When Will Disney World Park Reservations End?
“When will Walt Disney World stop requiring theme park reservations?” for Annual Passholders and regular guests is a common question among guests frustrated about the extra step to visit Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom. This post discusses the end of reservations, reasons for restrictions, and crowd control goals. (Updated January 9, 2024.)
Let’s start with the very good news, which is that the vast majority of regular guests no longer need theme park reservations when visiting Walt Disney World. Starting with visits on January 9, 2024, theme park reservations are no longer be required for date-based tickets. A date-based ticket requires you to choose a start date when you purchase. For other admission types, theme park reservations may be required.
If you’re a regular tourist who isn’t an Annual Passholder, there’s about a 98% chance you will not need park reservations for Walt Disney World anymore. Pretty much all vacation packages booked through DisneyWorld.com or travel agents include date-based tickets, with the only notable exclusions being student groups, tour groups, convention guests, youth sport event guests, military tickets, and (again) Annual Passes. The rest of this post is irrelevant to you–stop reading, because the answer for you to the titular question is RIGHT NOW.
If you’re not an Annual Passholder or part of one of those excluded groups, you also may want to stop reading, because you may not like what we have to say about the future of the Disney Park Pass theme park reservation system for booking entry to Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom.
As you’re no doubt aware, this system was originally introduced due to the parks operating at significantly reduced capacity when the parks reopened. At that time, attendance was capped at ~20% of normal levels, a number that gradually increased to 35% the following spring.
Health safety protocol are now gone entirely and have been for a while, staffing shortages are mostly a thing of the past, and many Annual Passholders and other ticket types are wondering when the reservation system will also be retired for them. That’s what this post addresses…
When it comes to the U.S. Military Salute and other aforementioned regular ticket types (youth teams doing events at ESPN Wide World of Sports, Disney Meetings & Events, tour groups, and other bulk tickets), our expectation is that theme park reservations will stick around for the remainder of 2024.
That’s partly a matter of Walt Disney World signaling as much with the current reservations calendar running through January 18, 2025. It’s also partly a matter of assessing crowd dynamics and demand absent the Park Pass system for all other regular ticket types. Once park management knows it’s not going to be a problem to drop reservations for the rest of these groups, they’ll do so.
There’s actually an incentive for them to do so, as the Disney Park Pass infrastructure for regular ticket types differs slightly from the system for Annual Passholders. So keeping it around incurs maintenance and support costs, and ends up being a hassle that takes time for Cast Members when there are inevitably issues. If there’s no need for these groups to have reservations, keeping the system around is counterproductive. It could certainly happen before that January 18, 2025 date–but we’ve seen how cautious and slow Walt Disney World has been in undoing post reopening changes.
As for Annual Passholders, let’s start with the good news, which is that Walt Disney World is introducing “good-to-go days” for Annual Passholders and Cast Members. On these “good-to-go days,” Annual Passholders and Cast Members may visit theme parks without needing a park reservation.
The theme park reservation calendar, Annual Passholder admissions calendar and My Disney Experience app will show days that are good-to-go. The first good-to-go days will be added to the calendars starting January 11, 2024. Good-to-go days will take the place of bonus reservations, and like bonus reservations, they will be added periodically and may be released days or weeks in advance.
If an Annual Passholder has an upcoming theme park reservation that becomes a good-to-go day, the reservation will be removed and no longer count against their maximum reservation hold, but they will still be able to view their previous reservation in the My Plans section in My Disney Experience.
Our expectation is that a majority of dates in 2024 end up being good-to-go at Walt Disney World. In all likelihood, Walt Disney World will start slowly and scale up, adding a handful of winter off-season dates on January 11, 2024 and seeing how that goes. If the parks are not inundated and overwhelmed by reservationless APs (and they won’t be), they will add more and more good-to-go dates to the calendar.
We’d be willing to bet that by the time late April 2024 rolls around, at least half the dates in early summer will be good-to-go for Annual Passholders. It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if every single day is good-to-go for Animal Kingdom and EPCOT, and reservations are only necessary for Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. By late summer/early fall, it wouldn’t be surprising if between 75% and all dates are good-to-go for all parks.
During the second half of the year, it’ll probably be easier to list the dates that are not good-to-go rather than the ones that are. For that, our preliminary prediction would be that reservations will be required for only (roughly) the ‘worst’ dates in our list of the 10 Best and 10 Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025.
