Magic Key Program

[DLgal]

Okay got one for DCA as a starting park. Is there a smooth way to swap starting parks if DL opens or do I have to be in limbo by canceling one and hoping the other is actually open.

You could check the general availability calendar and if you are fast enough you'll be fine. But, it's a gamble.

We have honestly just started arriving closer to 1pm and staying later. 6-8 hours is plenty for us. We go to whichever park we feel like having lunch in first.

From now on, though, I'm trying to book mostly DL starts so we can take the monorail in and save some steps.

 

[twodogs]

I have a Dream key and just yesterday was able to book Dec 27, and Dec 31 starting in DL was alo available for most of the day! I thought about it....briefly.

I have 2 Nov dates booked already and trying for an opening on the 20th, and am confident I'll get it. I also have the rest of my family booked on Dec 11 and am confident I'll be able to snag one reservation to join them. I'm not worried about it at all. Almost all dates have consistently opened up 1-3 days out. It's about being patient and continuing to check daily for a reservation.

I am glad it is working for locals or semi locals to wait for "last minute" availability. For those of us who have to fly in, it is not feasible to have even the most expensive AP if we have to wait to see if we can get into the parks until the last minute. Makes dining reservations a challenge as well, obviously. If you are local and can go to BB this trip or just go on another trip, it is no big deal if you can't get BB because you couldn't get a park reservation until last minute. For me, I don't want to fly my family of 4 there for "maybe we can get into the parks" and "maybe there will be a last minute cancellation at BB that we can snag, but it must line up with our last minute park reservation". I know that we can stay onsite and get those buckets (which we usually do) but some people from OOS don't stay onsite.

The 90 day booking window is really the only way for someone OOS who has to plan work/kids/flights/etc. If they shorten the booking window, while that may be good for locals, it may dissuade OOS. Right now, I was so turned off by the extraordinary waits we encountered during Columbus Day weekend that we did not upgrade our PHs to MK as we thought we might do. I will have to wait and see how G+ rolls out at DLR and then decide if a MK is worth thinking about.

 

[DLgal]

I am glad it is working for locals or semi locals to wait for "last minute" availability. For those of us who have to fly in, it is not feasible to have even the most expensive AP if we have to wait to see if we can get into the parks until the last minute. Makes dining reservations a challenge as well, obviously. If you are local and can go to BB this trip or just go on another trip, it is no big deal if you can't get BB because you couldn't get a park reservation until last minute. For me, I don't want to fly my family of 4 there for "maybe we can get into the parks" and "maybe there will be a last minute cancellation at BB that we can snag, but it must line up with our last minute park reservation". I know that we can stay onsite and get those buckets (which we usually do) but some people from OOS don't stay onsite.

The 90 day booking window is really the only way for someone OOS who has to plan work/kids/flights/etc. If they shorten the booking window, while that may be good for locals, it may dissuade OOS. Right now, I was so turned off by the extraordinary waits we encountered during Columbus Day weekend that we did not upgrade our PHs to MK as we thought we might do. I will have to wait and see how G+ rolls out at DLR and then decide if a MK is worth thinking about.

It's not a 90 day window, it's 60 days.

ETA: Ignore me. I'm clearly delusional.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

It's not a 90 day window, it's 60 days.

What? February 1 is open and that’s 90 days out.

 

[DLgal]

What? February 1 is open and that’s 90 days out.

OMG, I keep doing this! My brain is scrambled from insomnia...LOL

 

[wowsmom]

But that's not the final availability calendar. It's highly fluid. Disney adds more reservations once they don't sell enough day tickets in advance. It happens every week. Plus, they are currently staffed at 80% and expected to be back at 100% by year end, so they will likely open up a bunch of slots for December as the month approaches.

If I'm wrong, I'll eat my hat.

But will your hat come with bread??

 

[DLgal]

But will your hat come with bread??

Jokes on you...my hat is MADE of bread!

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

OMG, I keep doing this! My brain is scrambled from insomnia...LOL

At least I know mine is still intact because I was seriously questioning it a moment ago.

 

[DLgal]

At least I know mine is still intact because I was seriously questioning it a moment ago.

Math is hard when you've been up since 3:30am.

 

[eeg]

Does anyone know - if you book through a Magic Key reservation through the hotel bucket and then cancel hotel reservation, does it cancel your park reservation? To be clear, I'm not trying to game the system. I had a hotel reservation I was intending to use & booked through that. Now an additional family member wants to come and the hotel room we have won't accommodate our party, so looking at other options, and of course the day is fully booked so don't want to lose the park reservation.

 

[DLgal]

Does anyone know - if you book through a Magic Key reservation through the hotel bucket and then cancel hotel reservation, does it cancel your park reservation? To be clear, I'm not trying to game the system. I had a hotel reservation I was intending to use & booked through that. Now an additional family member wants to come and the hotel room we have won't accommodate our party, so looking at other options, and of course the day is fully booked so don't want to lose the park reservation.

You won't lose it. They ask you to "please cancel any park reservations you made" but they don't cancel them for you.

 

[Epicnemesis]

You won't lose it. They ask you to "please cancel any park reservations you made" but they don't cancel them for you.

Well that system isn’t long for this world.

 

[DLgal]

Well that system isn’t long for this world.

It's been in place since the reopening...

 

[ComeToSocialize]

The easiest solution for Disney would just be to significantly shorten the booking window AND allow same day cancelations up to a certain time, like noon. The booking window is too far out.

