Walt Disney World has confirmed that when it reopens in July, guests will need to use a new theme park reservation system to visit their parks. Every guest will need a reservation time, and entry will not be given to guests who just show up to the parks without a reservation, even if they have tickets.
Many have wondered how this new reservation system will work for annual passholders, who should be guaranteed entry to the theme parks on non-blockout days according to the terms of their individual pass. And though Disney has said that annual passholders will receive first access to the reservation system before new tickets are sold to other guests they have released some new information about what annual passholders can realistically expect in the months ahead.
Annual passholder reservations will be extremely limited
According to a recent update on the new “Know Before You Go” hub at DisneyWorld.com/Updates, all guests will be allowed to access park reservations with a valid admission ticket or annual pass, but the number of total bookings held by Annual Passholders will be extremely limited. In addition, Disney has acknowledged that it may be “difficult” for Annual Passholders to get park reservations to visit on certain dates.
In addition, in an effort to manage capacity, total reservation days held at one time will be limited as well. Though we don’t know exactly how many reservation dates an annual passholder could, in theory, hold at one time, we’d guess based on the language of Disney’s update that it won’t be very many, and it is certainly feasible that Disney could only allow one or two reservations at a time for annual passholders, and even then, those may be hard to come by as reservations set aside for annual passholders will be severely limited.
In addition to the entry restrictions, Disney has also confirmed that some annual passholder benefits and features will not be available during periods of limited capacity. We don’t exactly know what these are, but we’d guess they may be related to the cancellation of FastPass+ and dining reservations that was announced several days ago.
Annual Passholders will have special “preview” days, to be announced in the future
Though it sounds like annual passholders will have a tough time getting into Walt Disney World after it reopens on July 11, Disney has confirmed that Annual Passholders (as well as DVC members, and Club 33 members) will have special access to special reopening previews prior to the official reopening date that will be only for them, and hopefully allow them to experience the theme parks before strict reservation restrictions are in place.
Though we don’t have any details about when or how this event will take place, Disney has created a Walt Disney World annual passholder update hub, which you can find here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/experience-updates/annual-passes/. This page should be updated often and hopefully more information about both the special event as well as the larger reservation system will be shared here soon.
As always, while this situation is evolving, all travelers should check out the CDC’s official site here, which has information on the virus and how to prevent its spread.
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