The Walt Disney Company continues to tell Annual Passholders that they are not wanted at their parks.
Announced yesterday, and effective immediately, room-only reservations will no longer be available up to 499 days in advance. Room-only reservations are exactly what the name implies; hotel room reservations at a Walt Disney World resort that are not part of a ticket package. In other words, annual pass holders who likely live within driving distance of the parks but don’t need all-inclusive packages.
No longer can Annual Passholders plan far in advance for a specific day or weekend they know they will be visiting the parks. So if you go every year for Labor Day, for example, you you’ll have to wait longer to make your reservation. Now, you’ll only be able to book as far as Disney’s annual release dates.
They’ve made it difficult to to interpret their corporate-speak, but we’ll get it deciphered.
Disney’s Official Announcement
Beginning Aug. 19, 2022, room-only reservations can only be booked as far out as annual product release dates. As a result, you will no longer be able to book room-only reservations beyond released annual product dates.
Beginning August 19, guests may book room-only stays through our current available booking window, which goes through Dec. 31, 2023. For guests wishing to book past our current available dates, new annual packages and expanded date availability typically becomes available in late spring.
Let’s interpret this into normal people-speak.
Today is August 20, 2022. Under the “old way” you could have made a reservation for January 1, 2024 today. That is no longer the case. You can now only book through December 31, 2023.
In fact, you won’t be able to book past that date until the “annual product dates” are announced. The only concrete information we have about that is that it will be sometime in “late spring.”
So if you want to stay at a Disney-owned hotel in January of 2024, you won’t be able to book that until sometime in May or June of 2023. That’s not a lot of time to plan.
How Does This Affect You?
Why does this matter? Let’s say you want to make a hotel reservation for June 21, 2024. Let’s pretend that day is your moms birthday and you meet there every year. In the past, you could make that reservation starting on Feb. 8, 2023.
Under the new guidelines, you won’t be able to make that reservation in February, March, April or even May. All you know if that at some point in the “sping” of 2023 this thing called “annual product dates” will be announced and that’s when you can make your reservation. You’ve now lost 5-6 months of being able to be sure you had a room booked for mom’s birthday.
Why would Disney do this? Simple. They don’t want their rooms booked up by those that make up their “unfavorable attendance mix” – a.k.a. Annual Passholders.
My guess is that Disney will soon re-introduce the DIsney Dining Plan and all-inclusive packages for meals, hotel and tickets will be unveiled. A “perk” of these plans will be that you can book three years in advance.
This will guarantee that Annual Passholders will be hard-pressed to have the privilege of taking up space at Walt Disney World Hotels. I’m sure last minute cancellations will be available to Passholders, by that point, at double the price.
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