Disney World passholders seeing long waits for park visits; Park Passes almost gone for July
With Walt Disney World reopening later this week, annual passholders who haven’t already booked their park passes will have to wait until Aug. 17 to visit some of the theme parks.
To help stop the spread of Covid-19, Walt Disney World has implemented a number of safety procedures as the theme parks reopen, including temperature checks, face mask requirements, social distancing, and making all guests have “Park Pass” reservations set-up in advance of visiting, even annual passholders. Park hopping is not allowed for any guests. FastPasses and Single Rider Lines will also not be available.
Just over a week ago, Park Pass reservations opened up for all annual passholders to reserve up to three days at a time, and the days started booking up quickly. As of this morning, July 5, 2020, almost all of the passes for July have been booked, with only Epcot being available on July 29 and 30. All other July dates are completely booked.
The month of August is also booking up fast, with most weekends fully booked for passholders and Disney’s Hollywood Studios not available until Aug. 17, 2020.
This means no matter which annual pass type you have, if you haven’t already booked your three Park Passes, you’re limited to visiting Epcot for two days in July, and you have limited parks to choose to visit the first couple of weeks in August. If you have an annual pass with blockout dates, those still apply.
We reached out to Disney officials to ask if they have any plans to add more capacity to the park reservation system for annual passholders. They responded, “We encourage passholders to check the Disney Park Pass system from time to time as reservation availability can change.”
Walt Disney World has limited the capacity of each park, and has said they will increase that capacity as time goes on. This is assuming everything goes well with their opening, and the Covid-19 cases start declining, which isn’t yet happening in Florida, as cases reached record levels this past weekend.
You can check the Disney Park Pass Availability yourself at the Walt Disney World website. There is currently more availability for guests with Disney resort reservations and those with day tickets. It’s also possible Disney will add more capacity to certain days as the days near and the spaces held for ticket holders and resort guests don’t fill up. So as Disney says, keep checking.
What do you think? Is it worth having an annual pass right now with limited visits? Will more availability open up after this initial “rush” to return to the parks? Should the theme parks even be open with these restrictions and Covid-19 cases rising? Do these restrictions make it safer to visit Disney World than your local grocery store? Let us know your thoughts below.
Read our F.A.Q. to answer all your questions about visiting Walt Disney World this summer.
Also see our guide to booking your Disney Park Pass reservations.
As a Florida pass holder there is no sense having it any longer. I can only have 3 days and my family is coming out for spring break in March. I had to use my 3 days then so this means I’m paying for a pass July, Aug, Sept and so on but can’t visit the park til 2021. My family has paid a fortune for years for trips and that is over. Very upset with Disney, pass holders keep Disney going in lean times and they just screwed them over. 😩
I understand that due to the damn virus that Disney must limit the amount of people each day but….if I have paid for a year pass with no black out dates (which is not cheap) …then there should be some kind of compensation if I am only able to use my pass only one or two days each month…
Opening under these limited conditions for such an expensive adventure, is crazy on many levels !
All the money it costs and I can’t go when I want is a ridiculous expectation.
We will not be going until it is safe to go without a mask .
If you have to wear a mask ……. it implies there is something unsafe to being there .
All the magic on the world cannot change that fact .
So disappointing. If you check the availability calendar you will see that the whole calendar is green for families who have resort reservations. This is a slap in the face for Florida residents who live 30 minutes away and now need a hotel reservation as well as their annual pass in order to secure a park reservation. Shameful. This is no way to treat annual Passholders. Why did I spend thousands of dollars for annual passes?!?
My opinion and only my opinion they should not be open at all too many deaths to me live cases not anywhere I would want to go right now not worth my life and I love Disney