Everything Park Reservations - Please Read Post 1

[RLGNC]

We are planning a mid-September trip. We want to choose our daily park based on which one is open latest. Looking at the current calendar, it seems that hours are generally consistent from day to day, but there are some differences, so although we will buy our tickets soon, we prefer not to make our park reservations until the hours are posted. Judging from earlier posts in this thread, it seems like that would work OK given that park hours come out about 75 days in advance. Should we expect any problems with availability if we plan to make reservations in early July for a September trip? We will be focusing on MK and Epcot. Thanks!

 

[disneylover102]

We are planning a mid-September trip. We want to choose our daily park based on which one is open latest. Looking at the current calendar, it seems that hours are generally consistent from day to day, but there are some differences, so although we will buy our tickets soon, we prefer not to make our park reservations until the hours are posted. Judging from earlier posts in this thread, it seems like that would work OK given that park hours come out about 75 days in advance. Should we expect any problems with availability if we plan to make reservations in early July for a September trip? We will be focusing on MK and Epcot. Thanks!

Just so you know, a lot of times park hours are extended closer to your dates. I think you’d be fine to do that but just to be safe I would keep checking to make sure those dates aren’t starting to sell out

 

[scrappinginontario]

We are planning a mid-September trip. We want to choose our daily park based on which one is open latest. Looking at the current calendar, it seems that hours are generally consistent from day to day, but there are some differences, so although we will buy our tickets soon, we prefer not to make our park reservations until the hours are posted. Judging from earlier posts in this thread, it seems like that would work OK given that park hours come out about 75 days in advance. Should we expect any problems with availability if we plan to make reservations in early July for a September trip? We will be focusing on MK and Epcot. Thanks!

As @disneylover102 said, park hours fluctuate often (even up to the actual date) so it's difficult to know which park will have the latest hours.

If it were me I would book what I want now with the option to possibly change later. Normally I would say you'll have no problem switching your parks in September but I would have said that for May too and things are constantly changing. People are travelling more and Disney is busy so I'd book now with the thought of changing later when official hours are announced.

 

[RLGNC]

Just so you know, a lot of times park hours are extended closer to your dates. I think you’d be fine to do that but just to be safe I would keep checking to make sure those dates aren’t starting to sell out

As @disneylover102 said, park hours fluctuate often (even up to the actual date) so it's difficult to know which park will have the latest hours.

If it were me I would book what I want now with the option to possibly change later. Normally I would say you'll have no problem switching your parks in September but I would have said that for May too and things are constantly changing. People are travelling more and Disney is busy so I'd book now with the thought of changing later when official hours are announced.

Good to know. Thank you both!

 

[joy13]

I read post number 1 but I haven’t read all 21 pages so I apologize if this has been covered already. I have 6 day park hopper passes in May. I have 5 full park days but my 6th day could be arrival day or my last Disney day (we are heading to another hotel and Universal). Right now I have DHS booked for our arrival day - if we decide not to go to the park that day - I need to cancel it before park close right - so that I could used my 6th day at the end, right? I’m thinking if I never canceled I wouldn’t be able to book one on our last day because I’d have booked 6. I should say - I would likely cancel it earlier in the day because I would know if our flight was delayed etc.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I read post number 1 but I haven’t read all 21 pages so I apologize if this has been covered already. I have 6 day park hopper passes in May. I have 5 full park days but my 6th day could be arrival day or my last Disney day (we are heading to another hotel and Universal). Right now I have DHS booked for our arrival day - if we decide not to go to the park that day - I need to cancel it before park close right - so that I could used my 6th day at the end, right? I’m thinking if I never canceled I wouldn’t be able to book one on our last day because I’d have booked 6. I should say - I would likely cancel it earlier in the day because I would know if our flight was delayed etc.

If you wanted to book your final day before arriving then yes, you would need to cancel your arrival day park reservation.

If you don’t go to any park on arrival day those reservations would be added to your allotment but it’s considerate to other guests to cancel any reservations you don’t intend to use.

 

[joy13]

If you wanted to book your final day before arriving then yes, you would need to cancel your arrival day park reservation.

If you don’t go to any park on arrival day those reservations would be added to your allotment but it’s considerate to other guests to cancel any reservations you don’t intend to use.

This makes sense - thank you!

 

[MSC]

Can I make reservations as soon as I book a package with a deposit, or does it have to be fully paid first?

 

[scrappinginontario]

Can I make reservations as soon as I book a package with a deposit, or does it have to be fully paid first?

You can book park reservations once your package deposit is made.

 

[RyMickey]

I read post 1 and it's possible I may have missed this -- early morning with not enough coffee yet! - but as long as there are passes available, you can change parks day of, correct? Meaning, if I have an MK reservation on Monday, but decide I want to go to Epcot instead after I wake up late (it is vacation after all!), I want to confirm that that change can happen if I cancel my reservation and add one for Epcot.

