For many years, Disneyland Resort visitors have been able to make dining reservations and hotel reservations, but with 2021 came something new: park reservations. In order to visit Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park, all guests now need both valid admission and a park reservation. Since they seem to be here to stay, we have developed this complete guide to park reservations at Disneyland Resort.
In this guide, we will take you through the process of securing park reservations for Disneyland Resort, provide some tips and answer frequently asked questions. This guide is primarily concerned with park reservations for those with tickets rather than Magic Key passes. The process is largely similar, but we do highlight certain differences.
How to Make Park Reservations for Disneyland Resort
This is a very detailed guide to park reservations for Disneyland in which we hope to answer all of your questions. It is so detailed in fact, that we wanted to give you a quick overview of the park reservation process before we jump into all those little details. We hope that starting with an outline of the procedure and then expanding upon it will keep us all from getting lost in the weeds.
So on a very basic level, you will need to do the following to make a park reservation for Disneyland Resort:
- Purchase admission to the parks of Disneyland Resort. To make a park reservation you will first need to hold valid admission in the form of a ticket or Magic Key.
- Link that admission to your Disneyland account. To make a park reservation, you will need to link the tickets (or passes) of all of the people in your travel party to your Disney account.
- Start the park reservation booking process on the Disneyland app or at the Disneyland website. You will create or log-in to your existing online Disney account and visit the “Theme Park Reservations” section to make your reservation.
- Create your party. You can make a park reservation for just yourself or for a larger party. You must designate which guests will be part of your park reservation.
- Select your date. You will select the date you plan to visit.
- Select your park. You will indicate the park (Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park) you plan to visit on that date. If you hold a Park Hopper ticket, you will choose the park you plan to visit first.
- Confirm your selections. Once you have made all of your selections, you will confirm them and secure your reservation. But do not worry if you change your mind later, because you can modify or cancel reservations as needed.
With that overview taken care of, let us wade into those details!
Do keep in mind that—if you purchase admission directly from Disney—much of this procedure is integrated into the ticket buying process. However, we think the details here are still helpful if you are trying to select a ticket type, modify a reservation or add friends to your party. Plus, many of these steps are still relevant. So please, come along with us in this guide to park reservations.
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Purchase a Ticket
In order to make a park reservation, you will first need to hold valid admission to the parks at Disneyland Resort. This admission comes in the form of a ticket or Magic Key. You probably already planned on buying admission just to get through the theme park gates, but you will need it now to make a park reservation.
You may choose to purchase your admission directly from Disney or through a third party vendor. If you purchase your tickets through Disney, you will usually choose dates as part of the reservation process. (If you purchase your tickets through a legitimate third party vendor, you will usually save some money but not make park reservations as part of the purchase.)
To complicate things just a bit, you will want to make sure park reservations are available for your visit before you spend money on a ticket! To avoid an endless chicken-and-egg loop, you can preview availability by visiting this page before you make your purchase: Theme Park Reservation Availability, Disneyland Resort.
In any case, start the park reservation process by previewing your dates and then purchasing admission. For all of our best tips on purchasing tickets for Disneyland Resort, see: Essential Tips for Disneyland Tickets.
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Link Tickets to Your Account
Once you have your park tickets, you will need to link them to your Disneyland account. If you purchase your tickets through your Disneyland account (in other words, directly from Disney), the tickets should be linked automatically at the time of purchase. On the other hand, if you purchased your tickets from a third party vendor, you must link them to your account before you can proceed with park reservations.
When visiting Disneyland Resort with friends, you will also want to link their tickets to your account. You can do this even if you did purchase their tickets yourself. This does not mean you “own” their tickets, it simply gives you the ability to make park reservations as a group. Linking your tickets together can also be very beneficial in other ways, because it will allow you to make virtual queue or Lightning Lane reservations as a group during your visit!
Use the Disneyland App to Link Your Tickets
To link tickets using the Disneyland app, first gather digital or physical versions of those tickets.
Now, sign into your Disney account on the Disneyland app.
Go to the “hamburger” menu in the lower-right corner of the home screen and select “My Tickets and Passes.”
On the next screen, click the plus (+) icon in the upper-right corner, and select the option to “Link Tickets and Passes.”
It is now time to link your tickets. You will see that you can choose to enter the ticket ID numbers or simply use your device’s camera to read the bar/QR codes on the tickets. Choose the option that works best for you and follow the provided prompts.
Tip: You will be asked to add names to any new unassigned tickets as part of this process. If you are managing tickets for your family, pay attention to whether each ticket is for a child or an adult before adding the name. Disney does not much care about the names, because they use photos rather than names to attach each person to their ticket. But, we think the names are helpful for keeping things organized, and the names cannot be easily changed without help from a cast member, so slow down and check your ticket type!
