Making reservations with Main Entrance Pass

[joyjanet]

Going back in May to visit grandson. MK is blocked out for him whole week I am there. Can I buy him a one day pass or would that violate some rule?

You can buy him a one day pass but if there is no availability he won’t get to use it!!

 

[joyjanet]

I tried to make reservations for the first time and the whole process is impossible. I wonder if this is just a way to discourage cast from getting in the parks? I would click on an open day, and when I try and reserve, it would say nothing is available. Three hours on hold for help (first hour was disconnected before connecting and second two were initial call and then transfer to another line that I gave up on).

I came on here to see if there were some tricks I need to figure out, but it seems like it just is working as designed.

There is a new Cast Member availability calendar out. Not many days to pick from. You need to use the blockout calendar along with this calendar to see what might be available. Don’t trust the new cast member availability calendar because sometimes there are days that are not blocked out that don’t show up as available on this new calendar!! It’s a hit and miss. So many cast members are upset about not being able to get into the parks. It’s sad.

 

[PatMcDuck]

You mean a new calendar besides the one on blockoutdates.disney.com ?

 

[joyjanet]

You mean a new calendar besides the one on blockoutdates.disney.com ?

Yes. The new calendar shows what parks are available for us to book with our MGP and for the month of April there are no days left and May has 7 days available! It’s very upsetting to lots of cast members (both active and retired). If you don’t have comp tickets, you are not going to get into the parks. I wonder if you have a resort reservation if that bumps you up to be able to get a reservation with your MGP but I don’t think so.

 

[Belle1962]

You can buy him a one day pass but if there is no availability he won’t get to use it!!

By availability do you mean a reservation from the “Theme Park” or “resort guest” buckets? Right now both have full availability. I remember the good ole days when my (now ex) husband and I would decide on a weekday to take a long weekend trip to Disney and not have to worry about if my comp tix were “good”, if we could get into a park, etc.

 

[PatMcDuck]

Where is the new availability calendar? And if there is a new one, why do they still have the old one at blockoutdates.disney.com?

I just got back and had a problem with entering the park and which pass it used. I had called to say please prioritize my 6 day hopper (GRR) that I had to buy. But when entering Epcot it used my MEP, which was curious because that morning at Studios it used the hopper. (of course only Epcot was available to CMs). The issue was that I oculd not get DAS because the app said I was not in the park. (my son had a DAS). I had to return to entrance, guest relations to fix it, blue unbrella guest experience could not fix it.

At DL, if you have a resort reservation, it might pull from the resort bucket for park reservations but I am not sure.

 

[joyjanet]

It is called “Theme Park Reservation Availability Calendar.” I don’t know if retirees have access to this calendar. Right now it shows there is only 1 day available for this month and only a few days for May. Some cast members say they are still able to get reservations on days that are grayed out on this calendar.

 

[PatMcDuck]

That sounds like even less access than the old block out calendar. So this new calendar is for CMs with resort reservations? And the old one on blockoutdates.disney.com is for CMs without a resort reservation? No wait that isn't right. How do the 2 calendars work together?

We can see the calendar on retiree site to book DL prk reservations. And it is WAY more open than WDW. (Not wide open, but much better.) I may do a DL trip next year vs. WDW to at least use my MEP.

 

[SteffyLou]

The new calendar is supposed to show you what actually has reservations left open. The old calendar is still used to show what parks are open for reservations.

So basically go to the old blockout calendar to see if there are openings. Then go to the new calendar to see if they have sold out yet.

 

[PatMcDuck]

OH. The old calendar is frozen in time, it shows the availabilty originally offered, not the current availabilty.

What is odd is that using the old calendar, for my husbands trip in January, dates opened up as it got closer to his trip. I guess that might not happen now.

I do not see it on the retiree site, so I guess we use old one and just try and see if we get it.

 

[PatMcDuck]

OK I see a link to the new availabilty calendar on the retiree site. Unfortunately it is behind the wall and we cannot access it.

"NEW! Want to see what dates are available? View the availability calendar to see reservation availability before you enter the reservation flow below. Date and park availability may change at any time until the park reservation is finalized."


I also found this, which is GREAT. We can get more than 3 days if we are on a vacation at a Disney resort
"What if I have a Walt Disney World® Resort hotel reservation?

