So I have to make reservations without knowing park hours - do I have that right?

[Ayeegit]

Planning a trip for Christmas week, and I see that reservations are now available thru the middle of December, but they don't have any park hours posted for anything beyond September. Combined with the rumors about separate ticket events for some potential Christmas events, and it's making me a bit nervous that I'll be locking us in to a specific park without knowing how late said park may be open... guess we'll have to lean towards adding the hoper option to ensure we don't get "stuck" in a park that might be closing early (relative to the other park, at least).

 

[Congo Queen]

Yes that is the unfortunate situation. It happened to me with Ooogie Boogie Bash. I made reservations back in spring and subsequently OBB was scheduled for 2 of the 4 nights of our trip. We decided to attend one night so that helps, but if I had known, I would have scheduled so we did not have a second night of visiting impacted by the event. It is an evolving situation for sure. How will Disney manage capacity when one of the parks is closed to regular guests due to a paid event? Will the non-event park be jammed with Magic Key APs and single/multi-day tix people? Will it be light attendance at the non-event park because people prefer to avoid those dates?

 

[StormyCA]

I think if DL is going to keep reservations, then they need to open up their calendar as far as WDW does. Right now you can book as far ahead as January 2023 at WDW. DL's calendar only goes out to mid-December 2021. Four months is just ridiculous. It should be 6 months at a bare minimum, better yet 9 to 12 months.

Most people who have to travel to go to DL schedule their vacations 6 months to a year ahead of time in order to get time off from work, school, etc. At the very least people who book through WDTC or it's partners (Costco, etc) should have the longer window.

Those who are local or those who (like me) can travel on the spur of the moment have the flexibility to schedule our trips around 'closer in' available dates. But I feel for those who have to book outside the available window and then have to sit with their fingers crossed for weeks or months hoping their dates aren't short park days or get booked out before they can get on line and reserve them.

 

[disneylover102]

Planning a trip for Christmas week, and I see that reservations are now available thru the middle of December, but they don't have any park hours posted for anything beyond September. Combined with the rumors about separate ticket events for some potential Christmas events, and it's making me a bit nervous that I'll be locking us in to a specific park without knowing how late said park may be open... guess we'll have to lean towards adding the hoper option to ensure we don't get "stuck" in a park that might be closing early (relative to the other park, at least).

At least with the increasing capacity you might be able to change your reservations closer to that time when park hours are released… but then it is Christmas week so I would definitely get a park hopper just to be safe

 

[RunnerMom71]

You can also change/cancel a reservation...

 

[twodogs]

You can also change/cancel a reservation...

You can, but you can't modify one. That is, you have to cancel the park reservation you have and hope that you can snag the new one you want. If not, your prior reservation may not be available to go back and reserve again. So there is a small risk that you end up with no park reservation if you try to change one.

 

[gelatoni fan]

I think it's really dumb that they force you to make reservations before park hours and showtimes are made available. Long reservation windows also don't work because then people with Magic Keys will not have enough reservations to cover all the trips they would want to take in the entire period. Basically, Disney has now put a lot of risk on the part of the customer. When making your reservation, you are taking risks in terms of park hours and showtimes. When buying a Magic Key, you risk not being able to go due to lack of reservations.

I personally think that buying a park hopper to mitigate this risk is not worth it. If you are in a situation where all the reservations in the other park are full so you cannot cancel and rebook when new information comes out about the park hours, capacity restrictions may also prevent you from park hopping.