In addition to this, Annual Passholders are able to enter the theme parks after 2 p.m. without needing to make a reservation, regardless of whether or not it’s a good-to-go day. The exceptions to that is Magic Kingdom on weekends, but it’s still a pretty big deal–especially for APs who previously enjoyed being able to do a spontaneous afternoon or evening visit after work. Suffice to say, a lot of the normal use cases for local Walt Disney World Annual Passholders will not require reservations in 2024.
Finally, there have been a lot of questions about Annual Passholders with resort reservations, which should be their own distinct category that has been favored up until now. Thus far in January 2024, there have been no changes for this group. Our guess is that this is an oversight–that APs with on-site resort reservations have been lost in the shuffle, for lack of a better term.
It’s also possible that there are backend IT limitations preventing Disney from dropping reservations for this group without doing manual overrides, since (as noted above) the systems are slightly different. We would like to think that Walt Disney World will quickly address this, and on-site resort guests who are also Annual Passholders won’t need theme park reservations in the very near future.
Honestly, though, we have no clue. It’s possible this would necessitate too much additional work for Disney IT or the good-to-go days plus extra reservations allotted to on-site Annual Passholders is deemed sufficient at addressing this. And for practical purposes, it probably is. This is one scenario where we wouldn’t be surprised if park reservations are dropped for on-site APs next week or never. Obviously two extremes, both of which are plausible from our perspective. Not very helpful, we know. Sorry.
As a general matter, theme park reservations are likely here to stay for Cast Members and Annual Passholders in some form or fashion. For what it’s worth, this has been our prediction since the system was implemented in 2020–that it would eventually be retired for tourists but stick around to some degree for CMs and APs. As it turns out, we were correct.
So our prediction now is that Cast Members and Annual Passholders will still be making theme park reservations in 2025 and probably 2026. Our past predictions weren’t exactly bold and neither is our current one. The basis for this is simple, and predates the 2020 closure.
Back in 2019, current Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro was the head of Disneyland when the Flex Pass–an Annual Pass with some dates that required reservations–debuted there; D’Amaro was reportedly an advocate for the reservation system for Cast Members. The 2024 system of a blockout calendar paired with good-to-go dates is literally identical to the Flex Pass (right down to the “good-to-go” term!). Suffice to say, this is something that had been in the works at Disney for a while.
Given the introduction of the Flex Pass at Disneyland, overall increases in attendance in early 2020, and population explosion in Central Florida, theme park reservations were an inevitability for Walt Disney World APs and CMs. Even if the closure and everything else never happened, it’s highly likely that Cast Members and at least some tiers of Annual Passes would be required to make park reservations in 2024. It might not look like the current system, but it wouldn’t be like 2019, either.
Retaining reservations for APs and CMs gives Disney control over the attendance mix, and allows the company to prioritize tourists who spend more per visit on average. Although Disney wants Annual Passholders and Cast Members to visit–and spend money–when there’s excess capacity, the circumstances are different when the parks are busier.
Even if there is a more pronounced winter off-season slowdown, the economy enters a recession, or pent-up demand exhausts itself, it’s still likely that the peak weeks around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve will continue to be very busy. It thus makes sense that Walt Disney World would want to prioritize resort guests and other tourists and not fill the parks with Annual Passholders at the expense of more lucrative vacationers during busier dates.
Hence the compromise of no reservations on slower days or after 2 pm most days for APs (and still subject to blockouts–which includes much of the holiday season for all tiers but the Incredi-Pass). That’s also why we do not expect park reservations to be retired for Annual Passes in 2025 and probably not 2026.
What’s more likely than reservations being totally retired for all Annual Passholders is the introduction of a new top-tier of Annual Pass that doesn’t require reservations and has no blockout dates. The kind of AP that, if you’re wondering how much it would cost, is too expensive for you.
As for the why of this, leadership has been pretty clear. During several interviews about the future of the theme parks over the course of the last two years, Josh D’Amaro has shared a similar perspective, indicating that Walt Disney World is “choreographing” the guest experience, pushing technology in a way that Disney has wanted to for a long time. He has pointed to the Disney Park Pass reservation system, as well as Mobile Order, contactless payment, and various virtual queues.
