How to Make Park Reservations for Disney World
Park Pass is Walt Disney World’s advance theme park reservations system for booking entry to Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. This is required in addition to buying tickets between now and January 18, 2024 in order to enter the parks. This how-to guide covers the steps for making Disney Park Pass reservations, offers troubleshooting advice, and more. (Updated March 20, 2022.)
For starters, the Disney Park Pass system is available on DisneyWorld.com–not the My Disney Experience app (although there is a link within the app to take you to the reservation website). To use this system, start by making sure your tickets and resort reservation are linked in My Disney Experience, and your family and friends list is properly populated.
Now in use for nearly two years, the Disney Park Pass system has been controversial and frustrating for many fans. So much so that one of the most common reader questions during that time is When Will Walt Disney World Stop Requiring Park Reservations? We speculate and attempt to answer that question in that post. Here, let’s continue on with the details of Disney Park Pass, and making advance online reservations for the theme parks at Walt Disney World!
Step 1: Link Your Admission to Your Disney Account
To get started, you’ll need valid park admission that’s linked to your Disney account.
- First, you’ll need a Disney account, which is where your Walt Disney World plans are stored and managed. Create an account or sign in to your existing account.
- Then, link your valid admission to your Disney account. All Guests in your party must also have valid park admission linked to their profile. Note: At this time, new ticket sales are temporarily paused, and sales will resume at a later date.
- If you have a Disney Resort hotel reservation, be sure to link it to your Disney account as well.
Once your admission is linked to your account, you can begin to make a park reservation…
Step 2: Create Your Party
When you begin to make a reservation, you’ll be prompted to create your party from your Family & Friends list.
Simply select the family and friends you’d like to include, then hit the Continue button.
Don’t see someone in your travel party? Select “Add a Guest” to include them.
You may need to make more than one Disney Park Pass reservation for your party depending on your admission type. Please make sure your party consists of Annual Passholders or theme park ticket holders.
Staying in a Disney Resort or other select hotel with a package that includes tickets? Everyone in your party must also have a hotel reservation. If this varies, you will need to make separate Disney Park Pass reservations.
Step 3: Select a Date and Park
Choose the date and the theme park that you’d like to visit from the available reservations. Please note that dates and theme park selections are limited and subject to availability.
After creating your party in the Disney Park Pass system, you’ll be prompted to:
- Select a Date: View a calendar and choose one of the available dates for your visit.
- Select a Theme Park: Park hours will be displayed for your convenience.
- Select a Time: This is the time that you can visit the park.
NOTE: Selecting a time is simply “confirming” the park hours, not an actual arrival window.
After selecting your date and park, you can confirm your reservation.
Step 4: Review and Confirm Your Plans
Carefully review and confirm your selected park and date.
If you need to make any changes, select “Back” to revise your selections.
Before confirming, you’ll need to agree to the Terms & Conditions, including the health certification and liability disclaimer waiver. (For this reason, it’s unlikely that travel agents will book Disney Park Pass reservations like they do/did for FastPass+ or ADRs.)
Then, select “Confirm” to complete your park reservation. Once confirmed, your reservation will appear in My Plans on My Disney Experience or DisneyWorld.com.
Want to make another park reservation? Select “Make Another Reservation” to continue planning. As a reminder, if you have a multi-day ticket, you will be required to make a park reservation for each date of your visit.
If you need to cancel a reservation, view your daily itinerary in My Plans, then select “Reservation Details”.
We’ve now used the Disney Park Pass system numerous times, and the process usually works pretty smoothly. Nevertheless, you might have issues getting DisneyWorld.com to work. In terms of troubleshooting, our #1 solution is always to use private browsing or incognito mode on your desktop browser to access DisneyWorld.com.
This won’t always resolve your problem, but usually it will. It’s at least worth a shot. In any case, hopefully that preemptively answers some reader questions we’d otherwise receive and saves some of you some headaches.
We’d recommend making reservations weeks or months in advance, rather than days ahead of time. While you’ll be fine most of the time booking Park Passes at the last minute, that’s not always the case.
Availability varies wildly depending upon demand. In the off-season, reservations are mostly a formality. By contrast, park reservations are already booking up (see above) about a month before peak dates in April 2022. Plan accordingly and err on the side of making reservations early just in case.
With that said, it’s never necessary to book reservations 2+ months in advance. Many Walt Disney World fans stress out over planning every little detail of their trips 6+ months in advance. While that’s understandable when it comes to Advance Dining Reservations and even resort bookings, the same diligence is not necessary with Disney Park Pass reservations.