The big crux of our issue is that we're traveling with a 4, 2, and 1 year and we're just not sure of their abilities to wake up every morning! Having to make the park reservations puts a crimp in flexibility (but this is not the thread to discuss any qualms I have with the system, I realize).

 

[scrappinginontario]

I read post 1 and it's possible I may have missed this -- early morning with not enough coffee yet! - but as long as there are passes available, you can change parks day of, correct? Meaning, if I have an MK reservation on Monday, but decide I want to go to Epcot instead after I wake up late (it is vacation after all!), I want to confirm that that change can happen if I cancel my reservation and add one for Epcot.

The big crux of our issue is that we're traveling with a 4, 2, and 1 year and we're just not sure of their abilities to wake up every morning! Having to make the park reservations puts a crimp in flexibility (but this is not the thread to discuss any qualms I have with the system, I realize).

Yes, you may cancel your original park reservation and book day of at a new park, based on park reservation availability.

 

[Aubrav]

Hello! I am new to the new Post-Covid Disney ins and outs. I was just curious if it is normal for a whole week of park reservations to just be blacked out at once?

I recently found out I'll be in Orlando for a work trip and I was looking at visiting Magic Kingdom for 1 day just since I will be in town. When I checked just a couple of days ago the reservation calendar was Green for all parks. Now today Magic Kingdom isn't available at all (except weekends??) for like 2 weeks including the Friday I have off to go, May 6th.

Is there a special event or something that would make Magic Kingdom unavailable for the next two weeks? What are the chances that a party of 3 might be able to grab a reservation between now and then?

 

[Sarahslay]

OK, maybe this has been covered already, but I apologize because I can't read all the pages if this has been covered. I have an AP, and this is going to be my 10th trip since reopening so I'm pretty versed in the park reservation system. However, I just booked a trip with my daughter and it's not doing what it normally does. I of course have an AP, but she does not, and in the past when having a resort reservation (which we always do because we are not Florida residents) I always book under the resort guest bucket, but this time it's making me go under the AP bucket. All fine and dandy, it lets me do the exact number of days I need, but the problem is that I also have a trip with my sister in December with the same ticket situation and I need to make reservations for that too and can't! I actually need one day longer which is a problem, and I don't understand what is going on. I'm on hold with Disney, was waiting on chat forever and it kicked me off so i'm just trying calling for now to see what they can tell me but wanted to see if something changed and I just didn't know. Last trip was end of January so I didn't think anything had changed since then, and I have a trip beginning of June, just 1.5 weeks before this new trip, and it was under the resort bucket too so I'm so confused.

Edit: the system wasn’t recognizing my resort reservation. The CM said it might be because I just have so many reservations and it just was overwhelmed with it all . Oh well, got it fixed. However, it is a pain because I have to book my reservation separate to the rest of my party now making it very important that I write down what days I have which one when I do them the first time so we all have the same reservations! It also really jumbles up the look of my plans, and I hate that. Oh well though, I have the right available amount of reservation days now (only took 3.5 collective hours between chat and phone )

 

[RyMickey]

Another park reservation question involving annual pass holders.

Staying offsite for half trip and onsite for half trip. For every day of our trip, MK and Studios are booked. Contemplating changes to certain days and I'm trying to figure out how I can see what parks are available for annual pass holders on days that I have booked already, but I'm not seeing the option.

When I'm offsite, it allows me to "modify" my reservation. When I click on the modify button, it takes me to the calendar screen and I can click on only the date that I'm modifying and see what is available. Meaning, let's say a want to modify Wednesday. I click on modify, it pops up with the calendar and it says "some parks are available with all other days filled." If I click on Thursday to modify, it then shows me park availailibity on Thursday, but says Wednesday is full -- it's fine...just inconvenient to not see an overall calendar of availability.

However, once I'm onsite, it only allows me the cancel reservation option. I don't want to cancel before I know what's available, but how can I see what's available? I guess it's certainly possible nothing is available, but it also could be like the offsite thing where once I cancel a specific date options will open -- but I don't want to do that before I know if there is availability.

Am I missing an option to see availability once you already have a park pass booked? Again, it's possible nothing is available, but I just find it weird that it says nothing is available, but then when I modify a specific date, things magically appear.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Another park reservation question involving annual pass holders.

Staying offsite for half trip and onsite for half trip. For every day of our trip, MK and Studios are booked. Contemplating changes to certain days and I'm trying to figure out how I can see what parks are available for annual pass holders on days that I have booked already, but I'm not seeing the option.

When I'm offsite, it allows me to "modify" my reservation. When I click on the modify button, it takes me to the calendar screen and I can click on only the date that I'm modifying and see what is available. Meaning, let's say a want to modify Wednesday. I click on modify, it pops up with the calendar and it says "some parks are available with all other days filled." If I click on Thursday to modify, it then shows me park availailibity on Thursday, but says Wednesday is full -- it's fine...just inconvenient to not see an overall calendar of availability.

