Credit: ITMVisiting Disney World is a completely new experience for any Guest entering the theme parks compared to pre-pandemic. Although things are beginning to revert to a more normal theme park experience, some things, like needing not only a valid ticket but a theme park reservation to enter Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, or Disney’s Animal Kingdom, are here to stay for quite some time.
Disney World implemented a Disney Park Pass reservation system to control capacity during the pandemic instead of having a first-come, first-served system. This means that when Guests want to go to Disney World, they must either have a day ticket or Annual Pass and then must get a park pass reservation for a day that has not yet hit capacity.
This all sounds simple enough, except park passes are incredibly hard to get. At the time of this article, most park passes are gone through the following month, so Guests who want to plan to visit Disney with a few days’ notice are no longer able to.
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That being said, we have found some good tips that Guests can implement to avoid the disappointment of not getting a Disney Park Pass because all parks are at capacity.
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One of the best resources is the WDW Stats (@WDWStats) Twitter account. Not only does the account give Guests up-to-date ride wait times, and warn Guests when a ride goes down (and returns), but it will alert you when park passes become available based on what park has availability, for what day, and for what group (Disney Resort Guest, ticket holder, or Annual Passholder).
This is incredibly helpful because it saves each Guest the time it takes to constantly keep refreshing pages on your My Disney Experience app, hoping that someone canceled their park pass at the perfect time for you to snag it. For example, please look at the Tweet below to see what it will look like when the Twitter account announces more passes are temporarily available.
It’s (temporarily) possible to make a reservation again as an annual pass holder for Epcot on 05/26/2021. #Epcot #WDW #WaltDisneyWorld #DisneyWorld
It's (temporarily) possible to make a reservation again as an annual pass holder for Epcot on 05/26/2021. #Epcot #WDW #WaltDisneyWorld #DisneyWorld
— WDW Stats (@WdwStats) May 26, 2021
I personally have used this Twitter account to get park passes and have had success each time. From my experience, it seems that Disney tends to release more park passes on the day of, as we can see in the above Tweet. Although this may not be helpful to ticket holders, Annual Passholders and locals can take good advantage of same-day park reservations. Keeping Twitter notifications on during this time is also a great tip so that you don’t accidentally miss a park pass drop.
As we previously mentioned, another tip is to constantly refresh the app as more park passes become available as others cancel, similar to the way FastPass+ used to work! Just last night, I was able to play the refreshing game and ended up scoring two passes for Disney’s Hollywood Studios on a holiday weekend, which would have been at capacity for weeks prior!
That being said, the best way to ensure you have total success in reserving a spot in a Disney World theme park is to book each visit as far in advance as possible. As a reminder, Disney Annual Passholders can only book three park passes at a time. Considering Disney CEO Bob Chapek has already stated that park passes are here to stay, Guests will surely need to learn how to use the system to the best of their abilities.
What do you think of the Disney Park Pass reservation system?