We have had great luck using the camera option to read codes on both paper tickets and other screens. If you are linking your ticket to a friend’s ticket, you can each pull-up your ticket on your own device and take turns scanning codes from one another.
Use the Disneyland Website to Link Your Tickets
You can also link tickets using the Disneyland website.
First, sign-in to your Disney account.
Once you have signed-in, select “Link Tickets and Passes” from the “My Disney” drop-down menu.
On the next screen, you will see a field where you may enter the ID number for a park ticket along with some helpful pictures illustrating where you can find that number. Continue through the prompts to link your tickets to your account.
Tip: You will be asked to add names to any new unassigned tickets as part of this process. If you are managing tickets for your family, pay attention to whether each ticket is for a child or an adult before adding the name. Disney does not much care about the names, because they use photos rather than names to attach each person to their ticket. But, we think the names are helpful for keeping things organized, and the names cannot be easily changed without help from a cast member, so slow down and check your ticket type!
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Head to “My Theme Park Reservations” on Your Disneyland Account
Now that you have your admission linked to your account, it is finally time to make those park reservations.
Begin by logging into your Disney account. You can start this reservation process on the Disneyland app or website, but if you use the app, it is ultimately going to shunt you over to the website anyway.
On the app, you can click the plus (+) icon at the bottom-center of the home screen and then select “Make a Park Reservation” and follow the resulting prompts.
On the Disneyland website, go to the “My Disneyland” drop-down menu and select “Theme Park Reservations.”
Both approaches will ultimately bring you to this page on the Disneyland website: Theme Park Tickets and Reservations. From this page, you can make reservations, view existing reservations, cancel existing reservations, modify existing reservations and preview park reservation availability.
For now, we are interesting in making a new reservation, so click the button for that!
Create Your Party
On the next screen, you will be asked to “Create Your Party.” You will see a list of the tickets you have linked to your account.
The tickets you now see on this screen are tickets you have (1) linked and (2) have valid admission days remaining. These may be your tickets or tickets belonging to other people. Remember, linking them to your account gives you the ability to make reservations for your whole travel party.
Why Some Tickets May Not Appear
If you have tickets that have expired or been wholly used, you will not see them here. Those tickets are not eligible for making or modifying park reservations.
If your tickets are multi day tickets, this screen will also show you how many reservations are still available on a ticket. For example, if you have a three day ticket and have made one park reservation on that ticket already, this screen should show that you have “2 of 3 Reservations Available.” You will be able to select those tickets to make new park reservations.
Once you have made all of the available reservations on your ticket, you will still be able to see those tickets on this screen, but you will not be able to select them. You will see the wording, “This ticket has reached its theme park reservations limit.” In other words, if you have tickets for which you have NOT yet used all of your admission days but you HAVE reserved dates for those visits, those tickets will show-up on this screen. However, you will not be able to make any additional reservations for those tickets unless you cancel existing reservations. You do also have the option of modifying them, but more on that later.
To proceed, select the tickets that will be used for your intended park reservation; these tickets should each correspond to a particular person. When you have selected your eligible party members (tickets), click the “Next” button.
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Select a Date and Select a Park
Next, you will see a calendar for Disneyland Resort showing eligible dates for park reservations. You will be able to page through upcoming months on this screen, and individual days are marked with symbols. These symbols show you which dates have open park reservations for your ticket type. You will select a date and then a park in order to make a park reservation. Let us look at the nuances of the selection process.
Symbols and Dates on the Disneyland Resort Park Reservation Calendar
The park reservations calendar has a series of symbols to mark available reservations for each day. A tiny pink castle represents Disneyland Park. A tiny blue ferris wheel with Mickey’s silhouette represents Disney California Adventure Park.
A you look at individual calendar days, those days marked with both the blue and pink icons have reservations available for both parks. Those marked with just pink castles have reservations available only at Disneyland Park, and those marked with just blue ferris wheels have reservations available only at Disney California Adventure Park. Days marked with a gray slash have no reservations available at either park.
Availability for each park can and does change as people make, modify and cancel reservations. So you may see different availability depending on when you visit these calendars.
You should also be aware that availability is different depending on your ticket type. Disney allocates a certain number of reservations for each type of admission. Thus, guests with Park Hopper tickets will pull from a different pool of available park reservations than those with One Park Per Day tickets. There are also certain reservations allocated for Magic Key admissions and special ticket offers (like the 70th anniversary ticket offer).
Once you have selected your ticket, you will be looking at the reservations available for only that ticket type. If you ticket is only valid for certain days—for example, a special Monday-Thursday discount ticket—the invalid days will be grayed-out and show no symbols. Likewise, dates further out than 180 days will also be grayed-out, because you can only make reservations up to 180 days in the future. Valid days will have some kind of symbol or symbols, even if it is just a slash to show that no reservations are currently available.
