New Years Eve.. How late is too late to get in to the parks?

[riddlemethis]

Hi all -

I have read a few times that on the 30th and 31st you'll want to get into the parks early and stay there - or risk not being able to get in.

We are renting DVC and have park pass reservations and dining reservations... would we be turned away?

If so, does anyone know at what times the parks have reached capacity in the past? We are late night people and would ideally get in around 3 or 4 PM.

 

[Disneylover99]

You should be fine getting into whichever park you have a reservation for, no matter what time you go. I can see the possibility of not allowing park hopping though.

 

[scrappinginontario]

If you have a reservation, you will be allowed to enter that particular park from open to close.

 

[bobbiwoz]

If you have a reservation, you will be allowed to enter that particular park from open to close.

More than once?? We have Epcot on NYE, and I can see going early, then late. I wasn’t sure it would be allowed. I have dinner at Trattoria Al Forno, which is why we would leave. I couldn’t get anything in Epcot.

 

[angelinaxox]

I was wondering the same thing on the 30th. We have reservations for Magic Kingdom that day. I made reservations for Artist Point Storybook Dining at 8:15 for dinner. I didn't know if we left to go to dinner if we would be able to reenter.

 

[bobbiwoz]

I was wondering the same thing on the 30th. We have reservations for Magic Kingdom that day. I made reservations for Artist Point Storybook Dining at 8:15 for dinner. I didn't know if we left to go to dinner if we would be able to reenter.

I hope someone knows the answer here!

 

[scrappinginontario]

I was wondering the same thing on the 30th. We have reservations for Magic Kingdom that day. I made reservations for Artist Point Storybook Dining at 8:15 for dinner. I didn't know if we left to go to dinner if we would be able to reenter.

I hope someone knows the answer here!

As was answered above, a park reservation allows guests to enter that park from park open to park close, as often as they wish. You have a reservation which = entrance.

 

[riddlemethis]

More than once?? We have Epcot on NYE, and I can see going early, then late. I wasn’t sure it would be allowed. I have dinner at Trattoria Al Forno, which is why we would leave. I couldn’t get anything in Epcot.

I have a dinner res that I would be happy to coordinate with you on! It's 6:15 at Nine Dragons. I booked it at 60 days but was able to snag a Hacienda a bit earlier so now I don't need it. I've been holding it hoping to coordinate with someone

 

[riddlemethis]

As was answered above, a park reservation allows guests to enter that park from park open to park close, as often as they wish. You have a reservation which = entrance.

Awesome, thank you. So as I understand it, if a park reaches capacity, then only folks who didn't make park pass reservations can't get in?

 

[CarolynFH]

Awesome, thank you. So as I understand it, if a park reaches capacity, then only folks who didn't make park pass reservations can't get in?

Yes, if a park reaches capacity, which would include the space needed for guests who have a reservation for that park but aren’t there at the moment, Disney can suspend hopping. In that case the park would admit only the guests who already had reservations for that park, whether they had already entered that day or not. That’s the advantage to the park reservation system – if you have a reservation for that park, you are guaranteed to be able to enter and leave as many times as you want that day. Hopping is not guaranteed.

 

[bobbiwoz]

I have a dinner res that I would be happy to coordinate with you on! It's 6:15 at Nine Dragons. I booked it at 60 days but was able to snag a Hacienda a bit earlier so now I don't need it. I've been holding it hoping to coordinate with someone

That is very nice of you to offer, but DH doesn’t like Nine Dragons as much as I do. We’ll be fine since there will not be a problem getting into Epcot!

 

[lanejudy]

We are renting DVC and have park pass reservations and dining reservations... would we be turned away?

And just to clarify... it's the theme park reservation that guarantees you access to the park. The ADR, if not at the park where you have a park reservation, does not get one into a park that is closed to hopping.

 

[AprilsZoo]

And just to clarify... it's the theme park reservation that guarantees you access to the park. The ADR, if not at the park where you have a park reservation, does not get one into a park that is closed to hopping.

[N.B. In my post below, PPR = Park pass reservation, aka theme park reservation. Okay, now that we’re all on the same page… ]

So how would that work then, if you were planning to hop to get to your ADR, & ended up being turned away? Seems like considering the penalty fee that’s imposed when you don’t cancel the day before, it would be really unfair to keep you going to the ADR.

Their system should either be smart enough to hold space in the parks for those with ADR’s or it should prompt you to make add’l PPRs at the time you create the ADR. As far as I know, you can’t do that, right? (When hopping first returned, there was a lot of confusion in Disney’s wording of how it would mesh with the need for reservations… with it seeming like a different reservation would be needed for every park you wanted to go to. In time, it was found that you didn’t need to do that.) From what I’ve seen in making my own reservations, I haven’t found anywhere to indicate I would want/need reservations to more than a single park per day—thus the need to swipe in at the reserved park before being allowed to hop to another.

It just seems really wrong to keep you from getting to your ADR and then to penalize you for the privilege (especially since its not uncommon for people to plan TS meals in order to accommodate food sensitivities or other needs that are difficult to work around at quick service & it’s not always possible to get ADR’s in the park your starting your day in. We’ve bought hoppers because we couldn’t get an ADR in the park we were planning to spend the day in.)

