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!
Just curious to ask is anyone have any sort of problem trying to select a certain dates. Like my wife have a trip in sept 20 to the 26th but it doesn’t allow us to actually pick any days that week. But all dates are pick able any date before that week. Just curious if anyone else is having the problem.
Alex I’m having same prob..see 27th to 30th..almost had one day…but was stuck on confirming….I’m logging back in again trying
I was able to make reservations for 3 of 5 days about an hour ago. However, it shows no park availability for August 11 or 12 I’ve logged all the way out and back in three times but the system still won’t allow me to choose a park for those two days.
I was able to book September 20th, but NOT the 21st.
Hey Alex, Im traveling just the same dates and the system allowed me to book two days, when I tried the third day it says “something went wrong” and when I tried the fourth day is says “loading parks”… any update on your side? I’m trying from two accounts
Now because I booked 8 days in July it says I’m at my pass limit for my Sept trip
I thought it was 14 days total?
I was able to sort the initial problem but a new one has arise. Im getting messages that certain party members are hitting their reserve limit when we all are picking the same day so im trying to re log in to try and fix all the days messed up. Ill try top update with anything I might have solved.
I was finally able to get past the orbit page without getting a pink castle with using a private browser like Tom suggested.
I was able to book all my days for August. Then partway through booking my January trip it wouldn’t let me pick parks. Now back in orbit.
My suggestion would be to not take your time booking once in there. You never know if you are going to have to relaunch into orbit again.
How far out can you make reservations? We have a trip for March 2021, but won’t renew our AP until November.
Just was able to make park reservations at 9:11am ET after starting to try to login at 7:00am. Be sure to check your Daily Itinerary when you are done. There was a glitch and one day I thought I had wasn’t there. I am SO glad I checked when I thought I was done or we would have had one day without park reservations.
After you sign in on My Disney Experience on computer, there is a new box Important Message that has a View Availability button. This is between the logo of Robert’s Plans & Tickets & the icons of Family & Friends, Resort Hotel, Park Tickets, and Dining.
You work through a calendar but you have to find your own dates. You must go through the exact same park reservation process for each day of your stay even if you hit ‘add more plans’ at the end. (pick your party, pick your day, pick your park, pick your arrival time, acknowledge covid disclaimer, confirm).
I now can see this has also updated under My Plans in the MDE iPhone app as well as online.
Hang in there.
oh my. I am in and I dont see where to make the park reservations. Where do I go to find it once I am on the site and have logged in?
When I click on “my plans” I get a disclaimer right at the top saying I need reservations in addition to the ticket. There’s a button that says “view availability,” which took me right to the calendar, but now when I click on it again just to see, shows the orbit screen with a 3 min wait time.
Be persistent. 🙂
After 2.5 hours, I finally got in and was able to reserve all the parks on the days we wanted. Here’s the thing–the system seems to be really random. Using both the computer and the app on the phone, I was able to get to various points (like the sign-in page, castle, orbit) but then would get kicked out and have to start all over. The countdown would end and send me to the castle. The castle would switch to the sign-in page. The sign-in page wouldn’t recognize my credentials. All of a sudden one time it worked, and from there, making reservations was super easy (anxiety aside). For those able to only make one day’s reservation, make sure you click the “make another reservation” at the bottom instead of “view my plans” otherwise it kicks back to square one.
Good luck!!
I am still having issues – for those that were able to get it. What browser were you using? Also – Did you get the white blank page at all?
If you act like you are going to make a dining reservation for DS (T Rex) and start the process – you can log in that way and then cancel the dining. From there – you can go to the park pass system and book your park days. Read it on Touring plans and got all 7 days
Been stuck on pink castle all morning. Now just being repeatedly asked to sign in. Anyone else getting this or am I being singled out for abuse?
Finally got my reservation booked. Once you get to the orbit page it will count down and then put you on the page to make the reservations! Been sitting at my computer since 6:30 trying to figure all of this out.
A note: If your booking park reservations and are traveling with a child under 3 who does not require a ticket yet…they do not need a park reservation since they do not have a ticket. If you try to include them in your party it will glitch out and not allow you to confirm your park reservation.
The park pass page states: Both a park reservation and valid admission for the same park on the same date is required for each person in your party ages 3 and up.
has anyone had any luck? it seemed promising off and on but now it’s nothing but the castle. no more orbit. over 2 hours in and now i’m starting to get irritated….
You can get to the reservation page two ways, either through your My Plans page where there is a post saying “Important Message” with a link to “View Availability”. Or, you can get to it through the drop-down menu on the main page, by clicking the link on the Pass Reservation system. On that page there will be a link that allows you to go to the reservation page. Either way, you will probably have a bit of a wait with the spaceship on your screen. Don’t refresh; let it count down. The countdown might periodically jump up 30 seconds or so as the system deals with the people ahead of you, but, after a couple of glitches, it got me right into the reservation page.
The reservation system is, then, very easy to use. You make reservations by day and park, accept each day, then click a link to add another day. The system should really be good and easy to use once we get beyond the issues we saw as we all jumped on this first morning.
After over 2 hours and 5 computers, I got in via my phone (the last opened). Then it would only let me reserve 3 days (we are AP holders) even though we have a linked resort reservation for 8 days.
I guess it’s still a bit glitchy. I have an AP and reservations to stay 3 nights. It let me choose parks for all 4 surrounding days.
Wow! everyone calm down. This is all new …even to Disney. It’s frustrating, but it will all work out.
I got in! I used Microsoft Edge and for some reason that worked better.
If you are stuck at the pink castle login:
Start over in a new incognito browser, go to Disney’s website, click dining reservation, search a time in July for 2 people, when it shows availability click make a reservation, then log in, then click cancel reservation, then go up to the MDE drop down menu in upper right corner and click Disney parks pass system. Then click Make reservation.
That worked for me – thank you!
Thanks! After trying on two computers, a tablet, and a phone for 2.5 hours and never making it past the castle, this worked like a charm! Got the days I wanted.
9:13am EST – I was able to make all my reservations in October for the days I wanted! If you get to the orbit screen, stay there and don’t hit refresh! The timer may reset you back 30 seconds but just be patient.
I had a slight issue with one of my days where it said all the parks were full, but when I went back later to that day all the parks were open.
Good luck everyone!
Thank you Jarryd…. i was using my phone and was on pink castle for 2 hours. Switched to laptop and chrome and now finally have a countdown. FYI… my phone is still in pink castle!!!! Let’s hope this works. I had made it to countdown 2 other times on the phone and then it went blank!!!
Three computers and more than two hours later got everything requested. I found the disney castle after the countdown was a dead end. That computer sat on the castle for 20 plus minutes. Another computer took me right in after the countdown. Once I was in it worked rather smoothly.
Anybody else finally get past the spaceship only to end up on a blank page with only banners at the top Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!
Yes… so frustrating. Still trying!!!
finally got mine as well! everything for august 9th-14th. I’ve checked MDE plans probably 30 times now just to make sure they’re still there LOL
Same! i keep checking to make sure it is real….!