Magic key reservation calendar

[dieumeye]

Love the opened availability for this weekend. Great sign for APs. (And makes me feel good about getting a Dream Key since I’ve been holding off). Hopefully we don’t see too many days when APs are locked out of otherwise unblocked days.

After this past light weekend, I wonder what impact opening AP reservations will have on the park this coming weekend - especially since it’s a holiday too.

I’ve got reservations for the next several weeks, but I’m still curious to see what happens with reservations going forward.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

At 1:30 on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday are both sold out again. Sunday actually went first.

 

[laugard]

And now back to Saturday DCA start only for AP. Argh. I was planning to use my last CA Resident ticket on Friday and maybe get a Magic Key (new purchase, not mistakenly thinking upgrade) to use for Saturday as I booked a last-minute hotel for Friday night. But with Saturday fluctuating so much, I don't think I can count on that.

Am I right in thinking I could buy the Key now, use it to reserve Friday, cancel my CA Resident reservation and then use that for Saturday while reservations are available? (Checking calendar first, of course. Right now Park Hopper is showing availability for both parks on Saturday.)

 

[Skyegirl1999]

And now back to Saturday DCA start only for AP. Argh. I was planning to use my last CA Resident ticket on Friday and maybe get a Magic Key (new purchase, not mistakenly thinking upgrade) to use for Saturday as I booked a last-minute hotel for Friday night. But with Saturday fluctuating so much, I don't think I can count on that.

Am I right in thinking I could buy the Key now, use it to reserve Friday, cancel my CA Resident reservation and then use that for Saturday while reservations are available? (Checking calendar first, of course. Right now Park Hopper is showing availability for both parks on Saturday.)

Buy a one-day hopper, reserve Saturday on it, and upgrade it to a Key after your last park entry.

ETA: I think you could do it the way you suggested, too, and then you’d get MK discounts. So maybe that’s better. You’re just sort of “losing” a day of your Key, but .

 

[laugard]

Buy a one-day hopper, reserve Saturday on it, and upgrade it to a Key after your last park entry.

ETA: I think you could do it the way you suggested, too, and then you’d get MK discounts. So maybe that’s better. You’re just sort of “losing” a day of your Key, but .

Ah, good point. I actually never even thought to just buy a hopper for Saturday and upgrade. (These ticket and calendar machinations are getting me loopy.) I may go with your suggestion. I don't anticipate buying any merch on Friday and don't have dining reservations, so any discounts will probably be on the lower side that day. Thanks!

 

[sjmac42]

And now reservations are available for hotel guests every day but gone for Sat/Sun for everyone else. Also gone for AP/MK holders is Monday (that changed in the last half hour) with Friday available for DCA start only.
Its a juggling act and probably reflects that the parks are still running at significantly reduced capacity.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

As of 11pm on Thursday night, both parks are available for tomorrow.

Saturday the 4th is DCA-start only.

Sunday and Monday are sold out.

We kept our reservations for tomorrow (Friday) and also still have Monday booked, but I'm not sure we're keeping that one. We threw Saturday and Sunday back in yesterday.

ETA: By about 10 minutes later, Saturday was sold out and Friday was DCA-start only. I've generally noticed a lot of movement around the 10:30-11:30pm range, which I'd guess is cancellations...

 

[Skyegirl1999]

So, I wanted to update this thread with some more current info.

As of Sunday, Sept. 12 at 10am, here are the dates without Magic Key availability:
Today is sold out.
Next weekend, Sept. 18/19, is completely sold out.
Saturday, 9/25 is completely sold out.
Saturday, 10/2 is DCA-start only.
Sunday, October 31 is DCA-start only (and has been for at least a couple of days).

Trends so far:

• DL-start reservations sell out before DCA. So you'll see a day lose DL reservations (like 10/2, above) before it sells out completely.
• Saturdays are the most popular booking, and they are steadily creeping forward in how soon they sell out. Sundays and Fridays are the other days that have had sell-outs (Fridays have so far had some DCA availability in the morning). There hasn't been a Monday-Thursday sell-out yet that I've seen, although I think a few days have been "DCA-start only" by the end of the day. (However, since you can hop after 1, you could grab one of those at 4pm and head into DL anyway, so I don't think that really counts.)
• There IS decent movement on "sold out" reservations popping back up. I've seen a lot of that around the 10-11pm range, even days in advance. Having said that, there's not as much movement as I expected (hoped for?), and there has never been day-of inventory added (at least, not so far). At least once, Disney appeared to add a large batch of reservations on a Tuesday, but I haven't noticed that happen again.

