A lot has changed in Disney World in January 2024.
Cinderella Castle
The Disney Dining Plan officially returned, park-pass reservation rules changed for date-based tickets, and all-day park hopping is back! On January 9th, all three of these things were updated to their new rules. However, we found a big issue for Annual Passholders regarding park hopping. But now, it seems to have been fixed!
Park pass reservations have officially been removed for all date-based tickets in Disney World! However, this excludes Annual Passholder tickets since they are not associated with dates. While Passholders will still need to make reservations for most days (except “Good-to-Go” days), they can enjoy all-day park hopping!
Disney World Annual Passholder Magnet
When we were trying out the new rules on January 9th, we noticed a bit of a hiccup in our plans. Since our reporters are all Annual Passholders, we quickly spotted a slight issue with Genie+ (the virtual assistant on the Disney World app).
When we planned to park hop before 2PM, we were not able to make Lightning Lane selections for any other park outside of our reserved park until AFTER 2PM. This followed the old park hopping rules and was a real bummer.
©Disney
At the time, we weren’t sure if this was a mistake or something that was going to be sticking around for Passholders. But now, we have confirmation that it is no longer a problem! On January 13th, we had a park pass reservation for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but we wanted to hop over to EPCOT to ride Soarin’ Over California.
©Disney
We decided to try making a Lightning Lane selection (Disney’s paid “skip-the-line” system) for Soarin’ right away in the morning, for a time before 2PM. Turns out, it worked! We got a Lightning Lane for 9:05AM-10:05AM for Soarin’, well before 2PM.
©Disney
But we decided to try it again, just to be sure! We scanned into Animal Kingdom (where we had our reservation), then hopped over to EPCOT, rode Soarin’, and were able to book at Lightning Lane for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway — all before 2PM!
©Disney
We’re SO excited to see this change! This is a game-changer for Annual Passholders. With the all-day park hopping and this update to Genie+, it doesn’t matter a whole lot that you need a reservation (that’s just a minor inconvenience). We hope you enjoy your park hopping and Lightning Lane riding!
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But do you need to purchase the Park Hopper Genie + in order to do this though? I’m assuming you can’t just buy the cheapest single park Genie + and then just park hope to somewhere else can you?
So, do AP holders staying at Disney hotels have to make park reservations? Im not an AP holder but my sister is and we do spend a week on property as she owns DVC
Do you still need to scan in at your reserved park before hopping?
There have been times I wanted to reserve a Park Pass for SURE due to a dinner rez in that park on Xmas week, but had the opportunity to go elsewhere earlier in the day — but you had to scan in at your reserved park before going anywhere else. Do you know if this is still the case?
It’s not usually a big deal on nonholidays – it only gets dicey Xmas week when parks can reach capacity. (But we dropped the Incredipass this year anyway, so we won’t be back next Xmas. )
Yes, you still need to scan in if you’re required to reserve your park for the day (and isn’t a good to go day) before you can hop, but you can hop at any time.
Hi Toni! According to Disney’s website, Annual Passholders still need to make reservations whether or not they are staying at a Disney Resort Hotel unless it is a “good to go” day.
Is this true for other ticket holders without date based tickets? (Example Military Hopper Holders). Or was it fixed only for Passholders?
Disney has become far too complicated and requires too much planning and time on the phone and app.
Disney needs to re-evaluate their policies on Annual Pass Holders who are staying on property having to make park passes. Obviously, if you have booked a stay at any of the resorts you will be going into the parks. Why can someone with a date based ticket that is staying at a hotel off property get the flexibility to go to any park on any given day but an annual pass holder paying to stay at Disney Resorts doesn’t have that flexibility and has to go check into their reserved park before hopping?