Special Info for these Crazy Times:
News for 2021:
- Disneyland Finally Scheduled to Reopen
- Planning and Executing Your Walt Disney World Vacation During These Trying Times
- 2021 Walt Disney World Armed Forces Salute Ticket Announcement
- Using Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets in 2021
- Using the Walt Disney World Theme Park Reservation System
- Park Hopping Returns to Walt Disney World Starting in 2021
Everything is Different at WDW since it Reopened. See Our Trip Reports:
- 2022 Disney Armed Forces Salute Timeline
- Our Return to Walt Disney World (Aug/Sep 2020)
- Our Second Trip Back to Walt Disney World (Nov 2020)
- Our Third Trip Back to Walt Disney World (Jan 2021)
This very exciting news is just coming out and evolving!
There has been no official announcement yet by Disney World , but many people are reporting that the expiration dates for their Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets are showing 26 September 2021 in their My Disney Experience Account.
UPDATED – 5 August 2020 – The expiration extension is only for unused Disney Armed Forces Salute tickets. If you had already used some of the days on your tickets prior to the shutdown, then the expiration remains 19 Dec 2020.
UPDATED – 20 June 2020 – Disneyland Resort has also extended their Salute Tickets through 16 December 2021!
On 12 June I had several direct reports and heard second hand of many Disney World Disney Armed Forces Salute Expiration dates being changed in My Disney Experience to the new September 2021 date.
At first some, but not all Walt Disney World Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets had had the expiration date adjusted to 26 September 2021.
I personally had 2 Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets linked in my MDE account and the dates had not changed when I originally published this. I had been checking them periodically for months to see if they would change!
(Update: about an hour after posting 1 of my tickets had the new expiration date)
(Update 2: 4 hours later both have updated to 26 Sept 2021)
Then late on 19 June Disneyland’s website updated with the news that they were extending their Salute Tickets through 16 December 2021.
Blockout Dates
Walt Disney World – There is no information about Blockout Dates,, but one can assume that 19 – 31 Dec 2020 could potentially be blocked from use as well as 1.5 to 2 weeks at the height of Spring Break (expect similar to Disneyland).
Disneyland Resort – 19 December 2020 through 4 January 2021 and 26 March through 11 April 2021.
To see our full thoughts on upcoming Blockout Dates and an explanation of what they are see: Why are there Blockout Dates?
Shades of Green
6/19- Shades of Green has officially announced this Salute Ticket extension, but offers no details yet.
What we don’t know
- If currently sold 2020 Salute tickets which go through Sept 2021 will have Blockout Dates for Christmas and Spring Break at Walt Disney World (they do for Disneyland Resort)
- When Disney will restart ticket sales
- If 2020 Salute Tickets will start being sold when they restart general public sales, later, or not at all
- If they restart 2020 Salute ticket sales, what the expiration date will be for the newly sold tickets
- If there will be a separate 2021 Salute ticket offer with new prices, or they just keep extending the 2020 offer with the same or higher prices
- Salute tickets have always been park hoppers or park hopper plus. With no park hopping for the foreseeable future, what does this mean for continued 2020 Salute ticket offerings and prices as well as 2021
It’s way too early to tell, we just have to wait to see what Disney does.
And sadly I don’t expect any emphasis on this issue from Disney based on how long it took them to extend the 2020 Salute tickets, not to mention their total silence to the military community the last 3 months.
How to Check Your Expiration Dates
On Your Desktop
You cannot check expiration dates on desktop computers, you can only see who each ticket is linked to.
On your plans page scroll down till you see: Daily Itinerary and Tickets & Memory Maker. Click on, Tickets & Memory Maker.
On your Disney App
These instructions are the same for both Walt Disney World’s My Disney Experience app and the Disneyland app.
After logging in, click on the menu icon in the bottom right.
Then click on Tickets and Passes (top left).
You will then see all of the tickets or passes that you have linked to those on your account as well as friends and family you’ve added.
As you can see the expiration has not yet changed on this ticket
Swipe to look at each ticket.
A Huge Help for Military Families
Even though this is being done on the down low, with no announcement it is a huge plus for Military Families who were left holding tickets worth hundreds to thousands of dollars that they thought they would not be able to use and would be out that money.
Thanks for finally doing this Disney!!!
Over to You for Intel!
Please! share your experiences with Disney Armed Forces Salute ticket expiration date extension in the comments below!
Tell us: WDW or Disneyland, how many tickets you have, how many have had the expiration extended, and if you are comfortable sharing roughly when you have Disney Resort reservations for. (I’m wondering if they are working chronologically).
