Park Pass Reservations Introduced for Disney World Access!
Walt Disney World has introduced the “Disney Park Pass” system, which will be the method of booking Advance Theme Park Reservations. In this post, we’ll cover what you need to know for reserving access, reservation windows, and how to make online plans to enter Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios.
The release of Disney Park Pass to make advance theme park reservations should come as a huge relief for anyone who is a Walt Disney World planner. There have been a lot of complaints about Walt Disney World’s lack of communications since the Know Before You Go Resort & Restaurant Info pages nearly two weeks ago.
With Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom reopening on July 11, and Epcot plus Disney’s Hollywood Studios resuming operations on July 15, 2020, the new Disney Park Pass system is coming less than a month in advance. For many tourists preparing for their summer vacations, this is significantly shorter notice from Walt Disney World than normal…
New vacation package and ticket sales are still on hold (and still no update since Walt Disney World Cancelled All Reservations—Free Dining, Restaurants, FastPass+ & Dining Plan). It’s likely that Disney IT is still scrambling behind the scenes to make this all work, but at least we now have some clarity.
Here’s what we know about Disney Park Pass, which will be rolling out for advance theme park entry reservations…
During the reopening period, Walt Disney World will be using the Park Pass system to manage and limit attendance, all guests with a ticket or Annual Pass will be required to make a reservation in advance for each park entry, using the New Park Reservations Tool on DisneyWorld.com (this is the important link for booking Disney Park Pass).
Here are a few important details to know about this new system:
- You’ll need a My Disney Experience account, as this is where your Walt Disney World Resort plans are stored and managed.
- You’ll also need a valid theme park ticket or Annual Pass that’s linked to your My Disney Experience account.
- If you have a Disney Resort hotel reservation, be sure to link it to your My Disney Experience account beforehand, as well.
Once you’ve logged into your My Disney Experience account and linked your ticket, you’ll have access to a calendar of available reservation dates for each theme park.
If you have a multi-day ticket, you will be required to make a park reservation for each date of your visit. Families and friends can link their tickets together and look to arrange theme park entries at the same time.
Booking Dates for Park Reservations
The Disney Park Pass system will be available soon to select guests. Booking dates vary based on your plans, with each opening at 7 am Eastern on their respective dates.
- Beginning June 22, 2020, Walt Disney World resort hotel and other select partner hotel guests with valid theme park admission can make reservations.
- Beginning June 26, 2020, Annual Passholders without a Resort stay can make reservations.
- Beginning June 28, 2020, existing ticket holders can make reservations.
Park reservations will be available through September 26, 2021, based on your Walt Disney World resort hotel stay and ticket eligibility or ticket eligibility window.
As for which hotels will qualify as “partner” resorts, our guess is the list will be the same as Extra Magic Hours or expanded FastPass+ access: Disney Springs Resort Area Hotels, Bonnet Creek Resorts, Swan & Dolphin, and Shades of Green Resort. (We might be missing one or two–you get the idea.)
If you have a room-only reservation at a Disney Resort or other select hotel for a stay in 2021, please call the Walt Disney World Reservation Center or call your travel agent beginning on June 24 to upgrade to a vacation package with tickets–and then make your theme park reservations.
Park reservations are limited in number and subject to availability. Availability can change until the reservation is finalized. At this time, guests will be able to select one park per day; Park Hopping (visiting more than one park per day) will be temporarily unavailable upon the reopening of Walt Disney World’s theme parks due to attendance limitations.
Guests with existing tickets that include the Park Hopper Option or Park Hopper Plus Option have options available to them for ticket modifications and cancellations, and can visit DisneyWorld.com/Updates for more information. Walt Disney World hopes to bring back the ability to visit more than one park per day soon and will continue to offer these add-ons for 2021 ticket purchases.
For Existing Ticket Holders and Annual Passholders: Beginning this week, Walt Disney World will reach out to existing ticket holders and Annual Passholders with more information on when they will be able to check availability to make their park reservations. Disney will open the Disney Park Pass system to these guests in phases, beginning with those with future Disney Resort and other select hotel stays.
Later this summer, Walt Disney World will resume sales of 2020 tickets and Disney Resort hotel arrivals, based on availability of park reservations, while continuing to provide guests with existing tickets and Annual Passholders the opportunity to make park reservations for 2020 dates.
Planning a New Trip for Next Year: By June 28, all guests will be able to purchase new Disney Resort hotel packages and theme park tickets and make their park reservations for arrivals starting in 2021 as Walt Disney World’s phased reopening continues.