D’Amaro has noted that these technologies are leading to better Cast Member and guest experiences, and has said that many are probably here to stay. In past interviews, D’Amaro has not said with any specificity which components will stick around. His comments have been more to tout Walt Disney World’s use of technology, and indicate they’ll continue to do so going forward. Which should be obvious.
Disney’s desire to better leverage technology should not come as a surprise. The multi-billion dollar NextGen initiative—including My Disney Experience, FastPass+, MagicBands, and interactive queues—was envisioned as a way for Walt Disney World to operate more efficiently. There were grandiose plans for how the project would offer Disney the data necessary to streamline operations, deploy on-demand entertainment, manage staffing, and effectively utilize other resources.
Aside from the guest-facing components like FastPass+ and MagicBands, almost none of the big goals that justified the colossal investment were realized. In large part, this is why My Disney Experience wasn’t ported to other parks around the globe; instead those parks cherry-picked various aspects of the system to build their own, stripped-down incarnations. (See “The Messy Business of Reinventing Happiness” and “Behind the Scenes at Disney As it Purged a Favorite Son” if you’re interested in more on the trials and tribulations of NextGen.)
The lesson to be learned from the goals of NextGen as imagined versus what came to fruition is that Disney’s plans don’t always come true. While executives salivate at the prospect of leveraging big data and analytics to decrease staffing and achieve more efficient operations, all of this only works to the extent that there’s guest buy-in. (Not to mention the tech “playing nice” with Walt Disney World’s legacy IT–something that still hasn’t totally happened with the NextGen additions.)
Quite simply, Walt Disney World cannot unilaterally push through more stringent and regimented planning “resources” without regard for the guest experience and satisfaction. While FastPass+ was initially met with skepticism by long-time fans (something true of literally any change at Walt Disney World), it was eventually embraced by guests. Some still criticized it or expressed a preference for paper FastPasses or no virtual queues at all, but it was sufficiently popular.
It’s also worth emphasizing that My Disney Experience rolled out at a time when Walt Disney World’s attendance had started to soar, giving the company some latitude in making decisions not warmly embraced by guests.
The circumstances were very similar when Disney Park Pass was first introduced…but not anymore. In his interviews during 2021-2022, D’Amaro acknowledged that Walt Disney World was benefitting from pent-up demand. That ceased to be the case about a year ago, and Disney is now seeing the backside of revenge travel. Accordingly, the company now needs to be more responsive to the guest experience and satisfaction.
Disney Park Pass is viewed as an impediment and another reservation to make. It creates uncertainty, headaches, and many guests blame the reservation system for planning problems or rigidity in their vacations. Some have been shut out of visiting entirely due to Park Pass, and have an unfavorable opinion of it as a result.
In the grand scheme of Walt Disney World “approval ratings,” theme park reservations fall somewhere between Stitch Ate the Page! and Stitch’s Great Escape. So it makes complete sense that, as pent-up demand is exhausted and the system has outlived its usefulness for tourists, Walt Disney World would remove this friction for most guests.
For those concerned that Walt Disney World won’t be able to accurately forecast attendance without park reservations, don’t be.
From an efficiency and resource allocation perspective, Walt Disney World should already be able to pretty accurately forecast tourist attendance thanks to both hotel occupancy rates and the date-based theme park ticket system. In fact, it’s likely that the latter system could be tweaked slightly to offer Disney exactly the info it would like without introducing even more friction and unnecessary hoops to the process.
A Walt Disney World vacation is already needlessly complicated and convoluted (even if many fans enjoy the planning, that’s not true of casual guests who find it overwhelming), so it behooves Disney to simplify the process where possible. In short, it’s entirely possible to achieve the same gains among tourists without Park Pass.
Ultimately, that’s a long-winded explanation for why Disney Park Pass existed in the first place and why it has now been retired for most regular single and multi-day tickets. From a resource allocation perspective, the theme park reservation system already offers little advantage over what already exists–it’s just extra friction in an already complicated vacation planning process.
By contrast, there’s no end date in sight for Annual Passholders needing to make reservations. Personally, as an AP, I’m expecting to be required to make reservations during weeks when crowd levels are forecast to be 8/10 or above for the rest of my days visiting Walt Disney World. Good-to-go days and no reservations after 2 p.m. are welcome relaxations, but we don’t expect anything beyond those changes. (We hesitate to say reservations will be “permanent” for APs because a recession or economic downturn could result in Disney dropping the reservation system for all in an attempt to lure back APs who hate park reservations.)