• If you have a resort hotel reservation, you will have the opportunity to make a park reservation for the length of your stay. This is subject to park reservation availability and ticket and pass restrictions."

If I have time this week I will try to call the retiree site (usually a 2 hour hold) and inform them that this link is inaccessible to retirees. In the meantime, I guess we will just look at blockout calendar and just try for park reservations anyway and see what happens.

For the park hopping? We can hop if not on blockout calendar? Or if it is open on Availabilty clendar? It needs to be open on both? We have no way to know about the 2nd one. Why are they doing this to us? How could our numbers in the parks on most days cause issues?

 

[joyjanet]

You can only park hop to a park that is not blocked out. They are doing it because they can! They are trying to please their FL site cast members this summer by closing MK, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios early on certain days for cast members to pick one park and one day to take one guest in the park. Of course you have to sign up and hope you get what you want. CMs are upset because they have families and don’t like that they can take only one guest. I will take what I can get!!

 

[PatMcDuck]

They opened it up today on the block out calendar I can access thru June 30. What does the other calendar show, the availabilty one?

 

[SteffyLou]

EVERYTHING is open in June.

I don't know if it is real or a glitch but am making reservations ASAP!

 

[PatMcDuck]

https://blogmickey.com/2022/04/disn...pcRYgb6Qc5s6cBacSo0ZxV1T7iA7xiU11QRbqY2evrsM4


My next trip is July, hoping most parks available, probably not Epcot.

 

[joyjanet]

EVERYTHING is open in June.

I don't know if it is real or a glitch but am making reservations ASAP!

Thanks. Maybe we should make as many as possible before they go away.

 

[PatMcDuck]

The Retiree department confirmed to me today in an email that Retirees do not have access to the Availability calendar. I replied suggesting they remove the link on the Retiree page since we are not allowed access to actually see it.

Why they cannot simply offer it on the retiree page as well is the question. But, we know the IT problems and Retiree page would be low priority.

 

[joyjanet]

A reason for me not to retire . You would think retirees would have access to this (plus booking cruises).

 

[PatMcDuck]

Plus access to booking rooms. The calendar thing is really stupid because that could be set up like the blockout calendar and open. Or have it duplicated on the retiree page. You still would use MDE to actually book a park reservation of course. But the way it is now, I need to just try each park for each day to figure out what is actually available. And it changes so for a vacation I would need to randomly try to get park reservations over and over if I fail to get what i want. UGH. Well the big goof there ws putting a link to an inaccessible Hub page on the Retiree website. Ooops.

I was not going to retire yet, the stores closings forced me to, I was willing to stay to keep Hub access to book rooms lol. I hate calling. (I am very grateful to have kept some of my perks, yes, and I was only one left in my store to be eligible when we closed. I am lucky. A few left in the year before we closed and retired, I was only one to hang in).

 

[levenhopper]

Yeah, they are a real pain!
For the spouse pass, when I look in MDE, under 'Tickets & Passes', my MEP, 3 GP's and my husband's spouse pass are all listed there...spouse pass is listed as "PARTNER*******" (**'s in place of our last name). In the "Assigned To" column there, it says the same thing "PARTNER******" and then it's designated as non-transferrable, just like our MEP and GP's. So, it's not linked in MDE to a specific identity (in this case my husband) that you would be able to choose as a person on the room reservation...if that makes sense? Even though we all know that pass is only for one specific person and their name is printed on the back, in MDE it's not really recognized as being linked to a person...it's just treated like the GP's in that sense. It really makes no sense to me...unless mine is just messed up for some reason? Do other's SPs look differently in MDE?

I also don't understand why if all of the passes - MEP, GP's and Spouse pass - are listed under my identity in MDE when I look in the Magic Bands & Cards area and the Tickets & Passes area, why it wouldn't automatically then recognize all of them as resort guests if I am a resort guest during a stay.

I know I'm a bit late to the party but you *can* assign your Spouse Pass to your husband (I had this same issue and was able to fix it a couple days ago!). Using a desktop/laptop, log into MDE. Once logged in, click "Profile" and then "Membership & Passes". From there, you should have an option to assign it to someone.

Hope this helps, @Cripey!