2024 is a year of big changes for Disney World. Overall, things have been getting better for guests lately, with welcome changes to park reservations, park hopping, and Virtual Queue.
But they also got more complicated.
In this article, I’m going to simplify things and let you know the rules you need to know if you’re visiting in 2024 and beyond.
I figured out Disney World’s new rules so you don’t have to – Video
In this video, I break down all the new rules added for Disney World in 2024. Be sure to subscribe to the Guide2WDW YouTube channel for more Disney World tips and advice!
Disney World’s New 2024 Rules – Quickly Explained
Before I go in-depth on all the new rules, here’s a quick overview of everything that’s changed at Disney World for this year.
- Park Reservations: Date based tickets no longer need reservations to enter the theme parks. Non-date based tickets still need reservations.
- Good To Go Days: These are pre-announced days where Annual Passholders don’t need reservations to enter the theme parks.
- All-Day Park Hopping: Park Hopping no longer begins at 2 pm. Guests with Park Hopper tickets can now visit any park at any time. (Note, if you need a reservation, there’s one wrinkle to this, which I explain below).
- Multipark Genie+: Guests with a multipark Genie+ can now make a reservations for any ride in any park starting at 7 AM.
- Virtual Queue Changes: If you have a ticket that doesn’t need a reservation, you can now join any of the Virtual Queues at 7 AM. The old rules still apply if you need a reservation.
If you understood that, great!
If not, I’ll explain these concepts in more detail in the sections below.
2024 Park Reservation Changes Explained
From 2020 through the end of 2023, all guests at Disney World needed to make park-specific reservations in addition to buying their ticket. The reservation determined which park you needed to visit first in a day. So if you want to go to Magic Kingdom on Tuesday, you needed to make a Magic Kingdom reservation in addition to having a ticket to be able to get into the park.
If you’ve been following Disney sites or channels, you’ve probably heard that “reservations are finally gone!”
But that’s not actually true. Here’s the real story.
Starting January 9, 2024, guests with date based tickets no longer need to make Park Pass Reservations. Other ticket types do need reservations.
Wait, what’s a date based ticket?
If you buy a ticket for full price from Disney or for cheaper from Undercover Tourist, you have to select a date, which is the first day that you use your ticket. There’s a huge difference between date based tickets and the Park Pass Reservation system.
With the date based ticket system, you only have to pick the first day your ticket will be used. Then you can use that ticket any time within a certain number of days after that. For example, if you buy a 5 day ticket, you have 8 days from the starting date to use all the days on your ticket, and you can go non-consecutive days. The only date you have to pick is the starting date.
With the Park Pass system, not only did you have to pick the starting date when you bought your ticket, you also needed a park-specific reservation for every single day you were going into the parks. Going to Magic Kingdom on Monday and EPCOT on Tuesday and Hollywood Studios on Wednesday? You need to make a reservation for each of those parks for each of those days, and if you change your mind which park you want to visit each day, then you need to adjust your park reservation, or risk getting turned away at the gate.
With date based tickets, you only need to pick the starting date that you’ll visit Disney World, and that’s it. What parks you visit on which days are up to you, no reservations required.
One caveat here: If you’re buying a 1 day single park ticket, you do need to pick the park and the date when you’re buying the ticket because the price varies based on both. For park hopper and multi-day tickets, this isn’t an issue.
Park reservations are gone for date-based tickets, which are what the majority of guests will have if you’re buying tickets through Disney, a travel agent, or a third party.
Who still needs to make Park Reservations at Disney World
Who will still have to make Park Pass reservations? Guests with non-date based tickets, which includes the following ticket types:
- Annual Passes
- Disney Military Salute Tickets
- Student groups
- Sports groups
- Conventions
- Old non-expiring tickets that Disney doesn’t sell anymore, but does still honor.
This is important to know, not only because it means you need to make a reservation for each day of your trip if you have one of these ticket types. If you need a Park Pass reservation has ripple effects and changes the rules for how Virtual Queue and Park Hopping work. Which I’ll cover further down in this post.
But first, we need to dive deeper into Annual Passes, because they actually don’t always need reservations to enter the parks. It’s complicated.
Good to Go Days & When Annual Passholders need Reservations
Annual Passes are non-date based tickets, and need park reservations.
Except when they don’t.
In 2023, Disney World introduced a new rule for Annual Passholders that let them get into the parks without a reservation after 2 pm… except for Magic Kingdom on the weekends.
Because nothing can be simple.
