Changing Park Pass during Spring Break?

[KathyNY]

Looks like we're going to brave a couple days the last week of March.

We have a 1-day we didn't get to use last year, and I'll add 2 more days on.

We always end with MK, so I'm booking that as our last day. Kids are fine missing AK this trip (tho depending on hopping reports, we may try that).

I was thinking of booking DHS for day 1 and 2. We'd go one of the days regardless for ToT, Slinky, etc., but if we don't book a Rise boarding pass Day 1, I'd like to switch to Epcot.

I'm reading it's generally the easiest park to switch to, but will that be the case even in a super busy week?

Also totally fine booking just one DHS day and waiting on Rise for a future trip if we don't get the boarding pass. We don't want to be "stuck" with 2 DHS days...

 

[hizouse]

We have a trip tentatively planned for the week of March 21, and I have DHS park reservations for the first 2 days, hoping to do exactly what you note. If it looks to be as crowded as the past week, I may switch that--but even then it looked like there was at least 1 park with reservations available on most days. I will hold off on switching at least until other parks start showing no availability for that week. I will probably even hold on if MK becomes unavailable. But as soon as Epcot or AK become unavailable on Day 1 or 2, then I'll switch one of the DHS days to AK or Epcot (with the assumption that the other will be available later in the week as well).

 

[KathyNY]

Ah, so just wait and see and switch if it's looking desperate?

Is there a place to see what the park pass availability was like during Christmas? Of course I didn't think to look back then. (Maybe Josh has a post coming soon.)

 

[hizouse]

I don't know if there's any place to check historical park pass reservation availability. I think I just checked twice the week after Christmas. MK and HS were both full every day. I think once when I checked no reservations were available for that current day, but either AK or EP was available the rest of the week. The other time I checked at least 1 park was available the whole week.

 

[Deleted member 519]

It looks like hopper passes are being sold now. If that helps

 

[KathyNY]

It looks like hopper passes are being sold now. If that helps

Yeah, looks like I might stay 1ore day and update us to 4 park days now... debating if it's worth the $ for hopping. Guess I'll wait and see what the reports are like. While I'd like to hop to EP and roam WS, the kids want the rides. So not sure hopping in the afternoon will work in our favor...

I guess I'll at least get to see the TX/college Spring Break crowds before we go, so that might help me decide...

I'm a planner - I dislike this uncertainty!!

 

[smwisc]

Ah, so just wait and see and switch if it's looking desperate?

Is there a place to see what the park pass availability was like during Christmas? Of course I didn't think to look back then. (Maybe Josh has a post coming soon.)

Josh's "daily updates" posts had images of the park pass availability calendars - there's probably one in there showing December.

 

[hizouse]

Update on March calendar, since I checked again today:
DHS park pass reservations NOT available (but all other parks available):
M-F March 15-19
M-Th March 29-April 1
But all parks available the rest of March, including on the weekends before and after the weekdays listed above, which is curious. Could that be due to a cast member blackout on the weekends or something? April 1 is the Thursday before Easter; DHS is not available then but is available on Easter weekend. But then DHS not available again Mon-Wed after Easter.

 

[KathyNY]

Update on March calendar, since I checked again today:
DHS park pass reservations NOT available (but all other parks available):
M-F March 15-19
M-Th March 29-April 1
But all parks available the rest of March, including on the weekends before and after the weekdays listed above, which is curious. Could that be due to a cast member blackout on the weekends or something? April 1 is the Thursday before Easter; DHS is not available then but is available on Easter weekend. But then DHS not available again Mon-Wed after Easter.

Thanks. I've been checking it now and then too. I noticed maybe last week that the whole week after Easter showed no DHS availability and then a few days later, there was availability. I'm guessing they are increasing passes?

So far my 1pm boarding group practices have been successful, so I'm hoping we get it day 1 and I'll immediately switch day 2 to Epcot with no issue... we'll see!!

 

[hizouse]

Thanks. I've been checking it now and then too. I noticed maybe last week that the whole week after Easter showed no DHS availability and then a few days later, there was availability. I'm guessing they are increasing passes?

They did release some more passes last week; blogmickey said they didn't increase total capacity with the release, so I'm not sure whether they had been holding some back in hopes of making future sales or were just shifting between categories. (I really hope blogmickey is correct!)

Last week the wait times were about as high as they have been during COVID, just a tad under the week after Christmas. I think Saturday was the only day where all park passes were completely sold out. MK was often sold out in advance; I noticed AK sold out a couple days, at least for that particular day.

I did my first test last week; I made a DHS reservation after the new ones were released, and I was able to get a boarding group and also change park pass reservation to AK for that day (I quickly cancelled the boarding group and the park passes).

Checking now, for:
week of March 14: DHS gone every day, MK and AK gone Mon and Tues (so only Epcot available those 2 days)
week of March 21: DHS gone Mon-Wed
week of March 28: DHS gone every day, MK gone Mon

 

[KathyNY]

They did release some more passes last week; blogmickey said they didn't increase total capacity with the release, so I'm not sure whether they had been holding some back in hopes of making future sales or were just shifting between categories. (I really hope blogmickey is correct!)

Last week the wait times were about as high as they have been during COVID, just a tad under the week after Christmas. I think Saturday was the only day where all park passes were completely sold out. MK was often sold out in advance; I noticed AK sold out a couple days, at least for that particular day.

I did my first test last week; I made a DHS reservation after the new ones were released, and I was able to get a boarding group and also change park pass reservation to AK for that day (I quickly cancelled the boarding group and the park passes).

Checking now, for:
week of March 14: DHS gone every day, MK and AK gone Mon and Tues (so only Epcot available those 2 days)
week of March 21: DHS gone Mon-Wed
week of March 28: DHS gone every day, MK gone Mon

I hope blogmickey is right!

Just looked this morning and all of March and April are fully green now. There were a couple full weeks of both of those months where DHS was gone when I checked yesterday.

 

[hizouse]

Really wish I could see what's going on behind the scenes. Looks like DHS has since filled up for just one day in March.

I saw one AP holder with a resort reservation complaining recently about Disney requiring her to pick park passes from the resort guest pool, which was limited for her dates, and the AP holder pool, which had full availability. She pointed out that Disney was incentivizing her to cancel her resort reservation and stay off-site. Maybe this latest release was just reallocating from the AP holder pool to resort guests in response to complaints like this. Or just a Disney IT glitch, always a possibility!