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!
Why can one annual pass holder in our group make park reservations for all days and the rest are limited to only three park reservations? By the way, we are DVC members.
I have the same problem. I can only make one park reservation, as an annual passholder with 3 different resort stays coming up. So frustrating! I have been working at this all day. I can cancel the one park reservation, and move it to any day I have a resort stay, but that is all. I really hope they fix this soon. It is like the system thinks I only have a one day ticket….
Well I finally got mine done. I have not activated my AP, but it allowed me to make 8 park day reservations for Dec. Took about 5 hours of waiting for it to let me sign in. One time it blinked out completely, when I clicked on view my plans. When I signed in again, it gave me Stitch. I closed that and opened up a couple more waiting to sign in. This time the wait was shorter, and once I was signed in, I was able to finish fairly quickly.
I just got finished after 9 hours on 2 phones, one laptop and an ipad.I got all my park days reserved for September 8th thru the 19th. I spent 2 hours on the phone waiting to speak to a CM. Finally when i spoke to a very kind woman she informed me that the laptop is the way to go because the system ” likes” google chrome. She was totally right!!! After all that time i finally got the past all the castles, space mountains, stitches, seven dwarfs, and as the CM said “the white page of death.” All my dates where available and I had no problem once I got into the actual system. Just keep trying… my advice for what little it is worth is don’t give up.
What number did you call? I’ve been trying to reach someone all day and it always just hangs up because it says they’re busy..
The I.T. Number is 407-939-4357
The other number I got from a cast member friend was 407-560-7277
Thank you Tom for stressing patience. I had low expectations that the website would be working at 7 am and those expectations were correct. After trying at 7 am, I gave up and went to work. But later on I was able to get on and get my passes – it was very easy once on.
Micah this is super kind of you to provide this information!! Thank you so much for your consideration!
I am a passholder with 2 resort reservations. I was able to get reservations for the first stay (5days in August) but not the second one in September – says Park Pass Limit Reached. Anyone been able to reserve for 2 separate stays?
I’m in the same boat. Booked 5 days in July but unable to book September. I’ve read other comments on this and other blogs that Disney IT is aware and working on the problem. My newest problem is a login loop. Enter my info only to circle back to same login screen.
I have same issue booked 8 reservations for July but can’t book 4 more for September. I hope your right that they are aware of the issue. Keeping my fingers crossed.
I just did the online chat with a rep and they said its a known problem. I asked what are next steps or if they would notify us and she said to keep checking back occasionally. Not the best answer, but least its not isolated.
14.5 hours later, I just booked parks for my second resort stay!
I did encounter an issue on two of the dates where all 4 parks were grayed out as not available. I selected a different random date from the calendar to refresh and then tried my original date again and all parks were available. This method worked for me twice. Good luck to all!
Still Cannot get in after 8 hours
TIP FOR THOSE STRUGGLING TO BOOK ALL DAYS!! When I did park reservations I booked day 1, day 2, and then skipped 3 and 4 to book day 5 (because my family likes to start and end with Magic Kingdom so I skipped day 3 and 4 to make sure I got Magic Kingdom on Day 5). Next thing I know, I can’t make reservations for the days I skipped. So, I read this on another site and tried it by taking my day 5 off since that was the day that was booked out of order. Here is what I read and followed and it worked for me. Scary to do but glad I did because in 3 minutes I now have all my reservations and had previously been trying to add the other two days for 8 hours. Here is what I read: Hey, I was stuck as one of those people who reserved one day and was given the “no parks available” message. The park I reserved was for the first day. On, a hunch I cancelled that first day park reservation and…it let me make the reservations for the rest of my stay. The key (for me at least) was to cancel the first day reservation , make the other days starting from last day, and make the reservation for my FIRST day LAST. I was able reserve all the days of my trip this way. I tested this a few times and it worked each time.
This method did not work for me. Glad it did for you though. Disney is only letting me reserve one day, no matter which day I choose. I can cancel it, and move it to another day, but just one.
I tried this method too. I’m glad I saw it bc I know now it’s not park availability. However, it will only let me book ONE day regardless of day. We have a mix of AP and tickets. Not sure if that’s the problem… I’m almost in tears.
I did it!!! I had to wait almost 3 hours, but persevered!!!!!! We have reservations for the parks for November 6-10……
2:43 PM you need to use Chrome and do it in a privately window (to do this go to preferences ==> privacy and security ==> security, and select enhanced protection) then go to Disneyworld page and sign in, first Its gonna be the pink castle and you gonna wait like 10 minutes and then you are in! … everything its gonna be smoothly.
I did it!
Good Luck!
🙂
Up at 3:40am (west coast) and took me almost eight hours. Once connected was fast and easy. Was finally connected after hours with Chrome incognito browser, though was trying on different browsers and devices.
Has anyone been able to solve the problem where the availability calendar says the dates have parks available, but when you go to make the reservation everything is grayed out? I was able to make one reservation, but now nothing seems to be available.
No I haven’t been able to solve that problem and have been having the same issues all morning. Any help would be wonderful.
I have the same issue. I talked to three different people in the chat and the only advice they offered is to keep trying..
I just finished booking parks for my second resort stay. After booking the first day, I selected day 2 and all 4 parks were grayed out. I then selected a random date to refresh and then selected the correct date. All 4 parks were then available. If calendar shows availability, refreshing the page by playing with the dates might work for you. This method worked for two of four days that were initially grayed out. Good luck!
