We’re barely into 2024 and Disney World has already changed in some major ways.
Disney World Annual Pass
The Disney Dining Plan is back, Country Bear Jamboree is getting a refurbishment, and Park Passes Reservations have gone away for most guests! And, while that’s a reason to celebrate for most, Annual Passholders have been left wondering when it’ll be their turn. So, that begs the question: Will Disney World ever truly get rid of park passes for Annual Passholders?
While we don’t claim to know the future (that’s something we typically leave to magic mirrors and crystal balls), we do have a few ideas about what might happen when it comes to the future of Park Pass Reservations for Annual Passholders (APs). But, we’re not the only ones who have thoughts — we turned to our readers on Facebook to get an idea of what they think, too, and here’s what they said.
Yes, Disney will get rid of park passes for Annual Passholders.
Real talk — Disney World never had park passes in the past (for APs or otherwise) so it would stand to reason that the parks could function just as they did once before. And, when you consider the fact that Disney has already done away with park passes for most other guests, well, why wouldn’t they also get rid of them for Annual Passholders?
Hollywood Studios
Disney has also stressed the importance of bringing flexibility back into the guest experience for parkgoers — acknowledging that they’ve heard guests saying they wish they could “plan with Disney Genie+ service and individual Lightning Lane selections before the day of their park visit” a la the old FastPass+ system.
Magic Kingdom
If flexibility is a goal, Disney might continue their efforts and offer that same flexibility to Passholders. Right now, APs still need to make reservations if they plan on visiting the parks before 2PM or Magic Kingdom on weekends — or if it’s a “Good To Go” Day. More on that in a bit.
Read More About the Changes Disney Has Announced for Genie+
No, Disney won’t get rid of park passes for Annual Passholders.
Look, there’s probably a very good reason Disney has decided to do things this way and we won’t pretend to know what’s behind their logic. Through blockout dates and park passes, Disney can control when Annual Passholders visit the parks — and how many of them can visit on any given day compared to regular, ticketed guests.
Pandora
Not only that, but we’ve heard Disney executives comment on park passes helping them to predict and control overall park capacity — something we know the company is quite fond of.
Spaceship Earth in EPCOT
Knowing where a parkgoer plans on spending their day is also a major factor when it comes to appropriate staffing of Cast Members. Park passes give Disney more information about crowds and where they may need to send more Cast Members on any given day. Disney let go quite a few Cast Members during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it doesn’t look like they’ve fully restaffed based on some offerings still not returning yet.
It all depends!
We warned you — we can’t see the future, so it all really just depends. Disney will likely test this current system out to see how it goes before making any changes — major or minor. We could also see Disney get rid of park passes for Annual Passholders for the most part, implementing them only during busy times like holidays and festivals.
Journey of Water
And then, there are the “Good To Go” Days. On these days, Passholders can enter any theme park with no reservation required. We’ve already seen some of these days pop up on the calendar, and Disney has even added more, indicating that this is something they plan on continuing — at least for a while.
Magic Kingdom
So, while we don’t actually know what the future holds for Annual Passholders and park passes, you can be sure that we’ll be keeping up with any major changes you need to know about.
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One of the reasons we have APi is so that when friends and family are in the park we can drive down and spend time with them. When their meals and rides are already reserved we can’t join them like we used to. Now we won’t be able to join them in the park unless they go to Universal.
This system is ridiculous, Disney claims it helps them gauge park capacities, where guest will be and staffing BUT Are they taking into account all the people who pop in at park opening just to go shopping, have a quick lunch or just walk around and look at decorations, sit on a bench and people watch, those that are AP’s and literally jump in the park for 2 hrs for a quick visit with their little ones or feed the ducks !!! Give me a break, we have passess in CA and FL and I get so frustrated when I cannot get in and my family is visiting and tells me park is EMPTY – UGH, Come on Disney you can do better for AP’s
Good to go days and not anounced early enough for us to make flight reservations room reservations dining
etc. So if a group of people buy tickets at the gate what is the difference than if a group of passholders walk thru the gate? Not every day guest is a Disney hotel guest. Very frustrating to puchase a pass and not book everything including 90 day out dining reservations. So ridiculous !
It seems that with all day Park Hopping available now it doesn’t really matter where you make a reservation as far as Disney staffing would be concerned. It’s all spread out first thing then everybody hops to Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom right after tapping in at EPCOT and Animal Kingdom. It’s still a huge inconvenience for the passholder while not really doing it’s job for the company. I do hope it changes.
Good to Go days are not remotely helpful for people who live out of state, and they never will be unless Disney starts posting them farther in advance.
I have doubts they will remove the park passes for AP.
[Yes, I’ll add my usual comment that my personal theory is they want to do away with ANNUAL PASSES and are trying to do so by attrition by driving the price higher and the benefits lower. They know people hate the Park Pass System, so if they leave it in place (partially! so it’s even harder to keep track of!) it’s another disincentive to buy an AP.]
If they are truly valuing crowd control and a better experience through limiting numbers from park to park, APs are the big question mark. You know how many ticket holders have bought specific day tickets or park hoppers for what period of time. APs can show up anywhere at anytime. (Well, they could. Once upon a time.)
I actually *personally* don’t have a problem with the Park Pass system, though I completely understand WHY people do. We had to drop the IncrediPass this year due to the increase in cost/decrease in value, so we’re back to not going to Disney at the holidays anyway, which is the only time we’ve seen park passes completely gone for more than one park. [Success for Disney’s strategy there… fewer APs in parks at the holidays. Go you.] But I don’t have an issue with PPs and I don’t honestly see the Good To Go Days having much impact on our experiences simply from the way we visit parks. We have been going for long stays (6 weeks) over December and primarily January, so if we miss a park one day, we can go the next day or day after. We are not bound to a 5 or 7-day window. If we go in a park and it’s super crowded, we usually park hop anyway. The removal of the 2pm park hop had a much bigger positive impact for us.
Now we are likely back to individual trips of fewer days at different times. Will that make Good to Go Days more useful? I don’t know. I’m a planner… I would probably still be wanting to pre-reserve the park passes anyway. I’m concerned about what happens if some “Good To Go Days” get removed… it’s another way in which I need to watch the system to make sure I’m still okay to get in the park.
Maybe once a GTG day is circled, that’s it… it can’t change back. But right now, I don’t trust that there that isn’t some fine print somewhere that says any given GTG date can be REMOVED at any time.