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!
Wife called WDW last night – we were specifically told that Shades of Green did not qualify as a ‘partner resort’ for the purposes of being able to access the park reservation system on the 22nd.
The nice gentleman did say that the total number of people eligible to make park reservations is less that 20% of the allowed park capacity so that the delay should not matter.
I was on disney site to give directions on how to get park reservations. It said ehrn picking park and date you also have to pick a time. Can this be true. I believe in shanghai they have 1/2 day tickets but we don’t. Help/
My resort reservation is in Nov. My tickets are from Undercover Tourist and I have the hopper but am afraid to call them because if they will refund part of price I don’t want it to get in the way of my making reservations. Not sure what to do. Make reservations in less than 48 hours. Am hoping for suggestions on what to do.
Uh oh I’m confused, and sorry if you addressed this already. I have a trip booked the week of Christmas, staying on site and originally had park hopper tickets. So I got the email from Disney saying that because I have a resort and tickets, I get access to the reservation system on June 22. Ol cool. Where I get confused is the language on their website that talks about park hopper being canceled and the three options for those who currently have park hoppers: 1) wait use the tickets later, I think it said they’re extended until September 2021 or something like that (which indicates they’re thinking park hopper will come back before then – yay!); 2) get the tickets modified for the non park hopper option (which is what I’m doing); or 3) cancel the tickets. My question is how this affects my access to park reservations. Even though I got the email, will my tickets not be considered valid until I’ve switched to non park hopper? I kind of want to leave them there as long as MDE will let me, just in case they allow park hopping again by Christmas time. Sorry this got so wordy for such a tiny question!
My resort reservation is in Nov. My tickets are from Undercover Tourist and I have the hopper but am afraid to call them because if they will refund part of price I don’t want it to get in the way of my making reservations. Not sure what to do. Make reservations in less than 48 hours.
I was just thinking about this as well. You would think Disney would just automatically refund the hopper price (for tickets bought through Disney) and downgrade the tickets to base tickets – similar to how Disney handled dining plans. It seems like they are (maybe) trying to give an illusion that hopping might come back sooner rather than later (although it seems unlikely for 2020, but who knows). But they really should be more clear because people want to make park reservations as soon as they are able (June 22nd for many) and not have their money tied up with hopper tickets that they ultimately can’t use. They put the modification date for tickets starting June 22nd, which is the same first date for making reservations. They should issue a statement clarifying if you can book your theme park reservations first and thereafter remove the hopper but not lose your existing park reservations.
Tom- Love the site, appreciate all the hard work you put into keeping us informed. Just making sure I’m reading all this correctly. We are DVC members with an existing home resort reservation (without tickets) the week before Thanksgiving. Looks like I’m in the “later this summer” crowd? Thanks Tom
Soooo…. Still trying to figure this out. We rented DVC points for a December stay. We’re set for Saratoga Springs the first week of the month. But, I don’t have tickets yet… So, I’m waiting until some unspecified time later this summer to hopefully get tickets for December 2020?
I would like to know what would be ull ve happening after 2 6 th September 21 for ticket purchase/ and booking of rides etc for 50th anniversary Oct 1st will be staying on resort as the reservation system starting soon ends before the anniversary
We’re in the same boat for late September visit. We’ve paid to rent the points already but didn’t buy the tickets. Super unsure what to do. We love Disney and respect the masks but know we’d be miserable wearing one all day in the heat. We’re actually trying to have the agent re-rent the points and they’d give us the credit…fingers crossed. Feels like we have a high chance of eating the cost or staying in an expensive hotel with no park access. ☹ï¸
Love you and Sarah, Tom! â¤ï¸
Tom Can you please help me.
I haven’t even been able to modify my resort reservations yet. Arrival July 7-13. So how can I book park reservations. This really isn’t fair at all.
I was planning on going in the middle of September and staying at friend’s house near property, so unless I pay for hotel rooms on property I should pretty much forget about it till next year?
Whoa, hold the phone!
I just read this a little more closely:
==========
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 our phased reopening continues. Guests will be able to view park reservation availability online prior to purchasing their tickets.
Later this summer, we will resume sales of 2020 tickets and Disney Resort hotel arrivals,
based on availability of park reservations, while we continue to provide Guests with existing tickets and Annual Passholders the opportunity to make park reservations for 2020 dates.
==============
So it is entirely possible that NO NEW resort stays can be booked in 2020, and at the very least, not until LATE summer?