The vast majority of guests simply do not plan that far in advance. Since Walt Disney World began requiring Park Pass reservations, there is only one date that filled up months in advance–October 1, 2021. That was the 50th Anniversary of Walt Disney World, and is quite obviously a “special case.” If you’re just visiting for some random week in July 2022, you need to start thinking about reservations in June…not April.
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
What do you think about the Disney Park Pass reservation system? Think these policies seem fair in light of the ongoing global pandemic and reduced capacity of the parks? Think that many days will sell out, or that most will be available on short notice? Will you be attempting to visit Walt Disney World this summer or fall, or are you waiting until when this (hopefully) goes away? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? 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!
Finally was able to make reservations after over 2 hours. The first windows I had up on my phone and laptop never got past pink castle. Only the incognito tab on my laptop worked.
I got the orbit page on the laptop and it would hit the bottom of a minute, pause, and then add another 30 seconds. When it hit the bottom of the same minute, it would pause but then go on and keep counting down. This repeated for the whole 15 minutes. I was pretty annoyed once I realized this was a consistent pattern.
What is incognito?
I started by trying to make a dining reservation. It allowed me to sign in without the pink castle and I booked a fake dining reservation. I was then able to go to My Plans and click View Availability and it worked! All of this in Google Chrome, Private Browser. Tried for two hours in Safari with no luck.
This was an amazing tip – just worked for me after two hours of trying on Chrome ingognito. Thank you!
Same for me! Thanks so much for the idea Autumn!
Signed in and am in orbit! Now says wait time almost 9 minutes
Mine went from 2 minutes to 15 minutes… Then from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. It’s been going back to 15 minutes for the last half hour now. If I’m not in reserving my time in an hour, I’m canceling my vacation.
After two hours(!) I got in and had no problem getting what I wanted– for both August and March.
But weirdly, it let me reserve 9 days with no issues (across two trips) — but then won’t let me add a tenth. I’m not sure why since we reservations and passes and it doesn’t have this limit anywhere that I’ve read?
The message we’re getting is: “Disney Park Pass Limit Reached // These Guests have reached their Park Pass limit. To continue, remove them from your party. If you believe these Guests have valid admission for this park or date and you see this error, please call (407) 939-7917 for assistance.” — I’ll call some other day, I’m happy with what I have so far and can wait.
Also, someone had written earlier that the September 2021 was a typo and should’ve read September 2020 — for anyone worrying, this wasn’t the case.
Good luck everyone! What worked for me was lots of refreshing and opening new windows. (which felt rebellious since the pink castle kept telling me not to and to wait!)
I’ve been in orbit 3 times and every time it takes me to a blank white screen. How did you get to the reservation part?
Glad you got in. Have fun on your trip(s)!
I just kept my one browser open on the castle (was very difficult not to succumb to refreshing but after 2 hours I finally got in to. Now in orbit but getting there!
Same. Only let me reserve 4 days of my 5 day pass.
Jenna — when I got a blank screen, I refreshed and started again. It let me right in once — and once it gave me a 3 minute timer. For me that was RIGHT before it worked. Hang in there — I hope you’re close!
Ok, blank screen again after completing second queue… Closed out, went into private browsing, now orbiting at 11 min…. Third times a charm?
Mine went to 0 and then white page. What do I do now
That happened to me twice, start from scratch, the blank page is a dead end… I’m in the orbit queue for the 3rd time…
Four times, on two different computers, using two different browsers. Countdown that repeats, repeats, jumps back to 15mins from 1min, repeats and finally…white page.
The remarkably stupid way they planned this– everyone with reservations over 18months going in at the same time for no good reason, they well deserve to lose all the customers they are currently alienating. I can’t think of a company that handled (avoidable) things worse.
I finally got past the almost to orbit, started making park reservations in a calendar, and then dumped to pink castle: 9:02am
I was able to log in and reserve for one day, but it won’t allow me to reserve any other days of my 6 day trip with tickets. Not sure if I’m doing something wrong.
I had the same thing! Trying to reload it and log in again but of course now I’m back to the pink castle. Very frustrating! really hoping we can still get the rest of our trip.
