? We are AP from NJ so always have a resort reservation, obviously. Hoping that allows us to go to parks without a reservation by April of 2024, our next trip.
“Do you have any thoughts on how the need for reservations would work for incredipass AP staying on property?”
My hope is that the requirement is dropped–and I think that’s what is sensible and appropriate. But what I hope happens and what actually will are often two very different things. Unless I’ve missed something, Disney hasn’t given any indication of this happening–it’s going to be based on admission types, not on-site status. I could see that changing down the road, especially if WDW wants to incentivize APs to stay on-site.
With all of that said, I think there’s a good chance that over half of the calendar will end up being “good-to-go” days. Walt Disney World does not have the same issues with capacity or Annual Passes as Disneyland. Long-term, requiring reservations for APs could be beneficial to WDW, but it just doesn’t strike me as “necessary” for about 35+ weeks of the year in 2024.
I’m hoping that you are correct about advance lightning lane service being delayed! I hoping to be in the sweet spot in February when the new system is not in place and park reservations are gone. For the first time in a very long time, I’ll be arriving for a lengthy trip without a specific plan for every day. Fast Pass Plus, for me, was essentially the same thing as making a park reservation since you were locked into the choices that you made 60 days out. For this trip, other than a vague idea of what think I may want to do on the first day and a day I’ve booked a tour, I’ll be doing what I feel like at the time. No big pre-planning. It feels great!
Any thoughts to how lack of theme park reservations for date based tickets, but still requiring them for AP’s, might impact how the virtual queues work? In other words there is currently a validation check in place to make sure user has a valid theme park reservation to said park and I fathom how in the world the trusty WDW IT can get that validation check right post the 9th of January.
**I CAN’T fathom how WDW IT will get that right…
Single-day tickets and the 4-parks deal from this summer already work this way, so I assume Disney IT has developed some sort of validation opt-out already.
You’re always right to question how they’re going to accomplish something like this (or anything, really), but I think they’ve already figured this one out.
Since there is no time restriction on the hopper, it would be great if APs could try for any VQ at 7am (only one though) since we could technically now hop to it before our time would pop up. At the least, we could try for the 1pm if they don’t do that.
Now all they have to do is bring back DME and resort airline checkin and it really will be like 2019!
…and the ability to send purchases to our resort or at least front of the park! I haven’t purchased anything in the parks since it went away!
DME and resort airline check-in would be the single two biggest things that Disney could do to tell onsite guests they are welcome and special again. But given their tone deafness on how negative the take-aways were, I’m not holding my breath!
I enjoy and benefit from your columns for planning my next trip to WDW. However, I have a criticism on this column. Speaking as a former writer and editor, I don’t like having to read 17 paragraphs of material I’ve already read in your past columns to get to the point of the column – the specific changes in January. I should get to the subject of the article shortly after I read the headline. I do NOT need to read any more about Bob Chapek.
Keep up the good work you do. But keep it tight.
I take your point and recognize that I’m verbose. That’s certainly a valid criticism to many of the articles.
I’m not so sure it is to this one, though. There is no new-news here–the topic itself is essentially a recap of things we’ve known since summer. So if you’re a regular reader and tuned into WDW news, you’d presumably skip over this post entirely.
If not, those 17 paragraphs wouldn’t be things you’ve already read in other posts–and (hopefully) would be interesting context for the changes to come.
I sometimes disagree with Tom’s opinions but his blog is always entertaining and chock full of info. There may be articles that cover the same ground as previous stories but they are generally updates with tweaks.
Considering he writes at least one article a day, if not more, he will sometimes rehash old news or cover similar topics. Remember too, new readers are added all the time and even old readers do not catch every article. While you may have found this repetitive I found it to be a refreshing reminder of what is coming very soon.
I also disagree with the description of his columns being verbose. Tight may be necessary for a news article in a daliy newspaper or magazine or to fit a time slot on tv but here, where time stands still, Tom’s humorous,sometimes wandering, style gives the blog personality and life.
I don’t want to get mean so I’ll refrain from naming some of the many “TIGHT” boring Disney blogs out there that will deliver news without being interesting or thought provoking. When I read those I thank the Lord they are tight because I can’t bear losing any more of what time I have left on this planet reading such dull dead writing.
Bruce,
You seem awfully entitled for someone who read a blog post for free. I suggest you either learn to edit your own writing so you don’t come across that way, or do some self reflection. If you think you add value by criticizing someone’s writing and demanding they change their style because it doesn’t serve YOU, then maybe the editing game has passed you by. Personally, I come here because I enjoy Tom’s writing; the occasional meandering only adds to the enjoyment. And I eat Chapek slander with a spoon…
Well said, The Tourist!
A bit off topic; but we saw Luminous The Symphony of Us last night. It was great. The crowd around us agreed, calling it amazing, awesome; clapping and cheering. Moana, the Journey of Water and the new gardens and walkways that replaced part of the construction zone behind Spaceship Earth are also very nice. Seems like some good things are happening here.
Thanks for sharing!
I haven’t seen Luminous yet and won’t get the chance until January. (As someone who hates spoilers and prefers forming opinions in person, I also haven’t watched video.) What I have heard generally skews positive–definitely far less mixed than Harmonious, which gives me some hope. I’m excited to see it!
Backside of pent up demand. Good one, Tom! Apparently sleep deprivation has not dulled your razor sharp wit.
I thrive when sleep deprived.
The typos may get worse, clarity could decrease, and I might not even remember writing certain things…but there’s something about a state of deliriousness that helps me. This must’ve been how bands in the 70s felt, except with baby instead of LSD. 😉
I am grandmother and would love to take grandchildren to Disney, but for 5 of us- It is too expensive without Dining and
transportaion to the park. Hope things change back soon.