We have WDW Good Neighbor Hotel reservations for the 1st week of August. We held off on Ticket purchases when Covid hit. What is “later summer”? Universal is not even hitting the 25% capacity, without “required” reservations. Why doesn’t Disney follow suit? 20% for Disney is 20,000. Frustrating.
Tom, I agree. We have been APHs for several years. My family and I live in Lithia, FL outside of Tampa and often stay at Shades of Green Military Resort multiple weekends a month (reservations made for the park re-opening weekend) while attending WDW and playing golf at the WDW Golf Courses. Disappointing as it will be, my wife and I discussed this evening that going forward under the restrictions to our APs is not going to work for us, so we are going to cancel. We love WDW Resort, we will continue to stay at and enjoy Shades of Green and go to WDW Resort non-park venues. We certainly look forward to the day that the magic will be back to normal.
Tom, what is unfair is that APHs should not have any restrictions, within the level of AP one may have, placed on them unless a park is at capacity. Park Hopping should be allowed as well.
I understand that this is disappointing, but life as we know it is temporarily changing due to an ongoing global pandemic. I’m feel fortunate to be able to attend a theme park at all right now, even if I might not be thrilled by the modifications.
This isn’t to say we should just accept whatever Walt Disney World gives us without complaint. (We’ve repeatedly pointed out shortcomings in their communications and how they’ve handled certain aspects of this.) Fortunately, if we don’t like the AP program going forward, we’re all able to cancel and receive refunds.
All things considered, those choices seem pretty fair.
So we have a dvc room booked for the third week of October. We haven’t been able to purchase tickets yet, but when we can, how far in advance do reserve your theme park admission? Is it 30 days out? 60 days??
Trying to wrap my head around the possibility of not being able to buy tickets in advance for my July 17 stay. I was wondering if it might be possible to purchase a park ticket the day you want to go if the park is not sold out for the day. Are they allowing this in the other parks?
I’m probably just reading this wrong but in one part of the article you state “ 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.” Then later you say “ 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.” Can you provide some clarity for those of us who are planning to book vacation packages in 2021. My understanding is there is no idea when 2021 prices will be released but I got a little confused reading this article.
We’re booked to stay at Disney from 12th of October 2020 can you tell me why we should avoid that time.
Color me confused but unless I missed it, I see nothing that specifically addresses people traveling this year who have booked on-site/partner hotel only but not purchased tickets.
“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.”
I saw this part above but it specifically mentions 2021. We’re staying at the Swan at the end of September. Is there even a room/ticket package available at that hotel? So far I’ve been going with the flow concerning this Disney trip and all the changes but I’m frustrated that it sounds like I’m going to be in the last group to make park reservations even though I’m staying on property. Did I miss something or am I understanding the reservation rules correctly?
You are understanding the rules correctly.
We rented DVC points for a boardwalk villa from January 23 – 30, 2021. When should I be able to get tickets for that trip? The 28th? Also, do you think I should be in a mad rush to purchase tickets and get park reservations or just wait and see how things go?? It’s a lot of money to spend on a vacation and risk not getting to go to the parks!
We’ve rented DVC at BWV too, but for Christmas. If MVMCP and FOTH are cancelled, and we can’t even guarantee park entry, we can’t justify the price of the rest of the vacation. We clearly weren’t anticipating a global pandemic when we booked in Feb. and hadn’t purchased our cancellation insurance in time. We’ll be out the money we paid for the hotel, but I can’t go to Disney at Christmas just to hang at the resort. Huge disappointment over here.
I have a reservation booked for the end of August/beginning of September. Can I modify it over the phone to different dates now? Or do I need to cancel it and then book a brand new reservation whenever that is allowed? I really want to move my reservation to later in the fall if possible.
Brittany, I have the same reservation timing for a hotel as you and I had the same question. I was going to meet my daughter and her family there and we were going to celebrate my birthday there, but because of her husbands work telling them no summer vacations will be allowed, I called WDW hotel reservations and asked if I could modify it to a new date in October and they told me yes, but I need to call back next week to do it.
Thank you, Susan! Strangely we were going to celebrate my birthday too. I guess I will call next week and see if I can modify my travel dates.
I could see Disney limiting to 7 days per month (Longer if you have a hotel reservation), which, by the way would still violate the terms of the annual pass contract. Limiting it to three days for the remainder of you annual passes validity, though, that’s just insanity. It’s like buying a new car, but being told that the engine will only work three days a year, but you still have to make all the payments.
Let’s face it …. if we all knew now what we knew when we bought the passes, I can’t imagine many of us would have purchased them.
