Thousands Forced To Wait Hours Outside Disney Park Due To Major Outage

The only thing potentially scarier than Disney guests racing each other to line up for the newest popcorn bucket is the Disneyland Magic Key renewal day.

The “new and improved” Disneyland Annual Passes, now called Magic Keys, have been hard to come by since 2020. Prior to last year, only guests that had already had an annual pass/Magic Key were able to renew their pass, with new sales halted until the beginning of 2023 due to the aftereffects of COVID and various safety protocols. For a while, only the Inspire Key (the park’s most expensive tier) was available for new purchases, with the other tiers only available as a renewal option for passholders who already had an annual pass or Magic Key. This year, that has changed, and all tiers and Keys are available for new purchases.

Unfortunately, that also brings thousands of guests to the Disneyland website trying to purchase passes. Last year, the park only offered a limited number of passes for each tier, and the site not only crashed, but every Key sold out in record time. Disney’s website issues have plagued the online community for years, with virtual waiting rooms often loading in random order or loading on one device but not on another, causing upset, disappointment, and overall chaos as guests try their best to secure tickets to after-hours events, registration for the runDisney marathons, and even sign up for a Magic Key.

When sales opened up yesterday for Disneyland’s Magic Keys for 2024, the process was no different, although this time, it affected the park as well. @DisneyScoopGuy shared both on X/Twitter and Reddit several videos showing thousands of guests waiting for guest services, along with the caption “Credit card machines at Disneyland are currently down and the wait times at Guest Services are being quoted at 3.5+ hours. Magic Keys went back on sale at 9am this morning.”

Credit card machines at Disneyland are currently down and the wait times at Guest Services are being quoted at 3.5+ hours. Magic Keys went back on sale at 9am this morning 😳 pic.twitter.com/znxVBThxql

— 🎆Disney Scoop Matt 🎆 (@DisneyScoopGuy) January 10, 2024

According to several comments under both posts, the actual in-person issue was due guests who had unused Disneyland day tickets wanting to upgrade them to a Magic Key, with the only way to do so being in person, at the park. All other new pass purchases could only be made online on the website. Several comments echoed that of u/No_Ground_7754, who said, “i’ve been on the ‘more than an hour’ for 4.5 hours. lol,” or u/kane91z, who agreed, “I waited 11 hours last time keys went on sale.” Clearly, Disney was having issues on both ends of its operation.

The various comments and reshares of the posts were not kind to Disney, with @Its_The_Nugget saying, “Maybe next time we don’t go 6 months without selling Magic Keys and we won’t have that problem.” “Disney IT truly is a joke,” shared @imaginat1on. “I haven’t been to Disneyland in a while but the price and lines make me feel like it’s not worth it,” stated u/Plastic_Energy_742.

While most of the Magic Key tiers sold out by the end of the day, it’s unclear if the credit card system was ever fixed. This isn’t the first time one of the Disney parks has experienced a park-wide outage of their payment system, nor is it the first time Magic Keys have caused havoc for thousands of people. Thankfully, Disneyland just recently did away with their controversial park reservation system and park-hopping ban, now allowing most guests to visit the parks without a prior reservation. Unfortunately, Walt Disney World passholders are now subject to “good-to-go” days, meaning they must still make reservations on days that are not depicted as “good to go.”

It seems as though Disney still has a long way to go before working all the kinks out of their post-COVID annual pass systems. Maybe next year guests will see Magic Keys open for year-round purchase, rather than a chaotic one-day rush that ends up affecting those in the parks as well.

Were you able to snag a Magic Key? Let us know how your experience was in the comments below!