Anyway, that's the current state of "how available are reservations?" I'd sum it up thusly: If you want to go on a Saturday or holiday, you need to book a few weeks out, or stalk for cancellations. If you want to go on a Friday/Sunday, you want to book at least a week or so out (or stalk). If you want to go on a weekday, you can grab those day-of for now.

I'm curious how this will evolve, and also how fast Christmas will go when we get to it...

 

[DLgal]

So, I wanted to update this thread with some more current info.

As of Sunday, Sept. 12 at 10am, here are the dates without Magic Key availability:
Today is sold out.
Next weekend, Sept. 18/19, is completely sold out.
Saturday, 9/25 is completely sold out.
Saturday, 10/2 is DCA-start only.
Sunday, October 31 is DCA-start only (and has been for at least a couple of days).

Trends so far:

• DL-start reservations sell out before DCA. So you'll see a day lose DL reservations (like 10/2, above) before it sells out completely.
• Saturdays are the most popular booking, and they are steadily creeping forward in how soon they sell out. Sundays and Fridays are the other days that have had sell-outs (Fridays have so far had some DCA availability in the morning). There hasn't been a Monday-Thursday sell-out yet that I've seen, although I think a few days have been "DCA-start only" by the end of the day. (However, since you can hop after 1, you could grab one of those at 4pm and head into DL anyway, so I don't think that really counts.)
• There IS decent movement on "sold out" reservations popping back up. I've seen a lot of that around the 10-11pm range, even days in advance. Having said that, there's not as much movement as I expected (hoped for?), and there has never been day-of inventory added (at least, not so far). At least once, Disney appeared to add a large batch of reservations on a Tuesday, but I haven't noticed that happen again.

Anyway, that's the current state of "how available are reservations?" I'd sum it up thusly: If you want to go on a Saturday or holiday, you need to book a few weeks out, or stalk for cancellations. If you want to go on a Friday/Sunday, you want to book at least a week or so out (or stalk). If you want to go on a weekday, you can grab those day-of for now.

I'm curious how this will evolve, and also how fast Christmas will go when we get to it...

Yeah, Saturdays are rough. I have every Saturday booked through Oct 2 right now. We were going to go yesterday but it was too hot so I cancelled those on Thursday. Going forward, I will continue booking every Saturday because that is my family's best day to go. It seems to not be an issue if you book at least 2 weeks in advance.

We have no desire to go on Christmas. We'll leave those to the people crazy enough to do it, although I have heard that DLR expects to be back to "full speed" by the end of the year, so we may see capacity increased significantly by then.

 

[Wesley815]

....Anyway, that's the current state of "how available are reservations?" I'd sum it up thusly: If you want to go on a Saturday or holiday, you need to book a few weeks out, or stalk for cancellations. If you want to go on a Friday/Sunday, you want to book at least a week or so out (or stalk). If you want to go on a weekday, you can grab those day-of for now.

Thank you for the update and observations!

Basically I've been doing exactly that, if there's any day I'm even debating on going I make a reservation as far out as possible and set a reminder to cancel prior if it doesn't look like I'll go.

Not trying to game the system or anything. Disney is more than welcome to change policy if they don't want Keyholders doing that, but it's the reason I bought Dream tier anyways.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

They appear to have added more reservations this morning.

Currently Saturday the 18th is sold out, the 19th is DL-only start (I'm guessing this is due to DCA closing early for OBB on Sunday - people want to start at DCA and hop to DL, or else maybe they're offering less DCA tickets for that day). Then everything else is fully available until Oct. 31, which is still DCA-start only.

It does appear that something happens with reservations on Tuesdays.

 

[cruisehopeful]

I'm actually going a lot in the next couple months and it's getting challenging because of the limit of 6 reservations. I am going to have to cancel my Dapper Day reservations in order to add in a couple days that I intend to go over the next month. I know those dates are far enough out that I'll be able to rebook, but adding in a few days is starting to feel like a lot of juggling. I guess I'll get used to it someday.