Earlier this year, Disney announced that they were doing away with park reservations at Walt Disney World for most guests, starting on January 9, 2024. They followed this announcement up with news that the 2pm restriction on park hopping was also going away. As you can imagine, the elimination of both park reservations and the 2pm park hopping restriction were met with much rejoicing in the WDW fan community, as both of these policies were about as popular as The Black Cauldron.
Since January 9, 2024 is almost upon us, I thought it would be useful to review these two policy changes and discuss what it might mean for your vacation planning
Park Reservation Changes
A Brief History of Park Reservations
As you may know, Disney introduced the park reservation system in order to control crowds in the aftermath of COVID. Ticketed guests had to specify in advance what park they wanted to visit on a given day, whereas previously guests with tickets could just show up to any park.
While this was a boon for crowd control and staff planning, it was a real pain in the neck for guests. Some guests didn’t realize until it was too late that they needed a park reservation. They would just show up with a ticket assuming that they would be good to go. If the park no longer had any reservations available, they were turned away. If none of the parks had any reservations left, well, then they were the proud owners of a useless ticket!
Even beyond that, many guests were not fans of having to pre-plan their park days in advance. Many people longed for the days when you could decide what park you want to go to the morning of their visit. However, with park reservations, they could be locked into a particular park that they no longer wished to visit.
Needless to say, park reservations were not popular.
New Park Reservation Policy
Starting on January 9, 2024, guests with what’s known as “date based tickets’ will no longer be required to make park reservations.
- If you wake up and decide you are in the mood for Star Wars, you can go to Hollywood Studios
- If you are jonesing for a loop on the PeopleMover, you can feel free to head to the Magic Kingdom
Note that the elimination of park reservations only applies to “date based tickets”. What’s a date based ticket? These are the standard tickets that most people buy which entitles you to enter the parks a certain number of days over a particular time period. Probably the majority of Walt Disney World Guests use this type of ticket.
So what isn’t a date based ticket? It’s any ticket which is not tied to a particular date. The most common example would be Annual Passes. Other tickets that are not date based might be Cast Member tickets, Military Salute tickets. convention tickets, student group tickets, and other less common types of tickets. These ticket types will still require a park reservation
Special Exceptions for Annual Passholders
There are some exceptions to the park reservation requirement for Annual Passholders
- Annual Passholders can enter any park without a reservation after 2pm (with the exception of Magic Kingdom on Saturday and Sunday – AP holders will still need to reserve MK on the weekends even if they enter after 2pm). This exception has existed for most of 2023, so this is just a continuation of the current policy.
- “Good to Go” Days: Disney has announced that they will allow Annual Passholders to enter specific parks on specific days without a reservation. These park/date combinations haven’t been announced yet, so stay tuned!
Impact of the Change
Park Capacity
One of selling points of the reservation system is that, by limiting the number of reservations, Disney could ensure that the park would not reach capacity. In essence, a reservations was sort of a guarantee that you would be able to get into the parks on a busy day (although the fine print says otherwise – thanks lawyers). So how does Disney prevent parks from reaching capacity if anyone can show up on a given day?
Disney can predict the number of guests using date-based tickets for a particular day. That’s the beauty of having the tickets be date based! If they feel that the park is going to have a lot of guests with this type of ticket, they could reduce the number of AP and non-date based reservations to compensate. Think of the AP reservations as sort of a safety valve to reduce capacity.
Of course, it is still possible that the park could reach capacity. If this happens, then they can do what they did pre-COVID… temporarily close the park to certain guests. In the past, they could stop certain types of guests from entering: park hoppers, non-resort guests, and even all guests. I would imagine that Disney could revert to these types of restrictions if they had to. Of course, given the size of WDW, they would probably only need to do this on the busiest of holidays!
What About Virtual Queues?
With park reservations, you could only join the 7am Virtual Queue if you had a park reservation for that park on that day. However, once park reservations go away, logically that would open up the ability to join VQ’s for any park.
I imagine that this will make Virtual Queues harder to get. Under the park reservation system, there was a much more limited pool of people eligible to enter the VQ. Now, pretty much everyone who has a ticket can attempt to join. More people competing for a fixed pool of VQ’s means that they might run out in milliseconds instead of seconds.
My guess is that Disney is going to limit non-park reservation guests to one 7am VQ per day. That way, you don’t have people trying to get 7am VQ’s at multiple parks, jamming up the system even more. I would also imagine that Disney will maintain the rule that for the 1pm VQ, you must be IN the park. However, I have not seen any official announcement yet on any VQ policy changes, so we’ll see if I am correct!