I also was able to reserve parks for all of my days. I went to the drop down menu and chose Disney Park Pass Reservations. I did that periodically throughout the morning, and I noticed a blue button appear on the page close to 7:30 Central. I’d logged in previously, but it looked like I wasn’t logged in when I clicked the button. It took me to the space ship page, and I wasn’t sure it would work. I had a 1:30 wait time that was probably closer to 5 minutes. Then, it took me to a page to select my party. At first, I chose a friend who didn’t have tickets yet. At the end, I got an Olaf error page. I was able to hit the back button to re-select my party. I chose only my daughter and me, and then it worked. After I reserved the first park for our first day, there was a button to select another park for another day. I did this 3 times for our 3 day ticket. The reservations appear in My Plans. Whew!
I just don’t understand this. I have been through orbit countdown (repeating dozens of times for each minute) three times now and always finally leads to blank white page with Disney copyright in tiny print.
Why are some people getting through and others are just screwed on this? I don’t get it. Have been on for hours now.
Ann – try the dining reservation route! After hours of staring at the castle and then the never-ending countdown – I went in and made a dining reservation which forces it to sign you in and then go to the reservation page and click the button and it should take you right in.
Thanks, Lori–did and success. Thank you.
I need a vacation from trying to plan my vacation.
I got my park reservations for November! Stay in the countdown until the page finally loads, my countdown got reset several times before I reached the reservation page.
Also finally (after 2 hrs PDT!! of waiting) made our reservations for November as well! Whoo hoo!
I’m so mad right now y’all. I got to the reservation page and it says we are unable to reserve. We are linked and staying at the Swan. We’ve done everything right!!
Make sure every person you select for your party has a LINKED ticket. If you select anyone who doesn’t have a linked ticket, it won’t work.
We do have linked tickets though.
I got to orbit page and the counter refreshed 3 times then…. just now refresh to a white dead page with nothing.
I just don’t understand this. I have been through orbit countdown (repeating dozens of times for each minute) three times now and always finally leads to blank white page with Disney copyright in tiny print.
Why are some people getting through and others are just screwed on this? I don’t get it. Have been on for hours now.
This is really ridiculous! I’ve been on for almost 2 hours and still haven’t gotten past the pink castle. For a big company as Disney and the amount of money they charge for things, their IT department should be well above this capability. I love my Disney, but this is absurd!
Hang tight. My 2 hour pink castle was ultimately my gateway in. It was smooth sailing after logging in.
I just got my reservations. i had to open a new screen, make a dining reservation that i already canceled- this forced disney to sign me in, then i backspaced in the url to read the park reservations and it allowed me to add my party. i hope this works for you!
My clock resets a few times and then turns back into the pink castle. Anyone else?
I have it going on several browsers some private, some not.
I’m not actually signed in anywhere though. Just orbits and pink castles.
Tried several ways to get in and ultimately my initial pink castle page that I had opened at 7am took me to login for MDE. Chose Disney Park Pass system from drop down and easily made reservations. Traveling Oct 8-14 and all parks had availability. Good luck!
In my case it was just to wait without touching anything. You will receive the usual log in screen to mydisneyexperience. After logging in, you will see “my plans” and a new warning with a “view availability” link/button. By clicking this you will go to the create my party screen and then it is easy!
Finally got in, went smoothly.
how did you do it?
How long did you wait? I jumped on at 7am and still just a pink castle
Pink castle finally turned to the space mountain with a 30 second countdown timer, which looped a couple of times. Then we got the Login screen. Logged in and it worked a lot like the FastPass+ system. We had both a pink castle up in Google Chrome browser and Mozilla Firefox. The Firefox was the one that popped up. They were both started about the same time… Don’t know if that had anything to do with it.
Still can’t get in but followed the link to see availability of each park and it gives you what I’m assuming is real time info of park reservation ability. Check out this link and click Disney Resort guest tab:
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/availability-calendar/?segments=tickets,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets
not signed in – get pink castle every time I go to the login page – got to the orbit timer page after go to the make park reservation – timer got to 0 – page refreshed itself…got pink castle…wtf
as an edit to my previous post…after getting to the pink castle I just let the browser windows sit there…after about 5 minutes or so the page refreshed again and it brought me to the login screen. I was able to login and make the reservations.
I was able to book all my dates/parks for December. If you are having trouble logging in to MDE make a dining reservation that you can later cancel- but it gets you logged in. Then you’ll see a link under your plans. It will take you to a spaceship countdown. When that countdown is done you can create your party and make reservations. Good luck!
It worked! Thank you! I am doing Tigger hops all over my office!
This worked, thank you so much!