Hi, Katherine, welcome to planDisney!
As the planner in my family, I can appreciate you wanting to explore your options and trying to remain flexible if the Florida weather takes a turn for the worse. We just visited
Walt Disney World in mid-January and experienced a couple of cold and wet days before the sun finally came out on our last park day, but regardless of the weather, we enjoyed all that Disney World had to offer!
As of January 9, 2024, there have been some awesome changes at the
Walt Disney World Resort surrounding theme parks and the reservation system. As you stated, date-based tickets no longer require a park reservation, however, it is still recommended that you check the
Theme Park Reservation Availability site to see what parks are available during your visit as the ability to visit a park is subject to capacity limits. For example, if you were to purchase a 1-day ticket theme park ticket, you would be required to select the date of your visit and the park you would like to visit (basically creating a reservation). There is a chance if you wait, that the park you would like to visit will not be available, although this is typically only the case during the holiday season.
However, if you buy a multi-day theme park ticket, you will only be required to select the start date of your ticket, and then can pick which park to visit the day of, again, subject to park capacity limits. The nice part of purchasing a multiple-day ticket is that you are given a window of days to visit the parks, so you have some flexibility if there is bad weather. To illustrate, if you were to purchase a 4-day ticket starting on March 1st, you would have until March 7th to use the four visits, and they do not have to be consecutive.
My suggestion would be to visit the
Theme Park Ticket page, select the number of days you are considering visiting, see the window of dates that your tickets could be used, and then decide whether to buy now versus on your arrival date. Another perk to purchasing your tickets ahead of time is that it will allow you time to link the tickets to each member of your party in the My Disney Experience app ahead of time so that when you arrive, you can head straight to the Mickey tap-in at your favorite park, scan your MagicBand or MagicBand+ and start vacation without delay!
I hope this answers your question, Katherine! If you need any more assistance, please come back to planDisney and you can
ask me a question directly for more help with your planning!
Brent