Summary
If you take away nothing else from this section, know this:
- Normal Date Based Tickets (majority of guests): NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
- Non-Date Based Tickets (Annual Passes, Cast Member Passes, Military Salute Tickets, Convention Tickets, Student Group Tickets, and others): YOU STILL NEED A RESERVATION
Park Hopper Changes
A Brief History of Park Hopping
When you purchase a standard WDW ticket, you are granted entrance to one park per day. You can leave and re-enter that park as many times as you want, but you could only visit that one park.
However, Disney has an add-on ticket called the Park Hopper. This gives you the ability to enter multiple different parks on the same day. So if you wanted to go to Animal Kingdom in the morning and then end your day at the Magic Kingdom, you could do that. Annual Passholders were also able to park hop, as this was a built-in feature of AP’s.
Prior to COVID, there were no restrictions on when you could park hop. If you wanted to jump over to Epcot at 11am for lunch, you could do that. If you wanted to head to Magic Kingdom at 7pm for fireworks, you could do that too. However, after the COVID re-opening and the addition of park reservations, Disney added an additional restriction to park hopping:
You cannot enter your second park until after 2pm
Impact of the 2pm Restriction
That really limited the benefit of park hopping, since you had to spend a good part of your day in your first park. You could no longer hop to another park for lunch, for instance (unless you wanted a late lunch).
The other fun restriction for regular ticket holders is that you had to visit the park for which you had a reservation before park hopping. So let’s say you had a reservation to the Magic Kingdom for the day. However, you get a late start and decide to visit Epcot in the afternoon. You might think that you could just enter Epcot after 2pm.
Wrong.
Regular ticket holders first had to visit the Magic Kingdom, enter the park, then leave the park and head to Epcot. It led to some pretty crazy situations.
[Technically, you could work around this by changing your park reservation to Epcot on the day of your visit, but this assumes that reservations were still available!]
Obviously, limiting park hopping to after 2pm was not a popular policy.
New Park Hopping Policy
After January 9, 2024, you will be able to park hop at any time. For regular ticket holders with the Park Hopper option, you now have the ultimate freedom to go where you want, when you want. Plus, since there are no longer park reservations, you don’t have to worry about scanning into your reserved park.
For Annual Passholders and others who still require a park reservation, you will still need to scan into your reserved park before park hopping, but at least you won’t have to wait until 2pm to do so.
Impact of the Change
Park Reservation Workaround for AP Holders?
With the elimination of the 2pm start time for park hopping, I could see AP holders using this to get into a park before 2pm for which reservations aren’t available. Here’s what they can do:
- Reserve a park that does have reservations available
- Scan into that park
- Immediately travel to the park that you really want to go to
- Enter the second park
You might not be able to rope drop your desired park due to the additional travel involved, but you can still get there pretty early in the day by following this strategy.
Impact to Virtual Queues
We already talked about how the elimination of park reservations could make getting a 7am VQ more difficult. In addition, the park hopping change could also make getting a 1pm VQ spot harder as well.
Currently, you need to be IN the park to be eligible to join the 1pm queue. This limited the pool of people to those who have park reservations, since previous, park hoppers couldn’t enter until 2pm. However, now that you can park hop before 2pm, more people can be in the park when the 1pm VQ drops.
Impact to Genie+, Individual Lightning Lanes
Even with the park hopping and park reservation restrictions, it was possible to purchase Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes for your non-reserved park. That way, you could have them available to you if you park hopped. However, since you couldn’t park hop until 2pm, it made no sense to reserve any return times before 2pm.
With park hopping going away, it is now possible to reserve return times prior to 2pm in your second park. Now you probably wouldn’t want to reserve, say, a 9am – 10am return time for a park that you are going to hop to. But certainly it feasible to be in a second park the late morning or early afternoon.
I imagine that this will put some additional pressure on ride reservations in the 11am – 2pm time frame. Previously, only those with park reservations could use these time slots. However, now that they are open to park hoppers, you will be in competition with more people.
Impact on Crowds
Obviously, because you have the possibility of park hoppers entering the park sooner, you may see higher crowds than you do today, especially in that 11am – 2pm time frame where park hopping had previously been restricted.
Summary
The main takeaway for this section is this
- Starting January 9, 2024, if you have a Park Hopper ticket or an Annual Pass, you can now park hop at anytime. You no longer need to wait until 2pm
Final Thoughts
Certainly, the elimination of park reservations for most tickets and the elimination of the 2pm park hopping restriction is a good thing. Guests can now be more flexible… more spontaneous.
However, with more flexibility can come more operation issues. More people competing for the same limited pool of Virtual Queues and Lightning Lanes. The greater possibility of park entry restrictions due to capacity issues. Time will tell if these issues actually come to pass or not and, if so, what Disney’s reaction will be.
Let us know in the comments whether you like these changes. Are there any new strategies that open up as a result? We’d love to get your feedback!
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