Now, this is unlikely to be something that would be a problem more than a handful of times per year. But who can say for sure?

The PPR system is supposedly here to stay, and has been touted as a way to ensure staffing for optimal guest experiences. It’s supposed to prevent overcrowding (didn’t really help at DL in October— it was busy as ever — worse in the hours leading up to Boo Bash… from 3-6 pm was the *worst* I’ve ever seen crowd-wise in 50 years of going to DL !!) … and it’s supposed to prevent anyone being turned away at the gate. (in Anaheim, ‘back in the time before’, it would say on the digital signs on the freeway that “Disneyland is at capacity— closed to further admission” or something similar. Signs at the pay booths as you parked and as you got in line for security would tell you the same, and I even remember them announcing it on the trams once. I never saw DCA @ capacity, though it may have happened.)

They’ve had long enough to figure this out! Even if they only offered it on days expected to be especially high attendance— which they know, because of high demand for PPRs— it would be an improvement. Maybe if you have hoppers & the system sees that available reservations are dwindling at a park besides the one where you have PPRs, you could get an alert and the opportunity to book an add-on PPR there… Or maybe it could only require add-on PPRs if you make an ADR outside of your normal PPR.

Idk the answer, but by now Disney should. I just know that with my luck, I’d be one of those people penalized, and it wouldn’t end up being simple to get the charge waived.
{ I always have the worst luck that way— I can pick up the only snow globe with a leak, or get the only sweater with a weird stitch defect under the arm, where you don’t see it until you get home, or buy a pack of “unbreakable” ornaments that have several that are broken on the back side … I even once somehow managed to buy the only refrigerator that the doors couldn’t be removed to get it inside, and it was on clearance (didn’t know that… signage reflected a “sale” priceso they didn’t want to refund it & they wanted me to pay for the supposedly free delivery, because I had “refused delivery”. So, I’ve learned to anticipate and at least be aware of the potential for unfavorable eventualities. Sometimes it’s worth the gamble, but I always go in knowing if anything goes awry, I may have an uphill battle to make it right. Or at least an extra step of contacting CS or whatever }

 

[lanejudy]

So how would that work then, if you were planning to hop to get to your ADR, & ended up being turned away?

You can only book one theme park reservation per day. There is no ability to book an additional one for hopping or dining. As I recall, the ADR system does warn that an ADR does not guarantee access without appropriate ticket and park reservation (paraphrasing). However, since it is so rare that a park has been closed to hopping, it's pretty much a moot point. If you were to find yourself in that unique situation, I am sure WDW would waive the no-show fee on the ADR (something that may have happened on Oct. 1st for a few).

To my knowledge, hopping was never suspended during the year-end holidays.

 

[AprilsZoo]

That’s basically what I was saying…. That there is currently no way to guarantee you will be able to get to an ADR you’ve booked in a different park than where you start your day.

But given that many families plan their meals very carefully, due to various special needs, being able to get to those restaurants could be important.

When my son was young, for example, we often ate at the same couple locations every night because he was such a picky eater that he literally starved himself (to the point of being hospitalized) rather than eat something he didn’t like. Chicken nuggets that look exactly the same to you or I, had some subtle differences that only he could perceive. So breakfast & lunch were varied for the rest of us, but dinner every night was where he would for sure eat something. Dry cereal, snacks & cans of pediasure can only go so far. (also, pediasure doesn’t always sit well on the tummy in the heat. ) I felt like he deserved one meal every day that he’d eat willingly.
Fortunately, as he got older, his food repertoire grew, and by the time he was ~12 y.o.he began to figure out for himself what packable foods he could bring along in his backpack.

If I were still needing to deal with such issues, I would be very nervous about hopping during busy times such as the holidays.

 

[tjmw2727]

We park hopped every day of Christmas week including from Studios to Epcot on NYE at 9pm with no issues.

Park hopping was never guaranteed - If you need to eat at a certain restaurant, make your park reservation for that park.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

That’s basically what I was saying…. That there is currently no way to guarantee you will be able to get to an ADR you’ve booked in a different park than where you start your day.

But given that many families plan their meals very carefully, due to various special needs, being able to get to those restaurants could be important.

When my son was young, for example, we often ate at the same couple locations every night because he was such a picky eater that he literally starved himself (to the point of being hospitalized) rather than eat something he didn’t like. Chicken nuggets that look exactly the same to you or I, had some subtle differences that only he could perceive. So breakfast & lunch were varied for the rest of us, but dinner every night was where he would for sure eat something. Dry cereal, snacks & cans of pediasure can only go so far. (also, pediasure doesn’t always sit well on the tummy in the heat. ) I felt like he deserved one meal every day that he’d eat willingly.
Fortunately, as he got older, his food repertoire grew, and by the time he was ~12 y.o.he began to figure out for himself what packable foods he could bring along in his backpack.

If I were still needing to deal with such issues, I would be very nervous about hopping during busy times such as the holidays.

Then the people better read the screens and not just skip through them. They are warned clearly without any confusion that the ADR will not mean they get in the park. They have no excuse whatsoever to not be aware. There's nothing for them to figure out. The system is working just they way they want it to. If you have that serious a food issue it is likely not good to rely on a resturant at all right now. Even if you could get there they could be out of that one food.