Guests will be able to view park reservation availability on DisneyWorld.com prior to purchasing their tickets.
In 2021, Walt Disney World will unveil an innovative new offering as part of the My Disney Experience app that will bring features of a MagicBand to your smart devices, building on the app’s existing digital key feature.
With this new offering on the horizon, Walt Disney World will be retiring complimentary MagicBand distribution to Disney Resort hotel guests for new reservations with arrivals beginning January 1, 2021. (MagicBands will still be available to purchase at a discount, via the MagicBand Upgrade Program.) This seems like a minor bombshell buried in the announcement.
Finally, for some predictions about Disney Park Pass. By and large, we do not anticipate organic demand for park entry reservations exceeding supply. Even with a fraction of the normal park capacity, we’d be shocked if Walt Disney World is running out of registration availability on a regular basis.
As we recently discussed in greater depth here, this feels eerily similar to the debut of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Many fans really freaked out, worried that they’d need to arrive at the park hours before park opening just for a chance to enter the new land. Some vowed to avoid Disney’s Hollywood Studios entirely during their trips.
Then Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened at Walt Disney World, and the virtual queue for land entry was only used for a grand total of like 2 hours ever. The mechanics behind this system (registering in advance v. day-of) are different, but the idea is the same.
As for why we expect this to be a repeat of the opening months of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, look no further than the chorus of cancellation comments, and then consider the current state of the economy, unemployment, travel restrictions, temporary health rules, and more—all of which will further depress demand.
While there’s a lot of interest in Walt Disney World among diehard fans, the vast majority of the general public is not interested in traveling from out of state to visit a theme park right now. (In any case, people cannot even book new trips right now.)
Locals are a different story. The first couple weeks the parks reopen will likely see a modest amount of pent-up demand, which will outweigh any ‘early-bird’ advantage it offers. If any dates do ‘sell out’ of advance theme park reservations, it’ll likely be opening days for each of the parks, as there’s a strong desire among bloggers, vloggers, and just Disney-obsessed locals to be first.
If recent precedent at Disney Springs, Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure, and SeaWorld Orlando is any indication, the first day each of the Walt Disney World theme parks will be far busier than the second day. Following that, weekdays will see relatively low crowds with spikes on weekends. Resort guests will change the equation slightly, but at this point, Walt Disney World will have a fraction of its normal hotels operating, so that shouldn’t make a huge difference.
It also wouldn’t be surprising if Disney’s online system crashes on June 22, 26, and 28. While Disney has gotten better about virtual queues with its online systems, they still have “hiccups” from time to time…
In general, our expectation is that demand will usually be well below even reduced capacity throughout the rest of the year. If you’re thinking about a Walt Disney World trip, we’d recommend taking a wait and see approach to judge how things go with the July and August guinea pigs, making tentative plans for the end of September or beginning of October.
We’ve long recommended visiting in the last week of September, which is one of our three favorite weeks of the year. This year, October should be better than normal crowd-wise, as conventions, events, and school breaks that pumped up attendance in recent years might be cancelled. (We’d still avoid the week of October 12, 2020.) October also has better weather, making masks more tolerable–and the chances of hurricanes are lower than September.
If you’re looking for more specific predictions and recommendations with regard to crowds, see our Dawn of a Temporary Disney Era – Crowds & Discounts post for specific recommendations about when to visit and when to avoid. Our How Bad Will Crowds Be at Walt Disney World After Reopening? post from a few months covers why we think crowds will naturally be low for the remainder of the year.
Beyond all of that, Walt Disney World not even selling tickets and new hotel reservations again until a nebulous time “later this summer” suggests that they’re focusing on locals, Annual Passholders, and Disney Vacation Club for the remainder of the year. Even once people can book new vacations, it’s unlikely that many will be doing so for the fall or holiday season, as there’s typically a 5-6 month lag between booking a trip and actually traveling.
Ultimately, it’s just nice to finally have some clarity on how the Disney Park Pass will work to make advance theme park reservations. We know many of you have been (understandably) stressed out about this, and while it doesn’t provide every single answer or complete certainty, it’s a huge step in the right direction.
Hopefully next week everyone is able to get the theme park reservations they’re after, and with that out of the way, we have even more certainty about how Walt Disney World will operate for the next several months in this era of temporary abnormal. We’ll keep you posted on new developments, and update this post accordingly if/when we learn more.
