So just to confirm what I think I’m seeing online…While WDW is getting rid of park reservations 1/8/24, Disneyland has made no such announcement. More specifically, if I’m planning a late April trip for Star Wars Nite and Pixar Fest, I need to book and make park reservations before they are gone? LOL
Thanks!
To that end, I still see 11am park hopping. Also, is that not ending? Thanks!
I had to make part reservations for our March trip.
Starting at the end of January, early entry charges to either DL or DCA.
It appears to be DL early entry Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday. DCA Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Disney can change their minds, but I think they are holding on to park reservations longer because DL has a higher percentage of guests who are AP holders than at WDW. So, dropping park reservations might not make as much difference there.
If I were to guess, I’d assume they plan to drop them EVENTUALLY…but at WDW they gave a long heads-up to the change, so if they drop park reservations at DL, I would expect a similarly long lead time to the change.
Thanks for sharing. Piggybacking onto this thread to ask if anyone has thoughts on whether it’s best to avoid the park that has EE if you’re staying offsite? Or is the EE crowd too small to make a difference?
I’m traveling for 3 days at the end of June (CL 7 days) and just got a reminder email to make park reservations (from Get Away Today, through whom I booked my package). In principle I would have preferred to start my trip on Saturday at DL, but if I’m trying to avoid EE, it would make more sense to spend mix up the park order.
Since EE is only onsite guests, it has a smaller impact than when day guests with 3 or more day tickets also got to enter Disneyland early. My next trip i have reservations for the park with EE, but it just fell that way & I like starting my trip at Disneyland so don’t want to change the reservations.
EE hasn’t made an impact except for PP. I’ve been watching how waits are now with all onsite going to only 1 park, and it hasn’t made much difference, but this is a very slow time of year. I’ve wondered if it will start to impact more as spring break season comes, but I doubt it. I’d watch the SB wait times on the app as your dates approach to see if it makes a difference.
I also wanted to add my 2¢ for APR at DLR. I would be surprised if Disney removed APR for DLR, especially for AP. They love being able to control our numbers and limiting our access. WDW is such a vacation destination versus DLR which is usually only part of a California vacation and most stay off-site and even in LA, so Disney can’t predict crowds based on hotel availability, so the APR gives them that info.
Well that’s yucky because it’s also a place that’s nice to last minute go to and if there is no park availability fooey. Though we didn’t have trouble getting it last year on July 4th weekend soooooooo (we weren’t Magic Key holders though, just day tickets).
Very true. Over the last year Disney does seem to hold more 1 day ticket APR back. They got bad press for people showing up, expecting to buy a ticket & go in (Disney has been TERRIBLE about educating the public on the reservation requirements) and not being able to bcuz no APR. DH & I were even there, had parked & were walking to security, when a couple near us saw the “No park reservations today” sign and asked the security guard about it. They had come, paid for parking, and was expecting to buy a ticket & go in. Nope.
That’s the part that sucks. I guess they could go to DTD, but that’s not what they were expecting.
I tried at the end of my trip to try to change APRs, and couldn’t. We wanted to go into DL on the last day, but had APRs for DCA. But when I went to switch, they said that all APRs were out. Blah.
I think Disney was and maybe still is losing a lot of money from loss of same day 1 day tickets sales because of the APR, but they must think knowing numbers is worth the potential loss of revenue. I don’t know any group, AP, ticket buyers, vacationers…who like the reservation system. Well, I guess I have heard from some who like the fact the parks aren’t full of AP now, but they are probably the super planners and have never run into the problem of having/wanting to change a reservation at last minute.
Coming in a little late to this discussion, but regarding the effect of one park EE on park choice for those staying off property: I have also watched the SB times, like BellesRose did, and haven’t seen any appreciable difference since they changed to one park EE. I was in DL and DCA last week and had booked the EE parks though not staying on property. RD seemed about the same to me as before the change. What I HAVE seen is a clear difference in the actual crowds measured by TP since the change. It appears that there is a slight tendency for people to book the non-EE park more than the EE park. Since one park EE went into effect I have counted the following from TP’s next- day reporting of crowd levels: Higher crowds in the non-EE park: 13 days; higher crowds in the EE park: 6 days; even crowds between the parks: 5 days. The difference in the crowd levels between the parks is usually not more than a point or two, so I don’t know if it would be very noticeable, but there is definitely a trend for crowds to try to start in the non-EE park. For this reason, I will be inclined to book the EE park as my starting park.
I should also note that the EE days for Disneyland include Tue and Thur, which, since late January, has also been the Sweetheart Nites in Disneyland. I’ve previously charted crowd levels on AD events compared to other days during that same time frame, and it seems pretty clear to me that the crowds are lighter in the AD park on those days. I’m therefore not yet sure if the trend I saw on the EE crowds is due to the AD events, or if this trend will continue past the AD time period. It’s kind of fun to try to figure it out!