However, once I'm onsite, it only allows me the cancel reservation option. I don't want to cancel before I know what's available, but how can I see what's available? I guess it's certainly possible nothing is available, but it also could be like the offsite thing where once I cancel a specific date options will open -- but I don't want to do that before I know if there is availability.

Am I missing an option to see availability once you already have a park pass booked? Again, it's possible nothing is available, but I just find it weird that it says nothing is available, but then when I modify a specific date, things magically appear.

Here's the Disney World availability page for passholders:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/blockout-dates/disney-incredi-pass

You should be able to select your pass type and park to see what's available

 

[Sarahslay]

Another park reservation question involving annual pass holders.

Staying offsite for half trip and onsite for half trip. For every day of our trip, MK and Studios are booked. Contemplating changes to certain days and I'm trying to figure out how I can see what parks are available for annual pass holders on days that I have booked already, but I'm not seeing the option.

When I'm offsite, it allows me to "modify" my reservation. When I click on the modify button, it takes me to the calendar screen and I can click on only the date that I'm modifying and see what is available. Meaning, let's say a want to modify Wednesday. I click on modify, it pops up with the calendar and it says "some parks are available with all other days filled." If I click on Thursday to modify, it then shows me park availailibity on Thursday, but says Wednesday is full -- it's fine...just inconvenient to not see an overall calendar of availability.

However, once I'm onsite, it only allows me the cancel reservation option. I don't want to cancel before I know what's available, but how can I see what's available? I guess it's certainly possible nothing is available, but it also could be like the offsite thing where once I cancel a specific date options will open -- but I don't want to do that before I know if there is availability.

Am I missing an option to see availability once you already have a park pass booked? Again, it's possible nothing is available, but I just find it weird that it says nothing is available, but then when I modify a specific date, things magically appear.

I keep this site bookmarked on my computer so I can check it easily before booking last minute trips, and to know if it's going to be super busy on the days I'm going. You can look at the resort guest availability for the days you're onsite by clicking on that tab, and then when you click on the AP tab it'll take you to a different page with the AP options to look at the different AP levels with black out dates and park availability for the days you're off site.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/a...kets,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets

 

[RyMickey]

Here's the Disney World availability page for passholders:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/blockout-dates/disney-incredi-pass

You should be able to select your pass type and park to see what's available

I keep this site bookmarked on my computer so I can check it easily before booking last minute trips, and to know if it's going to be super busy on the days I'm going. You can look at the resort guest availability for the days you're onsite by clicking on that tab, and then when you click on the AP tab it'll take you to a different page with the AP options to look at the different AP levels with black out dates and park availability for the days you're off site.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/a...kets,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets

Thanks to you both -- I had seen that, however, I'm actually a legacy pass holder at the moment with a gold pass. I can click on the legacy pass blockout calendar, but that's just a blockout calendar in terms of days I couldn't attend based on my pass (Easter/Christmas week/etc.). Or, since I'm a legacy pass holder, am I not bound to the park restrictions? [On the legacy pass page, every single day of our trip is available and I feel like, based on other annual pass unavailabilities that shouldn't be the case...

 

[GBRforWDW]

Thanks to you both -- I had seen that, however, I'm actually a legacy pass holder at the moment with a gold pass. I can click on the legacy pass blockout calendar, but that's just a blockout calendar in terms of days I couldn't attend based on my pass (Easter/Christmas week/etc.). Or, since I'm a legacy pass holder, am I not bound to the park restrictions? [On the legacy pass page, every single day of our trip is available and I feel like, based on other annual pass unavailabilities that shouldn't be the case...

Dang sorry. I'm not AP, so can't help much beyond. Hope you get it sorted quickly!

 

[Sarahslay]

Thanks to you both -- I had seen that, however, I'm actually a legacy pass holder at the moment with a gold pass. I can click on the legacy pass blockout calendar, but that's just a blockout calendar in terms of days I couldn't attend based on my pass (Easter/Christmas week/etc.). Or, since I'm a legacy pass holder, am I not bound to the park restrictions? [On the legacy pass page, every single day of our trip is available and I feel like, based on other annual pass unavailabilities that shouldn't be the case...

Yeah, there is a thing to click for the legacy passes above the new passes. I’m currently a platinum legacy pass so have looked at that in the past when eyeing offsite, but starting after my first June trip (trying to get one more trip on that pass, couldn’t resist) I’m incredipass so I have to look at the new reservation system. I’ve been guessing it’s different, and there are fewer and fewer of us now so it’ll be more and more open until we’re all gone. I say if it’s open it’s open, that’s your pass type so it should work.

 

[Aubrav]

Update- (like I said I'm new to the system)- I found out that if I purchase a park hopper and choose any available park, I can then park hop to any park I want after 2pm. Animal Kingdom was the only park showing available for the day I am going BUT when I bought the ticket and made my reservation it let me select Hollywood Studios instead even though it didn't show as available. So now my plan is to go to Hollywood Studios in the morning and Magic Kingdom after 2pm.