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Read about the Temporary Changes to Disney World during their Post-Lockdown Re-Opening
See Our Great Disney Discount and Planning Info:- Disney Veteran & Military Discount Eligibility Guide
- The Military Family’s Walt Disney World Comprehensive Vacation Planning and Preparation Guide
- Military Disney Tips Disney Packing Checklist
- Disney Military Tickets – Your Start to Finish Guide
- Resorts/Hotel Overview Page
- Dining Overview Page
- Transportation Overview Page
- Technology Overview Page
- Shades of Green, WDW’s Military Only Resort
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Just checked mine and they are good until 9/26/21!!!!!
Same for me!
Was that for Disneyland or World? Just curious!
All indications so far is WDW only Christy.
I had emailed guest services about this and got a reply this morning. Here is the reply. Lindsay Hawkins (Disney)
Jun 12, 2020, 10:46:30 AM EDT
Dear Kerry,
Thank you for your reply.
Please know that your 6-Day Military Exchange Certificates have been extended until September 26, 2021. If you are seeking a refund, you will have to get in contact with the military base that you purchased them from, as we cannot provide a refund for these type of tickets. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause.
I hope this information is helpful, and we hope to see you real soon.
Kindest regards,
Lindsay Hawkins
Guest Experience Services
Walt Disney World Resort
I just spoke with someone at Disney who said if we are unable to go before the tickets expired, they would allow us to apply the value of the ticket towards a new ticket purchase. I saw this article when I finished speaking with them. I checked ours on the app and they’ve been updated! So relieved- we had a trip scheduled for late July and my husband is still on orders indefinitely for assistance with Covid19. We have a longer trip for November, but the extension will help just in case things change by then! Thank you so much for the update!
We have three 6-day salute tickets; we only linked them on Wednesday. One of our three has had the expiration date extended to Sep 2021. We (all three) have a room reservation for end of November 2020. The blockout calendar is also showing the tickets valid all through the Christmas/New Year period, but I’ve never used the calendar before so I’m not sure if that really indicates anything?
All three have now updated to the Sep 2021 expiration.
Just checked! Mine have changed to 9/26/21!
Two of ours have been extended but one is still showing December date
5/6 of our military promotional MYW tickets are now showing the 09/26/2021 date.. not sure why only 5 show it. All purchased the same time, and linked the same day. I will keep checking. We were supposed to go back in April, then rescheduled to June now booked for November.
Hey Steve you’re right. I logged in MDE app, and it shows 9/26/21 on the tickets bought from Shades of Green. I bought the tickets back in January. On the desktop of course, no date. Thanks for all you do.
Mine and my wife’s military tickets are good to 9/26/2021. Also noticed my son’s family’ non-military 5- day park hopper has the same 9/26/2021.
All three of my tickets have been extended!
WDW, scheduled for August 2020. 6 adults, three children staying at SOG. Adult tickets extended to Sep 2021, child tickets show expiration date 2030. Going to reschedule for sometime 2021.
This morning only 5/6 of our 6 day MYW ticket with parkhopper showed the new 9/26/2021 date. I checked again about an hour later and the 6th ticket finally showed the new date.
Our initial 8 day trip was scheduled to start today 6/12/20 . Because of SAR-COV-2 & the DOD travel restrictions we had to change our trip to 12/14/2020. I was worried because the old dates for the tickets ended on 12/18/2020, only 4 days after arriving so no way of using all 6 days of the MYW tickets. I’ve been trying to plan how to add a few more days of regular PH tickets to our resort reservation but now do not have to worry about that any longer. Thank you Disney!!
Thank you so much Steve for the updates! All 5 of our tickets now show an expiration date of 9/26/2021. When I first checked a few minutes ago, only 3 of the 5 tickets had the new expiration date. We were supposed to check in to SOG on 6/16/2020. We had already canceled our hotel reservations before Disney officially announce the reopening date. We are not comfortable visiting Disney this year. We are planning to reschedule for June 2021. I really appreciate all the hard work you have put in to help us military families!!!
Our two tickets were extended to Sept. 2021. We have reservations for Oct. 26 thru Oct 31. 2020. Waiting to see what happens….
All 4 of my tickets have been extended. Thank you Disney❤️
All my stress is now gone! Thank you Disney
We have military tickets for Disneyland. Just checked them on the app and they still show expiration of 12-18-20. Hoping they extend these, as well.
Please let us know if they get extended!
Will post!!!
Have you heard anything about the Universal Military discounted tickets being extended?
Nothing yet Holly.
I’ll see what I can find out.
I have 4 day park hopper passes for Disneyland, and when I go into the app I don’t see any expiration date like in your example – it’s just blank. Has there been any additional confirmation from Disney yet? I am not sure if I can count on rescheduling until next year.
