Some Disney Military Tickets Require Theme Park Reservations!

Theme Park Reservations will still be needed for some military tickets at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

The Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets for Walt Disney World and Disneyland and the Regular Military Disneyland Theme Park Tickets still require Theme Park Reservations!

Date Based Tickets

Disney has removed the need to make theme park reservations for date-based tickets.

Tickets sold to the general public and the new are date-based. These are sold at full price as part of a Disney Resort Reservation Package or at the gate. When purchasing a package your resort room dates are set and the tickets are for the dates of the trip. When you walk up to the gate, they will ask if you will start using the tickets that day or on another date

Since September 2018, Disney has sold only Date Based Tickets to the General Public

• Date Based Tickets are only valid on the days for which they are purchased
• Date Based Tickets vary in price by the start date of the ticket
  • Popular, high-attendance dates are more expensive (sometimes way more expensive)
  • Slower periods that are less popular are cheaper
• Date Based Tickets are full price plus sales tax

Park-Based Pricing – In December of  2022, Disney World introduced Park Based Pricing for general public single-day tickets. This means with a single day ticket you will pay a different price for each theme park.

Walt Disney World Military Theme Park Tickets – These new WDW Military tickets are also date-based and the 1-day versions are Park-Based, so all the above applies. Walt Disney World Military Theme Park Tickets

Non-Date Based Tickets

Both the Disney Armed Forces Salute and Regular Disneyland Military Theme Park Tickets are non-date-based! Meaning that you can purchase them and then use them on any day that you’d like (within their validity period), with a reservation. The Salute Tickets can be used on any day during the offer period (excluding blockout dates), with a reservation, while the Regular Military Tickets typically have an expiration date of 31 December the following year.

The various annual passes, general public, and discounted military are also non-date based.

What this Means

What this means to the US military community is that we will continue to have to purchase our Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets and Disneyland Tickets well in advance so that we can make theme park reservations.

This means purchasing your tickets at your local base or from a Ticket Office that Ships if a base is not convenient.

Unrestricted Park Hopping also returns as of 9 January 2024. This means that you will again have the ability to Park Hop at any time of the day that you desire as you did prior to the 2020 closure. No more waiting until 2 p.m. to park hop!!!

However, there is a caveat for military tickets due to the theme park reservations. You still have to enter the park where you have a reservation before you can enter another park (Park Hop). You do not have to spend any time in the park with the reservation if you don’t want to, you can enter and then exit.

The need to do this would only come into play if you changed your mind about what park you wanted to start your day at and you couldn’t just switch reservations to that park.

Virtual Queues –  Because theme park reservations are required for military tickets, you will need to have a reservation for the park where you would like to join the virtual queue at 7 a.m. (while the general public can attempt to join any virtual queue at 7. There is no change to the 1 p.m. virtual queue, you need to have tapped into the park where you’d like to join the queue.

Wrapping it up

In my mind, I can’t believe the volume of military folks on property each day would be enough to make a single park’s attendance unbearable!!! So I don’t know why Disney is making the military community continue with this artificial, unneeded procedure!

We’ve got no clue yet what the reservation landscape will be like in 2024 with so many fewer people using it. Will parks ever become full and have no reservations allowed? Only time will tell.

As of the date of this post (20 Dec ’23), every single day of 2024 (Including peak periods like Spring Break and Christmas) is green, meaning all 4 parks are available.

Links:

Buying Disney Military Tickets Long Distance

​The Military Disney Tips Guide to Park Hopping​

• Back to Basics Posts - A great place to start, offering basic topics!
• 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

The Mouse Experts is a travel booking company specializing in Disney vacations. Military family owned and operated! They know all the ins and outs of Disney military discounts!