Park Reservations for One Park Per Day Tickets at Disneyland Resort
If you have a One Park Per Day ticket (that means no Park Hopper add-on), you will be making a reservation for the only park you will visit on your selected day. If you have a multi-day One Park Per Day ticket, you can choose different parks for different days. You will make each reservation one day at a time.
There is no requirement for how many days you must visit each park in a multi-day ticket. You may choose to use all of your admission days on just one park and never visit the other. As long as there are park reservations available, you can choose.
Let us look at an example. I purchase a One Park Per Day four day ticket. I will have four days of park admission on that ticket. For each of those four days, I will visit EITHER Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park. I will not be able to visit both parks on the same day using this ticket.(We have more information about the rules and particulars of Disneyland Resort tickets here.)
In this example, I decide to make Disneyland Park reservations for August 12, 14 and 16 and for Disney California Adventure Park for August 17. I can choose any days with available reservations within my eligibility period. If I want to change a reservation later, I can switch the date, park or both as long as there are available reservations for my new choices. I cannot change my reservation for a particular day after I enter a park on that same day, but I can change reservations for future days.
Park Reservations for Park Hopper Tickets at Disneyland Resort
A Park Hopper ticket at Disneyland Resort allows you to visit both parks (Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park) on a single admission day. Park Hopper is a ticket add-on that can be applied to a one day ticket or a multi-day ticket. For any of the included days, you may visit both parks (or just one if you prefer).
When making a park reservation for a Park Hopper ticket, you will select the park where you wish to start your day. On the day of your visit, you will use your park reservation and your ticket to enter this reserved park. Anytime after 11am, switch to the other park. As long as the parks have not reached capacity or closed, you may continue to switch as many times as you wish for the rest of the day.
So, when making park reservations with a Park Hopper ticket, remember that you are not choosing the only park you will visit on a particular day. You are simply choosing the first park you will visit.
Multi Day Tickets and Park Reservations at Disneyland Resort
When making park reservations, you will always do so for one admission day at a time. Even if you have a multi-day ticket, you will still make reservations for each day individually. With a multi day ticket, you will follow the full reservation process for each day. If you want to make all of the reservations in a row, you will click the “Make Another Reservation” button after you are done with one reservation, and this will restart the process until you have made all of your reservations
We suggest making all of your park reservations as soon as you have your tickets. There is no penalty for canceling or modifying a reservation, so you may as well make some park reservations and modify them as needed. We do not want you to get into a situation where you have booked flights and hotels for certain dates and then found out you could not visit the parks on those days!
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Confirm Your Selections
Once you have created your party, selected your date and selected your park, all that is left is to confirm your selections. This screen will show you the date, park and party you have selected.
Once you scroll through this information, you will reach a checkbox for “Terms and Conditions.” If you agree to these, mark the checkbox and click the “Confirm” button.
You did it! The next screen should tell you that “Your Theme Park Reservation is Confirmed.” From here, you can view all of your reservations, make another one, or exit this window having completed your Disneyland Resort park reservations.
Use Your Park Reservation at Disneyland Resort
Once you have confirmed your park reservation, it is added to your future plans and ready to use. On the day of your reservation, simply visit the park you selected. At the entrance gate, scan the ticket you used to make the reservation.
There is no need to pull up the park reservation separately, because it is attached to the ticket you used to make it. This also means that you will need to use the same ticket you used to make the reservation to enter the park on the reserved day.
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Canceling and Modifying Park Reservations for Disneyland Resort
Canceling or modifying your Disneyland Resort reservation is easy, and there is no penalty for doing so.
You will need to log into your Disneyland account on the app or website. Then, navigate to your existing reservations (“Future Plans”). Here, you will be able to see each of your future confirmed park reservations including information for party, date and park.
Under these reservations, you should see the options to “Modify Reservation” and “Cancel Reservation.” You can make one of these selections and follow the prompts. As you have already gone through the park reservation process, these procedure should feel familiar.
If you cancel a reservation, your admission day should be immediately available to make a new reservation using the process above. However, if that is your intent, you are probably better off simply modifying your reservation. In this way, you will not lose your park reservation before you have secured a new one.
Modifying a One Day Ticket Park Reservation at Disneyland
The one wrinkle to the modifying process would be if you are trying to make changes to a park reservation for a one day ticket.
All one day tickets at Disneyland Resort have tiered pricing. The price corresponds to the date you plan to use them. You can absolutely modify the dates for these tickets, but you will need to pay attention to the tiers.
We have a whole guide to ticket tiers, and we really recommend reading it if you are facing this particular situation. We specifically cover modifying dates on one day tickets. Here is that guide: Guide to Ticket Tiers at Disneyland Resort
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Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some FAQS around park reservations at Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park.
I already have a park reservation for Disneyland Resort, but I do not remember making it. How did that happen?
