How Early Do You Need to Plan Your 2022 Disney World Vacation?

Experienced Disney World vacation planners know that the key to an awesome vacation is typically a lot of early planning.

The thinking is that if you get a lot of the logistics out of the way as early as possible, you’ll have less stress during your trip and more time to enjoy the parks. But some recent changes have made it more difficult to plan ahead, and a few of the deadlines for reservations have been adjusted.

So how early do you really need to plan your 2022 Disney World trip? Let’s take a look at all the factors.

There are some hard deadlines for Disney World trip planning, such as when you can book reservations and get certain discounts. Other deadlines are more flexible, but we’ll give you an estimate for the best time to plan those elements, based on when you’re visiting and what your priorities are.

Watch for These Hard Deadlines

Advanced Dining Reservations and special offers from Disney both have definitive dates for when you should book them for your trip.

Advanced Dining Reservations

Most Table Service restaurants at Disney World require reservations, and you can start to make those reservations 60 days before your visit.

If you’re staying at a Disney World hotel, you can make reservations for your entire trip (up to 10 days) 60 days before the first day of your visit. So even though the days after that first one are more than 60 days out, you can still make reservations for them since they’re a part of that visit.

Guests at other hotels (not owned by Disney World) will need to make reservations 60 days before each day of their trip.

Although it’s possible to make reservations at any time before your visit (once you’re within that 60-day window), we highly recommend reserving your spot at your top-choice restaurants as soon as possible.

Popular restaurants like ‘Ohana and California Grill as well as new restaurants like Space 220 in EPCOT tend to run out of reservations very quickly. (And don’t even get us started on how difficult it is to get reservations at Oga’s Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge!) For the best chance at getting into your favorite restaurants, be ready right at 5:45AM ET on the first possible day to make reservations.

If you can’t get the reservations you wanted, don’t lose all hope! Restaurants will sometimes get more availability later on if other guests cancel. Keep checking back to see if an opening appears during your trip.

Click Here to See How to Get Some of the BEST Food in Disney World Without a Reservation

Don’t forget that there are a lot of great quick service restaurants around Disney World as well, which don’t require reservations at all. And some of the popular sit-down restaurants have lounges where you can order items from the full-service menu.

If you didn’t get reservations for Steakhouse 71, head to the lounge at this spot, where you can still order from a great menu of bites (and even get the delicious Stack Burger). Nomad Lounge is adjacent to Tiffins in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and you can order some things off of the Tiffins menu there (such as the popular Bread Service).

DEADLINE: 5:45AM ET 60 Days before your trip

2022 Discounts

Disney World discounts are another time-dependent deadline, and you’ll need to check out the individual deadline for any discounts you’re hoping to apply to your vacation.

Currently, many of the 2022 discounts are specific to Annual Passholders and US Military Members. If you fall into one of those categories, check out the Disney World Special Offers page to see if you qualify.

Right now, hotel savings of up to 25% is available for Disney+ subscribers on most nights between July 8th and September 30th, 2022, and Annual Passholders and Florida Residents can save on Disney World hotels between July 8th and September 8th. Annual Passholders and Florida residents can also save up to 30% on stays at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resorts over the summer. It’s worth checking back frequently to see if a new offer applies to you!

Other special offers may have deadlines for booking, such as “The Magic is Yours” deal for people traveling from the United Kingdom in 2023. Eligible guests have until July 27th to book a trip to Disney World between January 1st and December 17th, 2023.

We’ll let you know about big Disney World discounts and any deadlines that you need to be aware of, so keep following AllEars for updates on that front.

DEADLINE: Check the individual discounts to see the booking deadlines.

Click Here to Check Out MORE 2022 Disney World Discounts

Also Plan for These Soft Deadlines

There are some more things that you’ll need to plan and reserve in advance, but these don’t have strict deadlines. As a rule of thumb, ASAP is usually a good time to do it 😉 .  But we’ll check out some of the general timelines for these planning elements so that you’ve got a ballpark range of when you should be making these plans.

Park Passes

Once you have your theme park tickets, you will also need to make Park Pass Reservations. Disney World started the Park Pass Reservation system when they reopened in 2020 as a way to control capacity. It has stuck around, and you won’t be able to enter a park without a reservation.

The exception to this rule is park hopping. If you have a park hopper ticket, you don’t need a park pass reservation for the park that you’re hopping to later in the day. But you do have to enter the first park (which you do need a reservation for) before you can hop to the next one.

We have seen Park Pass Reservations run out at some Disney World parks, especially for popular days like holidays and special events. If you’re visiting Disney World during a peak season (like summertime or the holiday season), try to get park pass reservations at least a couple of months in advance.

Right now, the reservation availability looks pretty wide open for the rest of 2022, other than July, which has been fairly busy.

We checked out the availability for August…

…and September. Both months have passes available at all four theme parks on every day of the month.

There are also plenty of passes available right now for busier seasons like the holidays.

Don’t let the availability now lull you into a false sense of security. Last year, we saw park passes run out for some dates during the holiday season as early as October.

If you can, book your park passes as soon as you buy your Disney World tickets. (You will need to have tickets to reserve park passes. The exception is Annual Passholders, who get a limited number of Park Pass Reservations at one time.)

In general, you should be able to book reservations for the theme parks you want to visit if you’re at least a couple of months out from your trip. For some dates and parks, you’ll be able to book reservations even closer to your visit.

DEADLINE: Shoot for 2-3 months before your trip

Hotel Reservations

If you’re staying at a Disney World hotel, it’s best to book your reservations early for the best price and the most options. Depending on the time of year, you might be able to find a Disney hotel just a few weeks before your stay. But the most popular hotels (and the least expensive ones) tend to fill up a few months in advance.

