For a stress-free Disney or Universal Studios vacation, let the FREE expert planners at Royal Carriage Vacations take care of every detail including dining reservations, applying discounts, and onboard cruise credit.
The parks reservation system has been live for a week now, and everyone has been diligently working to reserve their parks. Some parks are showing as unavailable for Annual Passholders this summer. Read on for details.
Now that resort guests, annual passholders, and all other ticket holders have had the opportunity to make their reservations from now until September 26, 2021, there are a handful of dates where certain parks are unavailable for the passholder group.
Resort guests with admission already purchased were the first guests who were able to make their reservations for park time. A few days later, annual passholders were able to book their time.
Lastly, guests with regular tickets and no resort stays booked were able to make their reservations yesterday morning.
It appears that there are different pools of availability reserved for each “type” of guest when it comes to the Disney World Park Reservation system.
Disney has a handy reservation availability calendar, which guests can view prior to purchasing tickets. At this time, only 2021 tickets are available to purchase.
For September 5, 6 and 12 guests in the annual passholder pool are unable to book entry to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Additionally, on Saturday September 5 Magic Kingdom is unavailable for this group.
However, those dates still show full availability (indicated on the calendar in green) for those three dates for resort guests and standard ticket holders.
There are a few days in July and August that are booked up for Hollywood studios, which we covered last week.
It is not clear whether availability for these dates will be shuffled around based on demand within each group.
As a passholder, I feel that we should not be turned away from the parks while other guests are allowed in, unless our pass has blockout dates. But I (Rebecca) am not a local passholder, so I always have resort reservations as well.
If you’re an annual passholder and you feel you must go to a “sold out” park, you could make a resort reservation and that would allow you to draw from a different pool.
Has the limited availability affected your trip? Let us know in the comments on Facebook and in our Facebook Group!
-Rebecca W Davis
Share the love!
John Tuff
Wednesday 1st of July 2020
We have resort reservations for Sept 24 to Oct 1st. We have not been able to get anyone on the phone either DVC or annual pass who could tell us how or when we could get reservations with our pass or tickets for 3 other guests who will be staying with us. Hours of waiting and two phone conversations have been useless. This is by far our worst Disney experience. How can we get someone to help us? Just not up for another 90 minute wait with no results.
Rose
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Thank you for your response. I have contacted them and was told I could renew outside the window, it is called a renewal certificate, it’s basically prepaying now for October. I understand if you paid for your passes in full you will also get another month added, but that’s for all passes paid in full, nothing extra fir the platinum plus. When I spoke to the pass holder VIO line yesterday, I was told there was not any adjustments or discounts for the platinum plus. You would think the highest passes would have some adjustment since we can’t fully use it.
Rose
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
I have a question/comment on the annual passes. So I like many others have an annual pass and am not a local. My family and I currently have platinum plus passes. So far Disney has not made any comments on how they are going to handle these passes. Currently there is no timeline when the water parks will reopen. I have a trip booked for Christmas, but the only way I can book park days is to get a renewal certificate since my passes were to expire this month but have been extended until October. So I have to spend money to secure my days. Is anyone else having this issue, and what is Disney going to do for the platinum plus holders?
Rebecca Davis
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Hi rose, thanks for reading.
I too am a non local platinum plus AP. I sent them an email asking what will they be doing about the extra $100 we paid for water parks on our passes and they have not responded.
So far they are extending passes an additional month due to the restrictions. I’m not sure you even could renew right now if you wanted to.
One of our writers got something called a “FP+ planning key card“ bc her AP expired during the lock down. Of course, they have now canceled fastpasses but I assume you may be able to get something like that if you call them.
I would use the New chat feature in MDE and ask for guidance. You may have to call guest services to get approval, then call tech services but I’m not sure. I’m sorry that’s a long way of saying “I don’t know” but I’m not entirely sure.
I plan to update our readers when I hear back about the platinum plus thing. -Rebecca