Disney World is at maximum capacity for the second weekend in a row

Disney World is not accepting any new park pass reservations for the second weekend in a row. What do you think of the increasing crowds?

Park passes and capacity

To help control the number of Guests entering the parks each day, Disney implemented the park pass system. This system forces Guests to choose which park they want to visit on each day of their vacation. The process for obtaining a park pass is fairly simple. You can read our complete guide HERE.

While Disney remained quiet in the beginning regarding regarding how many Guests could be in the park at one time, Bob Chapek revealed capacity was 25%. Not long after, the capacity was raised to 35%. With Guests feeling more comfortable traveling and a busy holiday season, those numbers are maxed out for today, December 13.

Last weekend, December 5, saw the first sold out park pass day for December. It was also the first weekend of the month. This is a trend we will likely see continue for the rest of the month and into the New Year. We may even see weekdays “sell out” toward the end of the month!

Sunday, December 13

Take a look at these screenshots from today, Sunday, December 13. It shows that all 4 theme parks are unavailable for new park reservations in all three categories. The three categories of park passes are Theme Park Ticket Guests, Disney Resort Guests, and Annual Passholders.

Annual Passholders are typically the first category to become unavailable, but it’s not uncommon for Disney to shift availability to accommodate more passholders. For today, however, no Guests will be able to snag park passes unless other Guests cancel them.

This comes just a few days after Disney released/shifted new park pass reservations for this month. Weekends in December are definitely popular among visitors!

What does this mean for visiting Guests?

Guests who purchase date-based multi-day Disney World theme park tickets may run into an issue if one of the dates they are visiting is sold out. This can be very stressful because it could mean losing out on one of the parks you planned to visit, wasting money, and needing to come up with something new to do that day.

Disney recently shared their policy regarding tickets and sold out park days.

Basically, you can still purchase tickets even if one of the days is sold out. You still won’t be able to visit that day, but you can use all your tickets. In the instance where there are too many sold out days, you will not be able to purchase multi-day date based tickets.

You can read more about this HERE.

With the parks closing sooner in the day, this leaves many locals unable to visit during the weekdays after work. Now, it appears as if they are visiting during the weekends. This, combined with the already busy season at Disney World, means there are a lot more people visiting on Saturdays and Sundays this month.

With the FastPass+ system temporarily suspended, queue lines could become rather long and wait times could spike. Be sure to use touring plans from Character Locator to help you plan your day! Kenny created and tested the “2020 plans” to help navigate the parks without FasPasses, characters, and parades/fireworks.

Are you at any of the Disney World theme parks today? Share your live reports from the parks with us on Facebook or in our KtP Crew!