Honestly, so long as you’re not an out-of-state Annual Passholder (whomp whomp) who visits during busier times of year, it’s tough to construe the current compromise approach as of 2024 as a negative. For regular tourists, this is a “best of both worlds” solution. By retaining park reservations to some extent for Annual Passholders and Cast Members, it gives the company control over crowd distribution, at least to a degree. So you’ll continue to benefit from that if visiting during busier seasons. By dropping reservations for everyone else, it restores spontaneity.
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
Do you expect the Disney Park Pass reservation system to be retired at some point, or continue forever? Think Walt Disney World regrets requiring resort guests and theme park ticket holders to use Park Pass? 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!
We cancelled our trip to Florida this summer, because of the pandemic. But, even if it was safe to go, the park pass reservation system would throw a wrench into the trip. Our visits to the Disney parks are never truly planned. We know we’re going to go, but we decide the day of, or the night prior. Having to plan a trip around a reservation does not bode well with us. We want to plan our days while in Orlando. Not have to pre-plan, and schedule. The reservation system hopefully goes away before August of 2022.
For those of you complaining about park hopping not being possible, it is after 2pm. I hate the park reservation system with a passion. I am also an AP holder, but I don’t live down there (yet… We move in August.). Even when we’ve been on trips, we want flexibility. I want to wake up in the morning and be able to pick a park to go to depending on my mood. When we were down in May, we couldn’t even change our park passes to another park. We were stuck going somewhere we thought we would want a second day in, but, ultimately, we were able to do all of the things we wanted to in one day and would have preferred to go to a different park. Nope. Locked in and couldn’t change it as there was no “availability” at another park. Also frustrating is that the system isn’t smart enough to see that you might have access for multiple reasons… ie resort reservation AND an annual pass, so if there was AP availability, but no resort guest availability, the system didn’t recognize that you were an AP and wouldn’t let you make a reservation based on the AP. The whole system sucks and I really, really hope it’s gone soon. As for FP, I would be cool if they switched to a MaxPass like product instead. It works so much better than FP+!
We are AP holders ,we live in Florida and stay on property every year,we spend as much money as others that visit the parks,it wrong that we have to make reservations to visit when we want,we will be staying on property for the 50th anniversary coming up,and once again spending money,how dare anyone say that AP holders don’t spend any money at the parks ,we do.When it’s still 200 dollars for a sit down meal with No charters it’s a rip off and the food is terrible,Disney bring back the Buffett s also, Bring back fast passes at No additional cost. We were in MK this month and I noticed a lot of worn rides that needs to be painted,iv always been impressed how Disney cared about this,but not anymore I felt like I was at a dirty fair.Come on Disney you can do better then this,open the resorts so we can stay and not have to get a loan to do so,I love Disney it’s my Happy place,I hope Disney gets it together once again.We are looking forward to the 50th anniversary
I am A DVC member. I paid so much money for the membership and I don’t think it’s fair that they ask DVC members to make park reservations. We usually hop form one park to another and now we are restricted to one park a day. If Disney lifts the park reservations for AP they should also lift it for DVC members.
Excellent article Tom!
I’m an out of state Annual Pass holder from New Hampshire, traveling all that distance to only be able to get 3 days at the parks.
I paid over a thousand dollars for my AP, but Florida residents pay considerably less and can go more often because they live nearby.
Perhaps Disney could somehow differentiate between full price AP holders and Florida resident AP holders.
We are residence in the Orlando area. The reason we would get annual passes was to be able to go to the parks on a whim, not To pre-schedule a date.
I hate the park pass. Too structured. That is not a vacation. We normally eat at Epcot. This just adds more stress if you have been at another park all day. Can I get in the park to make my reservation. Very bad
No reservations and NO fast pass. It’s been so nice these past months when the stand by lines move so quickly. No fast pass line slowing things down .. even a 60 min wait seem to go by quickly because the line is always moving.. kids seem happeir and definitely parents..
C’mon Disney… No reservations for annual pass holders and bring back fastpass… Nice to be able to ride some rides without an hour long wait!
I guess I’m just an old codger these days because sometimes I long for the old ticket books where you were basically paying for the rides you wanted to ride.
I booked a DLR reservation early last year to use DVC points that I was going to lose thanks to covid. So far I’ve changed the date three times… September looks good
Anyway, when I purchased my tickets through the Disneyland app, it actually prompted me to also grab park passes. While I’m not a big fan of park passes, It was really painless.
