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!
@7:34 EST my latest is that it shows me as logged into MDE. However, If I try to navigate to anything I get the Pink Castle of Death Login loop.
Maybe they need to grab a couple of the availability engineers from Disney+ and bring them over to parks and experience IT.
WTH! Disnye needs to get their website together! This is ridiculous and I am livid. Disney, do you have an explanation!?
Someone posted that they called and was told it wasn’t meant to go live at 7am.
They just coincidentally decided to break their website at 7am. 🙂
Hang in there, they will get it working at some point. Wait, I think the pink castle is starting to get to me.
Thanks for the kind words but I am in tears. The only thing that I want is for Disney to work and a personalized apology from Disney. DISNEY DO THE RIGHT THING!
Which should include some type of discount .. why pay 100% for something that is not 100% available.
So I can see my plans – but nothing else!
Stuck listening to Its a small world (Arrhghghgh)
Ah its changed to Sorin’ music
Disney Music on hold is good – part from small world 🙂
Let’s remember that even though it’s frustrating, we are all going to Disney. This is a huge privilege <3 Think about all the bad in the world, and be glad all you're dealing with is a crashed website!
Agreed
True! Positive happy thoughts!!
THIS IS WRONG! IT IS NO PRIVILEGE TO GO TO A PLACE THAT CAN’T EVEN GET THEIR WEBSITE TO WORK IN 2020 (30 YEARS AFTER THE INVENTION OF THE INTERNET, COME ON!). I AM LIVID AT DISNEY! LIVID! WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING THESE FRAUDSTERS!
Do we even know where to look once we are in the My Disney Experience? I haven’t seen anything that looks like the right link. A nice big Mickey shaped button would work.
If you’re able to get past Stitch or the Dwarves and breach Cinderella’s castle to get to your My Disney Experience drop down, there’s a tab towards the middle of the drop down that says “Disney Park Pass”. Click that and it will take you to a page that tells you the system isn’t available yet 🙂
What do you click on initially (before the Stitch and Dwarves)? Not seeing how to access the castle.
Go to https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/, click log in/create an account at the top of the page. At this point, I think everyone is getting the castle (I know I am). But, if you get past the castle and can log in, then click “My Disney Experience” and it should drop down for you.
Thanks! I am in MDE, can see my plans, but no link or button to access the park pass system. Back to waiting…
You are among the exalted then, if you can get into MDE!
My Disney agent has confirmed that MDE and the Park Pass systems are broken. No word on when they’ll be fixed.
Who needs Corona virus. Im going to have a coronary trying to register.
Same here, Tonja!
7:28, 5:28 where I live. I’ve been in My Disney Experience for 20 minutes but don’t see a place to be able to make park reservations?
Tom, thanks for your 7:10 update and everyone for all the comments. It is comforting to know I’m not the only one having problems
I was able to see My Plans for a while after 7 AM but never even saw an option to reserve park tickets anywhere. Checked everywhere. Now back to “Just a Moment…” Lol.
Same here. Though I got to see some interesting half complete page iterations of my plans a few times there.
occasionally my castle page times out and I get a 504 error message
Hey Everyone! are you just looking at the My Disney experience on Disney’s website?
Been online for 1 hour and nothing has changed. just hoping I’m not missing anything.
you’re not missing anything!
This is BS. Im frustrated and annoyed. Feel like simply canceling and going to Universal.
Well now I’m thinking they really don’t want us there. Hahaha
I was in on my plans but now I’m seeing the castle again. I have a hard time believing that the reservation system wasn’t meant to go live this morning if the website is having so many issues.
I’m convinced that this has all been a weeding out process for Disney. This is the final stage. Those of us who make it through this will win the ultimate prize…a very diminished trip to Disney!
But I’m still excited and filled my coffee with an extra dose of patience. I also, by happy coincidence, took off work today so I have nothing better to do with my time than hit refresh over and over.
Yeah I got kicked out of MDE and now just have the castle. I half expected this but it’s really so frustrating. Think disney needs to lose the go.com domain and rebuild their website.
I guess the silver lining is that if nobody can get on, nobody’s taking up the spots. I’m hoping IT finds some pixie dust soon, though.
Talked to a Disney Rep – they said there is NO official time they were going to release the park reservation system .. just need to keep trying.
Well, that’s funny cause the email they sent me on Friday at 3:15PM stated 7:00AM. Disney needs to get their truth straight. some much changing direction lately makes it hard to trust.
They most certainly did! I called them last night and they said 7am est. so frustrating!
Thankful for the update, been online since 6:45 and still just sitting at my Disney experience page…. took until 7:15 to get this far…jeesh
anyone made it in this am yet?
It’s 7:18 am, EST.
Anyone seeing anything besides a castle?
Nope still waiting
I was able to get in and actually sign in but got a gateway error message. Now stuck on castle for 5 min now
I have the castle. Oh Disney!!! I even went into private browsing and still didn’t work.
i was in my disney experience, but didnt see anything new, but im back at the castle again
Just a pink castle