If you purchase your tickets directly through Disney, you will usually be prompted to select the dates you plan to use the tickets as part of the purchase process. These are valid park reservations. If you would like to change these park reservation dates, you can modify or cancel them using the regular process.
If you purchase your tickets through a third party vendor, you probably will not get park reservations as part of the process. Even if the vendor asks you for anticipated visit dates, it is unlikely that you are getting park reservations as part of the process. Be sure to link your tickets and make your park reservations.
For any ticket, we suggest double-checking that you do indeed have park reservations. You cannot visit without them!
How many park reservations can I make for Disneyland Resort at one time?
To make a park reservation for either of the theme parks at Disneyland Resort, you will first need to have valid admission, like a park ticket. You may make one reservation for each remaining day of admission on your ticket.
For example, if you have a two-day ticket to Disneyland Resort, you will need to make two park reservations for two separate dates in order to use those two days.
If you have a Magic Key pass, the number of reservations you can hold at any given time is specific to your particular pass. Higher-priced passes get more reservations. Check your terms and conditions.
Do I need to make park reservations for every day on my multi-day ticket or just for the first day?
Every day you plan to visit a park at Disneyland Resort you will need to have both valid admission and a park reservation. You cannot enter without a park reservation for that same day.
This means that you will need to make a separate park reservation for each day on your multi day ticket. The reservation must correspond to the first (or only) park you enter on each day.
Can I make reservations for both parks on the same day by using two days on my multi-day ticket?
No. You cannot use two days on your multi-day ticket for the same calendar date, so you also cannot make two reservations for the same calendar date. You will need to decide which park you want to enter first and make a reservation for just that park.
Do children need park reservations at Disneyland?
Children ages zero to two do not need a park reservation or a ticket to enter Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park. Everyone else, including children three and older, will need a park reservation and valid admission to enter a park.
Children under three are considered “Guests of Mickey” and may enter the parks for free. As they do not require admission, these children do not have a ticket to pair with a reservation, so it is Disneyland’s policy that children 0-2 do not require a park reservation. However, they must be accompanied by an older ticketed guest, and that person will need a reservation.
Can I make a park reservation for Disneyland Resort before I buy my ticket?
No. You cannot make a park reservation for Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park without already having some form of valid admission including a ticket or Magic Key.
If you want to preview availability for park reservations before you purchase a ticket, you can do that here: Theme Park Reservation Availability, Disneyland Resort.
Is there a penalty for changing my park reservation at Disneyland Resort?
At the time of writing, there is not penalty for modifying or canceling a reservation to one of the parks at Disneyland Resort. Because of this, it is our advice that you should make your reservations soon after acquiring your tickets. Park reservations can and do get used up, and you will not want to miss your chance.
There are penalties for Magic Key holders who do not cancel their park reservations within a timely manner or who do not show-up for their reservations. You will want to check the terms on your Magic Key before purchase.
How far in advance can I make a Disneyland Resort park reservation?
Park reservations for Disneyland Resort are open to general ticket holders up to 180 days in advance. So, today you can make park reservations for any date in the next 180 days (subject to availability). Tomorrow, the date 180 days from tomorrow will open. New days continue to open, one per day, on a rolling basis.
Magic Key holders have a different reservation window. At the time of writing, it is 90 days. Other special admission types can also have different reservation windows. You will want to check the terms for your admission media.
Do I need a park reservation to go to Disneyland Resort? Do I need a park reservation for an after-hours party at Disneyland?
You will almost always need a park reservation in order to visit Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park, with a few exceptions.
First, children under three years of age do not need a ticket or park reservation in order to enter the parks of Disneyland Resort. They are special “Guests of Mickey.” They do, however, need to be accompanied by an adult.
You also do not need a park reservation if you are attending a special event that requires an event-specific ticket. Special “hard ticket” events that require an event ticket (rather than a general admission ticket) are date and park specific, so you are effectively making your reservation by purchasing your ticket.
For example, you may wish to purchase a ticket to one of the Oogie Boogie Bash parties taking place at Disney California Adventure Park. When you buy your ticket, it will be for a specific party on a specific date, let us say October 31. Your Oogie Boogie Bash ticket is now tied to October 31 and Disney California Adventure Park. You do not need to make a park reservation in addition to this.
But, I did not have a park reservation the last time I visited Disneyland. Why do I need one now?
The park reservation system is new to Disneyland Resort as of about four years ago. It does seem like it is here to stay. We hope this guide was helpful to you in understanding how to make a park reservation for Disneyland Resort.
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Thank you for reading this (extensive) guide to park reservations at Disneyland Resort.
We hope you have found this information useful. For general help with purchasing admission, please see Essential Tips for Disneyland Tickets and Reservations. That page is part of our complete and free Step-by-Step Disneyland Prep, which will walk you through planning your Disneyland visit. Please also consider subscribing to our newsletter below to get the latest posts in your inbox. Thanks again for reading!
