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!
Got em! Been logged on since 06:00 and stuck in pink cast purgatory and orbit H-E-double hockey sticks since 07:00 on Foxfire. Finally switched to Chrome incognito and was done in under 20 minutes! Able to get everything I wanted for trip October 10-17. Foxfire still says almost in orbit -_-
Good luck everyone!!!
I was able to make reservations for dates in August and December, but not able to for my stay in February. My DVC reservation is not showing in my plans on the My Disney Experience but is booked on the DVC website. I am getting the same no reservations available for your date when I try, but the calendar shows full availability. Anyone else having issues with a 2021 reservation?
I am so frustrated! I have been in the orbit for 15 + minutes and just refreshed me back to the pink castle. Starting all over again.
I am in but it will only let me book one day – Christmas. Everything else greyed out.
I have second reservation august 8-15. It’s not letting me book anything.
Ok everybody…I just got all 9 of my park reservations for September 2-10. After 2 1/2 hours!!!!! The only thing I did that MAYBE made a difference (because nothing was working) was I went to settings and cleared out my data and history (I’m using an iPad) and in the search bar I typed in mydisneyexperience.com and hit GO. I did not choose my Disney experience from the list and it went right to sign in/ log in. Finally there wasn’t a pink castle or orbit! GOOD LUCK EVERYONE….my language has been extremely colorful this morning up until now! I’m immediately less stressed.
Finally got in! In case anyone is still wondering, dates through the end of September 2021 are available.
It says no parks available!!!!
I also finally got in. I saw on here that it was working for some people and tried clicking through, got back to the orbit page. But once I got there, all my different tabs from different routes I had tried updated back to the login page at once. I was nervous that it asked for my login info again, but it was smooth sailing from there. So if you’re on 2.5 hours of pink castle like I was, try opening a new tab now that the site is up and see if that refreshes your other tabs to get you in.
I got what I wanted, including Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day, which I’m assuming is going to be a popular choice for the Christmas crowds. I was nervous about that just because of the popularity and because one of Tom’s posts over the weekend said there’s already less DVC resort availability around Christmas. All that is just to say that it looks like there’s still plenty of park room for those of you making holiday plans who haven’t gotten in yet.
Ivy is my hero!!!
Everyone try the dining reservation tip if you can’t get in!!1 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.
Yes!!!! This worked for me also!! Yay! Thanks for posting as I didn’t see Ivy’s but did see yours!
I got all the way to the review and confirm page and it’s just spinning saying “Confirming”. Did this happen to anyone else? How long did it spin for?
Don’t use Safari. I ended up with a white screen and unable to see anything. If you cannot see your linked tickets, I was able to refresh the screen and see them. Chrome worked great.
I’m having the same problem, even though we have already linked our reservations and checkin online already for the reservations. It still only allows 3 days
I can also join those reporting success. 2hrs and 32 minutes later….
Chrome incognito ended up being the one that worked, even though it was giving me the most trouble early on. Had no problem getting the days we wanted. Good luck to everyone working through the process; it was certainly annoying.
I don’t know if anyone feels this way but even with the hotel and tickets booked, plane ticket bought, and now the reservations for these days I still don’t feel like this trip is going to happen….
Us too. We got all the reservations made this morning without too much trouble but given that we live in Canada we just don’t know what’s going to happen with the border (we were going to drive but….???) or what rules might be in place for flying into Orlando. Or what the situation might be with COVID in December. It’s all going to be a long wait and see. Florida is seeing a drastic increase of daily cases, it’s a bit shocking. I sorta wonder if everything might have to take a gigantic step back into lock down measures. Ontario, Canada is seeing about 200 new cases per day and much is still on lock down. Even at 200 cases per day, I don’t feel comfortable using the services that have opened. Hair styling? Too close for comfort for me – going to have to deal with COVID hair a bit longer, I’m afraid.
I really hope we do get to go on that WDW in December but I’m not banking on it. Unless we are talking about an actual bank/money/finances and in that case we are banking on about $10, 000.00.
Only let me make 3 reservations
I was able to make a reservation for the first day of my trip but now for every day that I try I get a message that says “One or more parks are not available for Disney Park Pass selections” and I can’t click on any park. Is anyone else having this issue??
Per this calendar, almost every day still has at least some availability : https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/availability-calendar/?segments=tickets,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets Good luck!
Mine says I dont have enough ticket days
Finally got through after 2 hours and 20 minutes. Hope everyone else is getting now,
I get in only to find that every date I click on says that no parks are available.
Curious what dates you were looking for? Our dates are for December and I was successful.
This is so frustrating. Just on a calendar screen not able to do anything except refresh the page. HELP NEEDED.
ok. Castle, Orbit, countdown reset 3 times and now I am back at castle in a waiting room.
Me too. Had 3 sites open to orbit now all on castle. I’m trying to get passes for week of July 12th. This is so stressful!!!
Finally, got our park reservations! Good luck for everyone else!
Ok so what comes first…. the castle or the Orbit countdown?
castle, then orbit countdown, then you might get taken back to a waiting room in the castle. thats where I am right now
Thank you Tonja… that’s where I am now on 3 computers.
Finally got through, many tabs, no rhyme or reason to what worked. In one browser I got past the pink castle only to get in a login loop, where it just brought me back to the login page. If you get that, try going to My Disney Experience to start your login attempt again.
Curious if the entry windows are the same for everyone getting in. Perhaps these are the planned park hours, but all my Epcot windows start at 11am
Nov 11 EP 11AM – 9PM
Nov 12 MK 9AM – 7PM
Nov 13 HS 10AM – 8PM
Nov 14 EP 11AM – 9PM
Nov 15 AK 8AM – 6PM
Nov 16 MK 9AM – 7PM
Nov 17 AK 8AM – 6PM
Nov 18 EP 11AM – 9PM
Nov 19 HS 10AM – 8PM
Nov 20 MK 9AM – 7PM
(long trip celebrating a big b-day for my wife)
Those are the park hours showing for our trip in August, so I’m assuming those may still be correct for November. No luck getting in, I get through all the countdowns then end up at a blank page. Going to try a different browser and see if that helps.☹ï¸
Same hours here but different days/parks:
Nov 14 AK 8AM — 6PM
Nov 15 MK 9AM — 7PM
Nov 16 EP 11AM — 9PM
Nov 17 HS 10AM — 8PM
Nov 18 MK 9AM — 7PM
Nov 20 EP 11AM — 9PM
We have only been able to get 1 out of 5 days for July. Every other one says there are no parks available. How is that even possible?
Google Chrome incognito mode works..everyone try that..my other Chrome browser was stuck on pink castle.
Anybody able to make reservations for Sept oct..system let me do 8 days for my July trip but not 3 days in my Sept trip
Yes, I got mine to work … late September into October. Wasn’t in incognito window, but it was the first window I opened that eventually worked. Once in, it was easy to follow (although I found myself holding my breath while parka loaded after days were selected). Confirmed in My Plans and all looks good.
Any word on when in-park dining reservations will open? Is it a 60 day window?