If you have questions about the closure, including policy changes and what we know thus far, please consult our Walt Disney World Reopening FAQ & Info, which should answer most inquiries. See our other WDW Closure & Reopening Updates for the latest news. If you’re planning a Walt Disney World trip, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know.
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you received an email from Walt Disney World about the Disney Park Pass system for making advance theme park reservations? Worried about availability for your travel dates? Do you have plans to visit Walt Disney World this summer or fall, or will you hold off until 2021 or beyond? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or concerns? 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!
So they screwed over the local APs again as we have to wait 4 days after those with resort reservations to get a park reservation. Does anyone think as a local AP there will be any current date park reservations left after a 4 days of people who have resort reservations took them all? Maybe all of us APs should just cancel.
You have all year as local AP holders people with resort reservations only have the time they are at disney world
Does anyone know if we will have in and out privileges to the Parks. Have reservations 9/14 to 9/18 at Pop with tickets already purchased. Normally like to go in the morning, back to the resort for a few hours and then back to the Park late afternoon/evening. Will this be allowed with park reservations?
I just chatted with a CM about that. You can leave and enter the park as often as you like but you can only go back to the park you have a reservation for that day. But you can totally leave to go back to your room. My littlest will need a nap so that’s why I asked.
What about seniors who have purchased annual passes? Would be good idea to have ability to wait until vaccine or better therapeutics are developed before entering park, since seniors are still advised to shelter in place. Maybe more flexibility on their ‘start’ to re-enter date.
If they move everything to a smartphone vs magic band how do you accommodate children who don’t have a phone? Does that mean now you will spend more money to buy them a magic band since they are not complementary?
You link your children to your My Disney Experience and control everything for them there. Heck, I’m the planner so I control everything for my adult husband on my phone for most of the trip. If your party has one smartphone you can manage. If you have no smartphone remains to be seen.
Make sure you have extra power sticks to charge said phone and mine sometimes with no notice can freeze up. It then takes time to turn it off and reboot. I like using magic bands. I actually use my tablet to navigate the park and schedule things but like to use the magic bands for ride access and entrance to the park.
Tom,
I know in the past there have been issues with the existing reservations “conflicting” with attempts to create new ones. Will non-park ADRs preclude making a Park Reservation if the timings conflict? Example: I made ADRs for every day of our trip at DS and resorts hotels. Will the park reservation system possibly refuse you or glitch due to conflict with my existing ADRs. I will cancel every dang ADR to get a park reservation without trouble.
Lori
I assume that a child with an age of 2 that doesn’t require an entry ticket would still be included in the park reservation with the rest of the group?
I am an annual passholder with a reservation over Labor day weekend, so I am in group A for those days. BUT I wanted to do a couple solo park preview days before so i know what i am getting my family into… but they have not announced the number of days a passholder can hold OR whether staying on property gives you extra days (as in you can have 4 days held at one time unless you have a reservation where your length of stay reservations are counted separately). Any inklings on how they might handle this or when they will tell us? So many questions still….
You raise some good points!!!! Thank you
Can someone help with a ticket question? I have a 6-day ticket in MDE with a September 2021 expiration. Can I use 2 days of the tickets and make reservations this fall, and then use the remainder 4 days (with a reservation) in 2021?
This sounds like an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE.
It looks like I have visited WDW for my last time.
I certainly hope Disney announces that they are not going to start the clock towards expiration dates for active Annual Passholders while they are in the Reservation needed to get in the parks and no park hopping system. If we have to continue to pay monthly for our APs, or have paid in full and not get to exercise the full benefits of the AP, per the contract, then that is wrong. Disney did not start the expiration clock on their Shanghai APs while in the “Reservation to get in” is in effect, Disney needs to do the same for WDW APs. Otherwise they are inviting lawsuits for breach of contract.
Well as a fully paid AP they already extended my expiration date almost 4 months, which is equal to the closure period. So no, they are not giving us free days during the reservation system’s use.
I completely agree. I don’t know how that would be legal, nor do I think the ‘cancel if you don’t like it’ option is appropriate.
Our passes were extended to August 19th, originally set to expire April 24th. Well, only my boyfriends was expired and put back into MDE so I’m currently on hold to see where mine went… either way I think they shouldn’t have started the clock again like Shanghai
I just checked MDE and my annual passes just had the expiration dates updated. This happened today bc yesterday they showed the original date. They originally expired January 2021 now they have moved them to May 2021…so the 4 months the park has been closed. Not too happy about this since I can’t use the ticket as I normally would during the reservation phase. I really expected them to extend them longer. I also don’t know why I’m seeing people say APs got extended to September bc ours didn’t go that far.
