Hi friends! I am visiting from over the Holidays and I was wondering if WDW is still limiting capacity in its parks, as it was earlier in the pandemic. I see that park reservations are either limited or nonexistent over the next week and I am curious if that is because WDW is letting everyone into the parks that the fire marshal will allow and they are still against the cap, or if the parks are working at 75 percent capacity or something like that. Any thoughts? Here is the park availability calendar:
Any guess would be just that - a guess. I think Len and Jim have suggested in the podcast that they believe they are back to normal operating capacity though.
By “limiting capacity”, it merely means they still require park reservations…but from what can be determined, the number of reservations pretty much matches what maximum capacity (or, as @OBNurseNH stated, “normal operating capacity”).
Park reservations now continue to be primarily for Disney’s benefit. The only advantage guests get is that they can prevent being prohibited from entering the parks due to being full ahead of time rather than waiting until guests arrive at the gate.
Disney is using this data to staff the parks appropriately. They used to depend on FP+ data to do this, but park reservations allows them even better control over knowing this. The downside for guests is that it means they can reduce staffing when there are fewer guests coming even moreso than in the past.
BUT, nothing is officially stated from Disney about any of this.
Dec 17-Jan 1 are blackout dates for all but one AP type too. So, those parks are being filled w/ the Incredi-pass AP holders (hotel/resort guests, and regular ticket holders). Military Salute tickets expired Dec 17th and are blocked from use. Military Salute tickets are valid 1/1-12/16 for 2022, but SoG guests can purchase regular tickets.
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to book last minute reservations at MK for 12/31 and ALK for 1/1. We are a family of 5. I am scrambling to add my in-laws’ and having a hard time today. I do know if you check back often, things open up as people change their plans.
Either a ton of people canceled plans, or something is up. I was able to make reservations for parks that don’t even show availability on the calendar. For example, I had no issues making park reservations for MK on 1/1 even though it’s not showing as available on the calendar. It’s worth checking often!
I think when people cancel, their reservations don’t automatically cancel. Every now and then, Disney does a sweep looking for orphaned reservations and removing them.
I’ve been watching the reservations lately. My logic is that any park that has day-of reservations available during the Christmas season is pretty certain to have day-of available on my trip in Feb.
In candor, the other members are my family are getting cold feet about our trip in light of Omicron and, in all likelihood, I will cancel our park reservations, etc., this afternoon. I am really sad about this but, if we are not all on board, then we do not go.
I’m very surprised to see for example the 21st showing availability for all parks. Exactly 4 weeks ago it was only Epcot.
As for capacity, I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t 100% at this point. I left WDW yesterday and I’ve been there around the same time 2, 3 and 4 years ago. It felt completely the same in terms of crowds.