I got past the castle after about 20 minutes and my browser says disneyworld.disney.go.com. It takes me to the log-in screen, but when I sign in nothing happens. I’ve been typing in email and password for about an hour. It this what everyone else is seeing or am I in the wrong screen?
Just got in and made 9 days of passes. Used old school Internet Explorer…. even though the site usually prompts me to upgrade. I’ve been online keeping watch over the screens since 7:00 am (EST). It’s now 2:30 pm. Good luck everyone!!!
Also that same thing happened to me on google private on my iPad… I couldn’t log in. But finally got through on laptop and Internet Explorer.
I can’t get past the castle to sing-in.
Been trying since 4am west coast time finally just got thru at 11:14 got all parks we wanted and early times for late December early January
Finally got in and was able to make park reservations. Once in it was very easy and simple.
Begin trying at 7 AM. Tried for 45 minutes and went back to bed LOL I knew it was gonna be a major disaster. Just not this bad! Now it is 1:47 PM Eastern time and from chrome I have the pink castle saying just a moment I’m in the waiting room. On Safari, it just has a white screen with Disney all rights reserved logo. I tried to make a dining reservation, and that got me nowhere as well. Think I will just try a different day.
Why not open the system based on your reservation dates? We’re going at the end of July. Why does everyone need to bog down the system today if your reservation isn’t until October? Doesn’t make any sense…..
Disney IT update:
If you were able to make one reservation, then get an error/Olaf page, then you are not alone. There is not a fix for this yet. Check back periodically through out the next couple days. It is NOT because all the parks are booked.
If you are having trouble getting past the waiting room/cues/pink castle page/spacemountain pages, 1. Use Google Chrome browser, not Internet Explorer. 2. Clear cache/restart computer or phone. 3. Wait patiently & do not refresh or use back. It can take over a hour to get past the waiting rooms. Yes there are multiple cues/rooms.
Don’t bother calling Disney. They will not reserve parks for you over the phone. You will hold for hours for nothing.
Hope this helps. It’s very frustrating, but Disney did not consult the actual IT personel on the front lines, prior to this big reservation system launch.
I was thinking the same thing. My dates are in December so I was feeling pretty chill about everything, thinking I had time til I got last minute emails telling me I had to make my reservations today.
Agree with all the comments that they should have assigned specific days for the reservations in different months. Been waiting for hours this morning and now the Space Mountain Screen disappears and won’t reload….. Very very unmagical.
Finally got in after 4 hours, was only able to make park reservations for one person in our party, hoping they will get us all on the same page before our trip.
Hi I have 2 questions for you. Do they require children under 3 to have a park reservation? Next question my husband and I are Passholders and our son turned 3 recently we have our hotel reservation but had not purchased his ticket bc we had planned on getting it upon arrival. Do you know if they will sell tickets to people who have resort reservations?
No, they will not. I spent over 3 hours on the phone yesterday trying to get credit for special event tickets that were canceled for our trip in April. There isn’t any way to buy tickets right now. We have an 8 day trip at the end of July and only a one day ticket because our other tickets were to their “special events” in the evenings. She told me that purchasing tickets should resume shortly. If the process is like this, we’ll probably just cancel.
I actually got through on the phone line and what “Rex” said was that he believed you can make park reservations without a ticket as long as you have hotel reservations and that you will “hopefully” be able to get the missing tickets at a later date…. Not exactly answering the question, but he was genuinely nice.
I am also a passholder with resort reservations. I was told yesterday that I would be able to purchase tickets for the rest of the people on my reservations on June 28 for 2021 arrival date. Hope this is correct and it helps.
He’s 2 right?? Wink wink.
Finally got in after 4 hours. Was only able to make park reservations for one person in our party. I am just hoping we can get the other 3 on the same page before trip. Will just cancel (again x4 trips so far) if we cannot.
Hi, I was curious about this, as well, as we are traveling with our daughter who will be at 20 months at the time of our Christmas trip. According to My Disney Experience, if there was a child in the party under three, you were prompted to remove that child and proceed with park reservations for the rest of the party. It stated that children under the age of three DO NOT require a park reservation.
1:30PM EDT and been trying since 7am to get in. Castle and Space Mt waiting rooms multiple times. Waiting at Castle again to sign in for the last hour+. Space Mt waiting rooms a big tease…you think you are almost there and then the screen goes blank. This should have been organized so much better. Why have all of the guests with reservations for 15 months access at the same time? Trip is in early October, having had my trip cancelled in March and April due to COVID.
Same for me. You are not alone. I woke up at 6am for this garbage…
same. we were suppose to go in April. rescheduled end of August. now i was able to get in and book for three days but not the last three. but calendar for resort guests shows availability. but when i pull up reservations system it defaults the calendar. anybody know how to fix that?
It would have made sense for Disney to allow park reservations for specific months on specific dates. For example, those with July resort reservations and tickets would have “first dibs“ access to the system. Those with August reservations could have access granted a day or two later. This may have eliminated the lag of this new system of making Park reservations.
We have been trying since seven am and still can’t get beyond the waiting rooms. Our trip is scheduled over the Christmas holiday.
It would’ve made more sense for Disney to just assign park reservations during my resort stay and I work around that schedule. I can’ t schedule anything else anyway. Then, if people need to adjust then they log in and do so. Would lower the web traffic significantly.