Some popular hotels that you’ll need to book early include Disney’s Contemporary Resort and Disney’s Polynesian Resort (both are near Magic Kingdom and both have newly renovated Disney movie–themed rooms), Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, and Disney’s Port Orleans Resorts.

So how early do you need to make these hotel reservations? Let’s see what’s available as of writing. (Note: For this experiment — which we did on July 7th, 2022 — we looked at a four-night stay covering both weekdays and weekends.)

Two Weeks Out: There were 12 options for Disney World hotels, and several of these options were less than $500/night. (Port Orleans – French Quarter for $207/night might not be too bad of a deal!)

A number of hotels were unavailable, such as the Contemporary and Polynesian.

Your mileage may vary, so keep in mind that you might not have your ideal hotel choice available if you’re booking this close to your trip.

One Month Out: A little further in the future, we found more options available. One month out, there were fifteen available hotels.

All fifteen options were less than $500/night, though several of the deluxe hotels came close.

Depending on the time of year, it seems like one month out may give you a few more options to get a good deal on your Disney World hotel.

Three Months Out: If you look three months before your trip, you’ll generally see a lot more options and some more reasonable prices — but NOT if it’s during a busy holiday season. When we looked at October availability, only five hotels were available.

We noticed that one of the All-Star resorts (a series of Value resorts) was available, along with Art of Animation. Other than that, only two Moderate hotels and one Deluxe resort were available.

There were still a few unavailable hotels, such as Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and the Contemporary.

Because October is three months out and it tends to be a popular time to visit for the Halloween season, you might want to consider booking out further if you’re visiting during the holiday season.

Nine Months Out: If you’re able to plan nine months before your vacation, you’ll have plenty of choices. In fact, EVERY hotel was available when we looked! We noticed that some Value resorts were more expensive than when we looked for three months out, but keep in mind that April can be a busy time for Spring Break visitors.

The popular Contemporary had reservations open, and Grand Floridian had availability as well. In fact, as we mentioned above, EVERY Disney World hotel was available!

DEADLINE: Based on our experiment, it looks like three months out will get you some fairly reasonable prices (for Disney World hotels) and a good amount of options. But like most of the things on this list, the earlier you can plan and make reservations, the better.

Click Here to Learn About the Disney Hotel Rooms that Need to Be on Your Bucket List!

Travel to Disney World from the Airport

Don’t forget that Disney World has officially discontinued Magical Express, so you’ll need a plan to get to your hotel from the airport if you’re flying into Orlando.

The two replacement services — Mears Connect and Sunshine Flyer — both require advanced reservations. You may need to input your flight information to make some of these reservations, so look to book them after you have your plane ticket.

We recommend booking your spot as soon as you buy your airplane tickets. Both of these services are new-ish, so we don’t know yet how often reservations sell out.

It’s also safer to have the reservations booked early so that you don’t forget to make those plans.

If you have a larger party or will need special accommodations (for wheelchairs or baby seats, etc.), it’s especially important to reserve your spot as soon as possible.

DEADLINE: To be safe, book your transportation from the airport as soon as you have your airplane tickets.

Click Here to Learn a LOT More About Planning a Disney World Vacation

Consider the Time of Year

If you’re visiting Disney World during a busy time, reservations (for hotels, park passes, and restaurants) are going to run out faster. Here’s a list of some of the busiest dates in Disney World for the remainder of 2022; if you’re visiting during one of these times, try to give yourself some extra time to plan, and get those reservations as soon as possible.

(Note that the EPCOT festivals take up most of the year, but the busiest times for these festivals will be the first few days. If you’re visiting later on during the festival, crowds will probably be about average in the parks.)

• July 14th to November 19th: 2022 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival
• Select Nights August 12th to October 31st: Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party
• November 3rd-6th: 2022 Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend

• Select Nights November 8th to December 22nd: Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party
• November 25th: EPCOT Festival of the Holidays
• October through December: The last few months are always pretty busy with the holiday season, including Halloween and Christmas festivities.

Click Here to See ALL of the Most Important Dates in Disney World in 2022

Some Things Require LESS Advanced Planning

If you haven’t been to Disney World in a while, you might be surprised by some of the things missing from this list. For example, we didn’t mention FastPass+ reservations. That’s because FastPass has been replaced with Genie+ (the new paid system for skipping the line in Disney World).

Genie+ costs $15 per ticket per day, and it allows you to make plans to skip the line at certain Disney World attractions throughout your day.

You can only buy Genie+ on the day of your visit. You can buy it starting at 12AM on the day of your visit.

And you can’t make Genie+ selections for individual rides until 7AM on the day of your visit.

The other system for skipping the line in Disney World is Pay-Per-Ride (Individual Attraction Selection), which applies to the most popular attractions in the parks. These attractions are not included with Genie+. To skip the lines there, you will need to pay a separate fee. Pay-Per-Ride reservations can be made at 7AM if you’re staying at a Disney World hotel or whenever the park opens if you’re not at a Disney World hotel.

This is a big change from FastPass+, which allowed guests to reserve their FastPasses months in advance. Now, you’ll be making your selections on the day of your visit.

Click Here to Learn All About Genie, Genie+, and Pay-Per-Ride

We hope this helps as you start planning your upcoming Disney World vacation! Keep following AllEars for more tips and tricks as you plan.

Click Here to See 10 BIG Mistakes You’re Making When Planning Your Disney World Trip

Are you visiting Disney World in 2022? Let us know in the comments.

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