I don't see how a shorter booking window, with the same number of reservations (e.g. 6 for Dream Key) helps. That would allow people to chain hoard every saturday plus 1-2 sundays at all times, making hoarding more powerful.

Same day cancellations also make hoarding more attractive due to more flexibility. Releasing same day cancellations to the pool would also only help people who live very close to Disneyland at expense of people who don't want to drive 1+ hours each way for a few hour visit.

The problem Disney has is people are logging into the calendar and seeing literally zero availability. Shortening the window would just make that worse. They really just need to stop saving so many slots for the day ticket customers if they want to fix this.

 

[Dory92130]

I don't see how a shorter booking window, with the same number of reservations (e.g. 6 for Dream Key) helps. That would allow people to chain hoard every saturday plus 1-2 sundays at all times, making hoarding more powerful.

Same day cancellations also make hoarding more attractive due to more flexibility. Releasing same day cancellations to the pool would also only help people who live very close to Disneyland at expense of people who don't want to drive 1+ hours each way for a few hour visit.

The problem Disney has is people are logging into the calendar and seeing literally zero availability. Shortening the window would just make that worse. They really just need to stop saving so many slots for the day ticket customers if they want to fix this.

The proposed solution of limiting top pricing day ticket sales is not going to see any traction inside the board room.

Disney sold too many top tier passes and realize they grossly underpriced it so closed it off. They want as much paying tickets for the holiday season.

 

[DLgal]

I don't see how a shorter booking window, with the same number of reservations (e.g. 6 for Dream Key) helps. That would allow people to chain hoard every saturday plus 1-2 sundays at all times, making hoarding more powerful.

Same day cancellations also make hoarding more attractive due to more flexibility. Releasing same day cancellations to the pool would also only help people who live very close to Disneyland at expense of people who don't want to drive 1+ hours each way for a few hour visit.

The problem Disney has is people are logging into the calendar and seeing literally zero availability. Shortening the window would just make that worse. They really just need to stop saving so many slots for the day ticket customers if they want to fix this.

A shorter window and fewer reservations at a time would fix it.

 

[twodogs]

I know Disney likes the reservation system so they can staff as little as possible, but honestly, why are they still doing this? It was to spread people out due to COVID, but they are no longer operating in a way that gives much consideration to COVID. They can’t really expect people to believe this is needed due to COVID. Why can’t you hop whenever you want these days. COVID? I think not. So to me, the real answer is stop the reservations system entirely, limit attendance at whatever cap they think they need (the way they used to do it, ie close parks when they get to ”capacity” and set “capacity” at whatever Disney wants it to be), and let people park hop which naturally helps even out crowds. But they don’t want to do that because it messes with their minimum staffing model.

 

[twodogs]

And if they eliminated the reservations , I think they could charge EVEN MORE for MKs and people would buy them.

 

[bwvBound]

FWIW, at present, we feel this is our last hurrah with D'land APs. We enjoyed the Flex (pre-Covid) ... but I just don't feel I can possibly get value from the Dream key. Yes, we are using it and, yes, we are having success with reservations ... but it is simply too much "everything": too much Disney, too much $$$, too much stress, etc.

My perfect "post-Covid-AP" would be a 6 day hopper with a 13 months (or more) to use those days, no blackouts, for no more than $70/visit. That is my ideal pass.

 

[gelatoni fan]

I don't see how a shorter booking window, with the same number of reservations (e.g. 6 for Dream Key) helps. That would allow people to chain hoard every saturday plus 1-2 sundays at all times, making hoarding more powerful.

Same day cancellations also make hoarding more attractive due to more flexibility. Releasing same day cancellations to the pool would also only help people who live very close to Disneyland at expense of people who don't want to drive 1+ hours each way for a few hour visit.

The problem Disney has is people are logging into the calendar and seeing literally zero availability. Shortening the window would just make that worse. They really just need to stop saving so many slots for the day ticket customers if they want to fix this.

I agree that the main problem is Disney allocating too few reservations to Keyholders. But shorter booking windows even without fewer reservations could potentially help. People only hoard when things are limited. If you have an assurance that there will always be a sufficient amount of reservations available, you don't feel the need to hoard. If same day cancellations achieve the feeling that same day reservations will be available at least on weekdays, people will not feel the need to hoard those days.

There are people who want to go often but cannot due to the lack of reservations. For some, if they could go 2-3 days after work or one full day on the weekend, they would choose the former but due to the limits, they are now picking the latter. This drives up demand on high demand days, further increasing the shortage of reservations. Many of the hoarders in this category wouldn't ever hoard if there was a decent chance of same day availability.

There is also a small group that has a few days planned but don't need all their reservations for firm plans in the near future. Maybe they only have a trip planned for November for a couple days but no other trip planned yet. Since the reservation window is so long and reservations are difficult, they might as well use up the remaining reservations on the weekends months away in the unlikely chance they go. A shorter reservation window means this group will make fewer speculative reservations.

As a case: Hong Kong Disneyland has unlimited reservations for their Annual Pass equivalent and no penalty for no-shows. During each of the reopenings, there were a couple weeks of no reservations but then, everything settled and there are now rarely any days with no reservations. Their strategy was to allow the pent up demand to burn itself out but Disneyland is not allowing this to happen. A shorter reservation window (originally 7 days but now 16 in Hong Kong) means that if you want to hoard, you'll log in very often. Once the reservation window is short enough, people are not going to bother logging in ultra frequently just to hoard dates that they have no intention of going.

I have no idea what Disneyland is trying to accomplish with the reservation system right now. To my knowledge, no other theme park anywhere in the world with annual passes is having this issue right now.