Just sliding that Magic Band bombshell in there, huh? Seems like in normal times that would get its own lengthy post!
Exactly what I was thinking! I’m wondering if they are really trying to pivot away from Magic Bands, which doesn’t make sense, or if they just want people to now pay for what was an on-site perk.
Christine
There will be no need for magic bands as almost all people have cell phones these days.
I honestly don’t see it as a big deal. Pay the extra $10-15 to buy one and use it…I probably will do that because I like the magic band and I don’t want to deal with even more recharging my phone all day.
thanks for the quick sharing of the news. Two big questions:
1) do we know if we are going to be allowed to leave and reenter a park?
2) if I get a reservation of a park at a specific time, do I have a specific window of entry ?
According to a CM i chatted with on-line you can leave and enter the park you have a reservation for as often as you like that day. And the “time” thing isn’t supposedly a “thing”. It’s an all day reservation… we’ll see on Monday I guess.
My family was scheduled to be at WDW March 16th for a week at The Caribbean Beach Resort, obviously that was canceled. Rescheduled for the end of July, excited we now had the Free Dining package, that was canceled. We are told we have to wear masks in 100 degree heat…deal breaker. With all of the uncertainties I can’t imagine too many people are going to spend thousands of dollars for this luxury vacation. All the planning in the world will not help if you get to the park entry and have a 100.5 temperature. My family is so sad and heart broken we gave up and canceled our trip…maybe next year.
Hi Tom! Thanks for all of your immediate updates! I have searched and searched and just can’t see where people with existing Park Hopper tickets have options for modifications and cancellations on that webpage. The only thing I can see is that we can just choose to use our tickets up until September 26th as is or pay the difference after. Is there something I am missing? We have resort reservations and park hopper tickets for November and are vacillating about canceling or not. The tickets are the one thing we don’t see a way to actually cancel. I would love to be able to get a refund on the extra I paid for the park hopper option, though, if we do decide to go.
I am in the same boat as Stacey, I followed the link and there wasn’t anything about modifying my park hopper tickets.
I have existing resort reservations for July 18-23 with a 4-day park hopper. We’re planning on going. I am going to make park entry reservations on 6/22, and then call in several weeks (once the call volume will hopefully have decreased a bit) to ensure that they issue me a refund for the portion of the tickets that were park hopper (changing these to regular tickers). I am sure this will be do-able.
What about people (me) with a reservation booked at a Disney hotel but no tickets added to the reservation yet? I am not sure where I fall in the groups of who gets to book? the last one? We were waiting to add tickets to our vacation package until seeing if they were or weren’t going to have Mickey’s Christmas Party but now I am thinking I should just book them and change it later.
I purchased the Discover Disney Tickets as a florida resident. I added the park hooper plus so that i could go to the water parks. I have one day left and all 3 of my other experiences left. Have you heard anything about reservations for Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon.
The My Disney Experience app shows they are open starting July 11th. I am a florida resident but need to book a hotel in orlando to go to the water parks.
What if we have a DVC reservation and no tickets yet? Seems like DVC should be given some priority access.
I have read the article a couple times through and I guess I just do not understand the Sept. 2021 time frame. Why would Disney put this reservation system out that far when a lot can change by the end of this year with the pandemic and into next year? I think it would be wiser to maybe do it through 2020 or early 2021 and then see what happens towards the end of this year with treatments and an efficient vaccine potentially on the horizon. I doubt they want to keep it like this once they do not have to.
It’s a lot easier to have something in place and rescind it if no longer needed than to keep adding. Also tempers guest expectations.
I think maybe they DO want to use this system so want to test it for a longer time? I think Tom did a post recently speculating that FastPass+ might be phased out…of course what about park hopper then ….hmmmm. Good question!
We have flights and reservations at the Dolphin for mid-August, but Disney stopped ticket sales when we were going to purchase our tickets. Any thoughts on if we will be able to purchase tickets for that time?
Just read this article and the cancellations blog from last night’s email. We don’t live nearby and only visit every couple of years, so the MNSSHP cancellation is pretty heartbreaking for my kids for our planned October trip; it is not easy for us to make fall trips since I work for a school district so this was our last chance to make something work. We will likely still go (since our spring break and summer vacations have also been cancelled), and hope that at least the decorations and ride overlays will still be used. But, I’m hoping we can use the Park Hopper feature we purchased.
We really appreciate your updates and analyses! Thanks for keeping us informed.