Now I am hoping some form of FastPass will be back by my visit.
I think the reservations restrict movement between parks. Rarely have we just done one park in a day. Especially when the kids were younger, we would get there at opening and do a park. Go nap in the afternoon at the on-site hotel and then go to the park with the easy boat or monorail ride closer to home for the end of the day and dinner. The kids would stay out until they were falling asleep and then we would take an easy ride home carrying them. I did not want to deal with sleeping kids, and strollers, etc. on buses at that age.
Even now that the kids are older, I would still like the option of running to a park with our favorite rides/ shows to do until closing. We were going to go in October, but now I am thinking of waiting until things are more flexible again and you can use park hopper tickets.
This is why I don’t understand them not just bringing fastpass back. They have the tech and it still gives the ability to manipulate where the guests go (just limit FPs). I personally think FP+ is superior for the reasons mentioned in the article. And also I prefer not waiting forever in lines lol. If it’s a popular ride, I’d rather ride it less often with minimal wait (FP+ Tiers) than do standby.
I think one way to remove some of the frustration with the park reservation system is to have to reserve your parks when you purchase your tickets, I’ve never heard of anywhere else making you buy the ticket first, then attempt to book the date you want and potentially not get it. Thank you as always for your fabulous updates! 🙂
It’s me again we have been going too Disney since 1981 the last 5 years have been way too crowded if Disney wants too keep the park reservation have at it the amount of money that we had too spend for our packages which were a 7 day or day day the crowds were getting too be unbearable if they keep this system in place they will not lose a lot of unhappy guests that will not come back it is all about the bang for the buck too many people is not a fun time in the parks I’m sorry came from a large city it was the fifth largest in us too many people they can be unruly which we have seen in the last five years I’m all for crowd control
The Parkpass system sucks big-time for AP. The limit of 3 days is utter crapola. I’m surprised we haven’t heard of a proposed class action suit already for breach of contract, although if you read the fine print in your AP agreement they have tried to nullify any such attempt in advance. Yes, Disney’s lawyers are some of the best in the business.
That being said, Fastpass Minus isn’t great either. Lines were much better in the past with the paper FP system, but it was a real PITA to run around and get the paper tickets with everyone’s tickets or MBs. The increase in attractions with single rider lines has helped some but not entirely. After reading about it, I like the Maxpass idea but not if it costs more. $20/day isn’t bad for 2 or 3 days at DL, but for a week at WDW it would be insane. It should definitely be included with AP.
Yes, I expect October to be utterly insane. I’ll be okay with that as long as we are able to get into the parks, especially on the 1st!
There’s a very big difference in FP+ reservations and Park Pass………With FP+ reservations, you still have the ability to go to a different park if you have Park Hopper either before or after you FP+ park (and thus the entire point of why people hate Park Pass)………You could book FP+ for Epcot later in day and go to MK/AK/HS or all 3 prior and then go do your FP+ and then hop to a different Park if you still had time…….With park Pass, you cannot do that……..Also, with PP, AP holders can only reserve 3 at a time (which is a huge drawback) and PP have been consistently sold out for this summer
When you say favorable, do you mean it will likely be the busiest Walt Disney World has ever been? It is the beginning of the 50th Anniversary Celebration coupled with a lot of pent up travel demand I think Oct 2021 might be the busiest the parks have ever been in their history. And that is not hyperbole
I don’t know if this is directed at me, but I expect October to be absolutely bonkers. Your assessment is accurate, and almost certainly not hyperbole.
(EDIT: Now I see that you were replying to Ann.)
Do we have any indication at this point what the crowds will be in oct? Judging by the current park pass reservation calendar, it appears very favorable.
I would ignore the current availability on the reservation calendar–most people aren’t booking park days this many months in advance. October will be very busy.
Definitely not a fan of the Park Pass system and hope it is gone by the fall. That said, it is interesting that the online chatter is so against the Park Pass and also chomping at the bit to have FastPass (another system I don’t care for) reinstated. Booking a FastPass is the same as committing to visiting a specific park on a specific day in advance, so seeing such different reactions to the two systems is fascinating.
Caveat: I can’t tell if the same people who want FastPass are against the park reservations or if it’s a different segment of the fandom. It does seem like the most negative voices are the most prevalent in online comments.