Now there’s a new rule on top of this – Good to Go Days, which are basically pre-designated days where Annual Passholders don’t need to make a reservation to go into the parks. Disney will announce these ahead of time on their website or in the app, you can see on the calendar which days are Good to Go days, marked by these green circles.
Good to Go Days only work for Annual Passholders, and not the other non-date based tickets I mentioned earlier.
If you are an Annual Passholder, here’s how to figure out if you need a reservation:
- Is it a Good to Go day? No reservation needed.
- Is it after 2 pm on a weekday? No reservation needed.
- Is it after 2 pm on a weekend and you’re going to EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, or Animal Kingdom? No reservation needed.
- For everything else, you need a reservation.
The return of All Day Park Hopping
Another huge welcome change in 2024 is the return of All Day Park Hopping.
Previously, from 2020 through 2023, with the reservation system, Disney World also introduced a 2 pm Park Hopping rule, where you couldn’t go to a second park until after 2 pm.
Since the beginning of January 2024, All Day Park Hopping is back, meaning you don’t have to wait until 2 pm to go to another park, making it easier to go to Magic Kingdom in the morning then get lunch at EPCOT. This is how it works for all guests with Park Hopper tickets.
Except there is one crucial thing to keep in mind if you have one of those tickets with Park Reservations. You will always need to go to the park you have a reservation for first before park hopping. But as soon as you scan in, you’re free to go to another park as soon as you want.
To simplify:
- If you don’t need a reservation, you can visit any park at any time with a park hopper ticket.
- If you do need a reservation, you have to go to the park with a reservation first, and then you can start visiting any park.
Genie+ Changes
The changes to Park Hopping also affect Genie+.
Before 2024, if you had a park hopper and bought the mult-ipark Genie+, you could make Lightning Lane reservations for a different park only for time slots after 2 pm, because of the old Park Hopping rule.
Now that all day Park Hopping is back, you can now make a Lightning Lane reservation for a different park earlier in the day. There’s not really a limit on it.
When this first rolled out, there was a bit of weirdness where the rules changed depending on if you needed a reservation or not, but Disney quickly fixed that.
Now for all tickets, starting at 7 AM, you can make a Lightning Lane for any ride at any park, if you have a Park Hopper ticket and buy the multipark Genie+.
The rules doesn’t change if you need a reservation or not now.
How Park Reservations and Park Hopping Affects Virtual Queue
Finally, let’s dive into my favorite topic: Disney World’s Virtual Queue. The changes to park hopping and reservations have a big impact on it.
If you’re familiar with how the Virtual Queue worked before 2024, you’ll recall that the rules of
Here’s how the pre-2024 rules worked:
- To join the 7 am queue: you need a Park Reservation for the park that attraction is in, and you can join from anywhere.
- To join the 1 pm queue, you have to be inside the theme park to join the Virtual Queue.
How do the new Virtual Queue rules work? Disney has updated the 7 am rule to state, “Guests will be able to join one attraction Virtual Queue at any theme park where they have valid admission.”
What does this mean?
If you have a ticket that needs a reservation, the old rules still apply. You need the right park reservation for that 7 am opening.
If you have a ticket that doesn’t need a reservation, you are eligible to join whichever virtual queue you want to in the morning. Strike out on Tron? Try again for Guardians. Because you don’t need a reservation, it’s possible to do that now – if you’re quick enough.
The other big important update to this rule is that you can only have one attraction Virtual Queue at a time. I think this was the case before, but previously it wasn’t really feasible to join more than one queue at a time.
But now with the new Park Hopping rules, it is much easier to join the Virtual Queue for both Tron and Guardians in one day.
For example, you need to be in the park to join the 1 pm queue.
With the old Park Hopping rule, you couldn’t enter a new park until 2 pm. So if you did Tron at Magic Kingdom in the morning, and wanted to go do Guardians in the afternoon, you would have to hope that the afternoon Virtual Queue lasted at least an hour for you to be able to join.
Now it’s possible to actually Park Hop over to a new park before that 1 pm opening.
All the other virtual queue rules apply, so if you haven’t seen my Virtual Queue tutorial that teaches you the fastest and most reliable way to join, you’ll want to check that out here.
Planning a Disney World vacation in 2024?
These new rules at Disney World give you more flexibility by adding in a good deal of complexity. But one great way to remove the complexity is to work with a Disney Authorized Travel Agent. They can do all the planning for you and help you navigate these systems, all for free. You can click here to work with the Official Travel Agency of Guide2WDW.
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