Park Reservations Differ From Fastpass Reservations When it Comes to Adding Locals

After a lengthy phone call with the VI Passholder line this morning, I was able to confirm that reserving park time will not act like reserving fastpasses when it comes to adding your local family and friends to your plans. Read on for details.

While this was not the specific issue I was aiming to resolve on this (two and a half hour!) phone call, over the course of our discussion, the cast member let me know that unlike the previous Fastpass system, guests with resort reservations will not be able to add local family and friends during their initial booking window.

The previous Fastpass+ system had something called the “rule of inheritance”. This allowed guests with resort reservations to add their family and friends to their Fastpass+ experiences even if they were not on the resort booking.

As long as one guest in the party had a resort reservation booked, the window for booking fastpasses for the entire party opened at the 60 day mark.

The cast member I spoke to today confirmed that this will NOT be the case with the new park reservation system. Cast members have specifically been told that the new system will not have the “rule of inheritance”.

She told me that if my parents would like to join our party during our resort stay in August, they will not be able to reserve park time until Friday, June 26. This is the date for all passholders, my parents are Florida Resident Gold Passholders, to book their time.

It’s a small change, and it is possible that many of our readers will not be affected. Still, I thought we should communicate to you as you make your plans on Monday that you will be limited to booking for only the guests specifically listed on your resort reservation.

Passholders without resort reservations will be able to start booking time on Friday, June 26, followed by guests with regular park tickets who do not have resort bookings on June 28.

Check out Susan’s helpful article on step by step instructions for making your park reservation. Make sure you have your tickets linked in My Disney Experience before the system goes live on Monday morning!

I know this is all a lot of new information for everyone. What other questions do you have? We are all available in the Facebook group and in the Facebook comments to try and help our readers make sense of everything!

-Rebecca W Davis