Last Updated on August 25, 2023 by Happily Ever Park Hoppers
Walt Disney World Theme Park Reservations
When planning a Walt Disney World vacation it’s important to understand that you no longer can just show up, day of and enter a park. Now, you must make a theme park reservation and have a valid theme park ticket for a specific park and date. Park Reservations are required to enter any of the four theme parks at Walt Disney World.
Making Theme Park Reservations
In order to make theme park reservations, you will need to purchase your tickets so you can make those reservations. If you are booking a Disney Resort Hotel and tickets package; once you book that package, you will be able to make your theme park reservations even if your package isn’t completely paid off. If you are staying off property, you will have to pay for your tickets in full before you can link them to your My Disney Experience account and then make your park reservations.
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Depending on your travel dates, there is a possibility that a certain park might be “sold out”. Holidays, school vacation weeks, 3-day weekends and summer vacation are always the busiest times at Disney. Personally, I like to look at the theme park availability calendar before I set my mind to any specific travel dates. If your travel dates aren’t flexible, booking your trip as early as possible will be the safest bet for getting the park reservations you want.
To make your park reservations, you are going to log in to your My Disney Experience account. From here you will see all of your trip plans. Once you have your park tickets linked or book your Disney package, you will click “Make a Park Reservation” from the My Disney Experience dashboard.
You will create your party by selecting all the people in your My Disney Experience account that you have added and assigned a theme park ticket to. Then you will chose the dates you want to make park reservations for. You will select a specific park for each day. If you have purchased a Hopper Ticket, the park that you are making a reservation for will be your “Morning park” and/or first park of the day.
- You DO NOT need a park reservation for any park that you plan to hop to. You only need a park reservation for your morning park/first park of the day.
- You will need to enter the park that you have a theme park reservation for before being able to enter another park.
- Park Hopping begins at 2pm each day
- Know that if you are wanting to join a boarding group, guests using an Annual Pass or the Park Hopper option may not be able to join the virtual queue in a park where they do not have a theme park reservation. In order to request access to a virtual queue during Park Hopper hours, a Guest must have a park reservation OR be inside the theme park where the virtual queue will be used.
*EXCEPT: If you are a guest of a Disney Deluxe Resort taking advantage of Extended Evening Hours. If you have a park hopper ticket and have visited your first park, but you did not have a theme park reservation for that specific park. You CAN join a Virtual Queue to get a boarding group and DO NOT need to be inside of that specific park.
So, if Magic Kingdom has Extended Evening Hours and you want to join the 6pm Virtual Queue for TRON / Lightcyle Run, you DO NOT need to be inside of Magic Kingdom so long as you have a park hopper ticket/entered your first park and are a registered guest of a Disney Deluxe Resort (or Shades of Green, Swan or Dolphin or Swan Reserve hotels)
Once you’ve successfully made your theme park reservations, they will appear in your plans on your My Disney Experience account. If for any reason you need to change your park reservation you can do this on your My Disney Experience account either on the app or desktop. If you had wanted to make a park reservation for a certain park and it wasn’t originally available and later your preferred park becomes available, you can “swap” them. In order to change your park reservation, you will need to cancel your existing park reservation and then go back and make a new park reservation. Again, all park reservations are made on the My Disney Experience app or desktop site.
Just in case, take screenshots of your plans. I just feel better having that backup in the event that something strange happens to my account.
Spreading magic one post at a time
Kristin
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