Bonus Reservations don’t count towards your totalWalt Disney World recently announced that Annual Passholders will still need Disney Park Pass Reservations, starting on January 9, while date-based ticketholders won’t need them anymore. As an Annual Passholder, I’ll admit that I’m not happy that we will still need to make reservations. But the announcement has also “renewed” the cries of Disney being unfair to Annual Passholders. Is that true? Here are my thoughts.
It stinks that Annual Passholders will still need to think about Disney Park Pass Reservations come next January. But at least there have been some changes made in the right direction.
Annual Passholders don’t need Disney Park Pass Reservations at all right now, if they want to wait until after 2:00. The exception for this is the Magic Kingdom on Saturdays and Sundays, but hey, I’ll take it! I know that the after 2:00 rule doesn’t work in plenty of cases, but it does give us back some of our flexibility.
Bonus Reservations are another step in the right direction. There are plenty of them now! While they aren’t added too far in advance, it’s nice to know that there are times when we can visit without using one of our allotted reservations. I’ve used Bonus Reservations a lot, and I don’t see that changing. When I plan to visit a theme park but haven’t decided which one to go to, I’ll see if there are any Bonus Reservations available.
Annual Passholders have been promised “good-to-go days” after January 9, days when Disney Park Pass Reservations won’t be needed. Disney hasn’t said much else about these days. I suspect that they’ll be similar to Bonus Reservations, and that Bonus Reservations will go away on January 9.
I do have one slight fear for after January 9. Will Disney start to limit the number of reservations available for Annual Passholders so that more date-based tickets can be sold? I hope not! It’s rare that the theme parks even come close to capacity, and many Florida Resident Annual Passes are already blocked out on the busiest days. If there are suddenly days when Annual Passholders can’t visit but date-based ticket holders still can, people are going to be upset!
I guess I haven’t really answered the question of whether or not I think Walt Disney World is being unfair to Annual Passholders. It’s been a long time since I couldn’t get a reservation for the theme park that I wanted to visit. Right now, Disney Park Pass is more of an inconvenience than anything. The fact that I still will need to make Disney Park Pass Reservations didn’t stop me from renewing. I just renewed today!
A lot can happen between now and January 9. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. When I hear anything credible, I’ll share it on Disney Over 50.