How do the new parking fees affect off-site visitors at resorts? Specifically:
Thanks!
Day guests can parking without paying. But there is a limit in the time length. I don’t know exactly that time limit, although it probably isn’t hugely long since they want to prevent folks from parking at resorts then taking Disney transportation to the parks to avoid paying for parking.
It’s supposed to be 3 hours but it’s rarely enforced.
I dug quite deep into this and apart from occasional reports of actual gate guards saying 3 hours, since actual parking tickets were replaced by Magicband scans I can find no evidence for a specific time any more.
The Disney T&Cs just say you can park at resorts as follows.
Day Guests
Complimentary standard self-parking is available while enjoying select dining, shopping, entertainment, and recreation experiences at Disney Resort hotels.
Having said that OP, any of the Monorail resorts are especially tight on entry, Contemporary is the hardest to get into apparently.
The somewhat secret trick if you just want to avoid hassle is to ‘bump and run’ a dining reservation. I’ve done this for the day we’re touring the monorail resorts just to make life simple. Booked a table for 1 at The Wave, will get waved in to park because I have an ADR, and then you can modify then cancel the ADR as long as it’s more than 20 minutes before your reservation. You can’t directly cancel it btw, you have to modify it more than 24 hours in the future, THEN cancel.
Thanks to the Backside of Magic podcast for that idea.
Rarely enforced, but I have seen it enforced.
You may have a problem at the GF if you’re visiting at a busy time … or if the parking attendant wants to be a stickler. So you might get redirected to the TTC and you could walk or monorail it from there.
Just beware that they might enforce it. Depends on when you’re going. Around July 4th or Christmas/New Year would be when they are most likely to tow cars. Which is what I saw happen at the Contemporary at around 4-5pm on one of the days between Christmas and NYE.
Towing would definitely be a trip downer 
They are staying mid-week the last week of February, so hopefully we will be visiting them at a low capacity time!
Food and Wine too apparently, you can’t even get in to some with an ADR.
Generally at any time you won’t get into Boardwalk or Beach and Yacht Club. Or the Contemporary. Poly and GF are also iffy.
Without an ADR, that is.
It depends how you approach the gate. If you drive up and ask, then there’s a pretty good chance the person at the gate will say, “no.” The gate attendants hear enough stories from people who just want to avoid the TTC (and some who want to avoid paying for parking while visiting the parks), plus they don’t want to run out of parking spots for paying guests. I’ve had some folks let me in when I said I was just visiting and others who didn’t want me parking at the resort.
If you have an extra MagicBand from one of your parents, then you can just tap that in at the booth and the attendant will say, “Welcome Home,” and let you park there. That’s the easiest way to handle things, but your parents may want to double check that they aren’t charged a parking fee (if they don’t have a car of their own; if they do, then your tapping in at the entrance an extra time won’t matter).
Thanks, good idea about switching bands! They will have a car there, so no extra fees. Is there anything like a pass that would need to be displayed in our car, though?
Disney used to print out a piece of paper to put on the dashboard of your car, but stopped doing that in recent years, so you shouldn’t need anything other than the band. Once you’re past the guard shack, you’re fine.