Hi Tracy,
No indications yet of an extension from Disneyland.
In fact go to this page and click on Theme Park Tickets and see what it says about Salute Tickets.
However, this statement has been there several months now and Disney World hasn’t updated their website with the extension yet.
Well… I just tried to go to Disney World’s military special pages and they are gone, curious.
Hi! Just read your post & went immediately into the app and all three of our 6 Day Park Hopper tix have expiration dates of 09/26/2021!! We were originally scheduled for March 23 – rescheduled after closing to Nov 23. May reschedule in 2021 after discussion with fam.
Thx for all your hard work & posts! So helpful!
My pleasure Krista, thanks!
Hi Steve, do you have any information on the new Disney Parks Pass System for parks reservations, and how those of us that will stay at Shades of Green (and awaiting potential release of the 2021 tickets) will be affected? Because I see on June 24 reservations to the parks are allowed for those who have 1. A valid reservation, and 2. park tickets.
If reservations are open that long from June, and then we get our 2021 tickets in October, if we’ll find no reservations or very limited reservations for parks? Waiting to see what information you roll out about the new Disney Parks Pass reservation system and how this may affect those of us with 2021 Shades of Green reservations that have yet to purchase tickets for military in 2021! Thanks.
Hi Jennifer,
Things are evolving rapidly and there are things that I’m not allowed to say right now.
Let’s just say that Disney is aware that there are different groups of people who will need park reservations and that it will not be a free-for-all. Think about how under FastPass+ they balance attraction usage for advance FastPAss, day of FastPass, and standby guests.
Also as time goes on the attendance caps in the parks are going to increase.
We have our disney resort hotel booked for January 2021. Since the 2020 tickets have been extended, is it still possible to buy 2020 tickets at this point?
Hi Devon,
No the ticket sales pause is still in effect.
Still lots of unknowns! Sorry.
Hi Steve, Disneyland just extended military salute tickets to December 2021.
Thanks Cathy, I just saw that. Awesome!!!
This is great news for everyone! However, I am SUPER bummed that I actually returned our 4- 6 day Salute tickets to our local base for our May 2020 trip that I moved to May 2021. I am very upset because now people can start making park reservations for 2021 on Monday, and I’m wondering if the Military Salute tickets for 2021 will come out earlier than October.
I did read that if you have an existing resort reservation for 2021, you can call on June 24th and add tickets to your package. Maybe, I’ll do this for the time being to allow us to make park reservations for this trip before waiting until October… I’m also curious about the Military Resort discount as we had it for our May 2020 trip (but of course we lost it when we rescheduled to May 2021).
Thanks in advance for any help!
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
The park reservations tomorrow will just be for 2020. 2021 will come at a later date.
There are so many unknowns…
What we don’t know is:
It’s way too early to tell, we just have to wait to see what Disney does.
Thank you, Steve! I love your website and newsletters. I’ll just stay tuned and see what ends up happening. If I only had a crystal ball, I would’ve held onto our Salute tickets.
Take care,
Jessica W.
Jessica,
I’m equally bummed as we also returned our Military Salute Tickets for a refund just las week. This was after contacting Disney multiple times and being told that there was no extension. Hopefully we’ll be able to purchase them again with the same expiration date when sales start again. I’m so frustrated! Planning this trip has become quite the ordeal.
Take care,
Judy M.
I just saw on Disneyland’s site that they extended our Military Salute tickets to December 2021! Blockout dates apply like winter and spring break, but this is still awesome news nonetheless!!
https://disneyland.disney.go.com/travel-information/
Thanks Kim, Gonna post.
Thank you, i have been trying to find out when our tickets expire, good till Sep 2021. we gad planned to go May 2020.
Our Military Salute tickets got extended to Sep 26th 2021, 5 day Park Hopper, WDW. We had Yacht Club reservations for Sep 2020 and were not able to get tickets locally because ITR closed due to Covid. However, I was able to get tickets from Shades of Green even after Disney stopped selling tickets. I’m glad I linked them right away. I got an email from Disney saying I can start making park reservations on the 22nd of June.
So glad it worked out well for you Ines!
I purchased (4) 6-Day Park Hoppers back in February from our local base with the original intent to go to Disneyworld in June. We have since moved it to October but now thinking March 2021. These are not Military Salute tixs but we did get a discount. I haven’t linked these tickets to our Disney Experience app but I’m curious to know if anyone has done the same and did they extended them? When I Called the base ticket office last week she told me they would expire 12/18/20. Any information would be appreciated! Thank you!
Hi Denise,
The Regular Military Discounted Magic Your Way Tickets (non-Salute) behave just like the general public Magic Your Way Tickets. These were all extended right after the closure. Should they expire they retain value and can be used towards new purchases (through Disney).
my tickets now say they are valid until 12/31/2030.