I know COVID I’d not Disney’s fault. But it’s a false choice to say that there nothing that can be done for Passholders. It’s sad. Just sad.
I understand your perspective, but it’s assuming that theme park reservations will fill up with frequency.
My assumption is that this will not occur much at all (fewer than 10% of dates).
Right now, it’s impossible to say whose assumption will prove more accurate. In light of your assumption, I can totally understand why you’d want to cancel and request a refund–and Disney is giving you that option.
Tom …
Disney is stating that APH can only have 3 days reserved at any given time. Period. Not just when capacity is reached, but at all times. Even if there is capacity left, APH cannot book a 4th day.
That is unacceptable to me. Why should I plan to fly down and stay for a week when I can only get into a park for three of those days? What good is an AP if it cannot be used according to the contract both parties agreed to? Like “Livid” says, allowing 7 days at a time, within a rolling 30 day period, might be acceptable. I would even accept extending the expiration date by the amount of time that APs cannot be used normally, without restriction or requiring reservations.
Oh and FYI … I saw someone report that they tried to call and get a refund for the balance of their AP, and they were refused, since the opening dates have been announced. So APHs are SOL now.
I, too, am Livid.
The terms agreed to when purchasing the annual pass constitute a contract. This is breech of contract. Not acceptable.
Impracticability is a defense that applies if an unforeseen event occurred after the formation of the contract to make performance unreasonable.
“Global pandemic” would almost certainly qualify, and the option to cancel your Annual Pass would likely be viewed as a satisfactory remedy.
Cancel our annual pass? You mean refund the unused portion / portion that was unusable? That is logical. However it does not seem to be an option that Disney is willing to make. To be frank, it would probably have been the best option. Issue everyone a Refund for the exact percentage of the pass that was unused / unusual me Then, give those people a coupon code (that would not expire) that would apply a substation discount on the purchase of a new annual pass (if the current passholder so wishes, at the convenience of the passholder).
Canceling is an option: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-world-annual-pass-news-reservations-previews-extensions-refunds/
I’m very curious how phasing out magic bands is going to work. Will we be going back to all card tickets and paper fast passes? How does DL do it? Using a phone in place of a magic band with no actual ticket won’t work because 1-Phone batteries die sometimes, even when you take every chance you can to recharge and 2-A lot of kids would be relying on their parents phones. How would that work?
I’m not surprised by this because from what I can see, they seem to be going towards the DL setup of things. I’m ok with a lot of that, honestly, I like to not have to preplan every second of my day and then having huge FOMO and stress out about rushing everyone to the right spot at the right time. But … I am a huge fan of magic bands. I’m not a huge fan of having to constantly be finding passes and tickets and all that malarky on my phone.
Any thoughts on how this will work?
What gets Disney’s attention is a class action lawsuit.
I am surprised that Disney did not provide the same provision of not starting the clock on AP expiration date while in the Reservation System like they have done for APHs for the Shanghai Disneyland.
Attention annual Passholders:
If you do NOT have a resort reservation you are allowed to hold THREE (just three) park reservations per Passholders.
If you do have resort reservations you can hold as many reservations as days that you have booked with a MAXIMUM of 14. That’s 14 from now until next year, so if you have multiple trips planned, you’re out of luck.
This is absolutely unacceptable.
Make your voice heard. Disney’s to reverse this or refund.
Out of curiosity, what do you think is unfair about this?
What I find unfair is that the annual pass That I purchased (platinum plus) is good for 365 days with no black outs.
It is conceivable that, if I didn’t have a resort reservation, I might not be able to get a reservation for 362 of those days. Now, I am a user of the hotels, but even with that, I’m limited to only 14 days of certainty that I can get into the park. I’m more surprised that you find that equitable?!?
Three or fourteen days AT A TIME. Not for the whole year! Let’s all take a deep breath.
I just saw somewhere that AP holders can only book 3 at a time, however, after the first day is used, you can book another day. That day can be following the last day, consecutively.
I think Disney is just trying to make sure no one goes on and books days just to have them “in case”
You book 3 or 14 days and then when you use the first one you can book a new day. They’re just trying to prevent people from booking every day from reopen through September 2021
Livid -Wow, even for multiple on site stays for a year? I can see why people would be upset. At this point, the fair thing for WDW to do would be just to cancel them all, refund the money paid from the start of the shutdown and just not even open up this year at all. No parades, no fireworks, no character meets and COVID making Florida the new hotspot for infection is just crazy to keep going. I would feel horrible for the employees, but I don’t know how they can make it work to where it doesn’t hurt someone, either financially or physically.