Here is what disney has told me: Great question! Based on the information provided, your 2-Day 1-Park Per Day tickets will not begin to expire until used and then will expire 14 days from first use. The date of 12/31/2030 is a placeholder for non-expiring tickets. Our apologies for any confusion as this military-discounted ticket is one of the last remaining Walt Disney World ticket types sold that has a non-expiring option. Most other tickets are date-based now.
Awesome, thanks Joel!
Do you know if the new expiration date will be valid if the tickets haven’t been added to my reservation or activated yet? We ordered them the week before everything closed and they hadn’t even arrived at the base yet?
Yes Katie , the expiration will the new date on newly sold tickets as well.
Do you know when the armed forces salute tickets for 2021 will go one sale? We just made a resort reservation for February 2021 at Shades of Green last week but the tickets were not available for purchase.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Anita,
A Disney Armed Forces Salute for 2021 has not been announced yet. Historically this happens in late September.
And with what is going on there may not be a separate 2021 offer. As noted above the 2020 Ticket Offer has been extended for 3/4 of 2021 and when ticket sales resume (at an unknown time) they will have the Sept 2021 date.
So for your Feb date, you’ll just have to keep your eytes peeled for when the 2020 tickets go back on sale.
Be assured I’ll post about it!
Hi Steve,
Any news yet on when we can buy military salute tickets for 2020 from our local base? I was so excited to hear that they extended the purchase date to 3/4 with a September of 2021 expiration date! We had returned our original tickets thinking that the expiration date would be in December of 2020. Thank you so much for keeping us all updated!
Judy M
Hi Judy,
Sorry, no I don’t have any intel yet on when sales will start back up. I’ll post as soon as I do!
We are scheduled to go in December, but may reschedule to Feb 2021 if things are still not very safe for older folks as we will be traveling with my mom. We will be using the allotment of 6 tickets for 2020. Any news if we will be able to buy 6 additional tickets for 2021 since they are extending 2020’s, we were planning on going at the end of 2021 also?
Hi Laura,
No news on that yet, though that suggestion was in the letter I sent to Disney corporate leadership 2 or 3 weeks before the extension came out.
We’ll have to wait and see, and I’ll keep poking them.
Anxious to find this out as well, especially since I likely won’t use mine for 2020 IF they don’t allow another allotment for 2021.
My family was 4 days into our 6 day Salute tickets when WDW closed down in March, leaving us with 2 days unused. We’re planning on going back in December, so it probably won’t be an issue, but our tickets expiration dates still haven’t been changed to Sept 2021.
I’d call the internet help desk Shannon, to see if they can help with the expiration dates.
Disney Internet Help Desk at 800-848-6413, option #3
I have a 6 day salute ticket in which I used 4 of the 6 days. Looking at the MDE APP, the expiration date still shows as 12/18/2020. I called the number you mentioned above. The extension for the expiration is not being applied to tickets already in use. The CM suggested I contact Shades of Green where my tickets were purchased. Just wanted to share in case someone else was in the same situation as me.
Thanks for sharing the intel Yvonne.
What are the options for partially used salute tickets other than use by September 2021? We used 2 days already prepandemic closure. We have 2 kids under the age of 5 and I am not sure how they will handle wearing masks all day, since our state rules exempt under 5 years old and the World Health Organization recommends (in bold) that children under age 6 not wear them. I asked Disney about switching to a water park day, but they said that was a separate add-on. Do they ever apply partially used military ticket credits to new tickets? We really want to go after masks are optional for preschoolers, so we’d happily pay for an upgrade to 2021 (or 2022) tickets.
Hi there Wendy,
The Disney Armed Forces Salute tickets are a special offer with special rules. The tickets can only be used within the length of the offer in question that they were sold for, in this case the 2020 which as you know was extended through 26 Sept 2021. These tickets expire (for use) and lose all value at the end of the offer.
The water parks have yet to open, but would not be exempt from mask wear if Disney is still adhering to it. The water park option is an upgrade to the basic hopper option salute ticket.
Normally the only option for extending the value you have in partially used salute tickets is to upgrade them to season passes. But the 1 year season pass would start on the first day that you used the salute tickets, which in this instance would be shorter than the 26 Sept expiration anyway.
Your only option is to wait and see how the next month or so plays out, and if masks will be required moving forward.
Our 3.5 year old grand daughter has been to WDW this year and she is now almost 4 and we’ll be taking her again next week. But over 3 wear of masks is required here in OH, so she has occasionally worn them when going out this year. It seems less an issue for her than me, lol. I hate it…
Thank you for the info! Hopefully a lot can change between now and next September.