Hello and welcome to
planDisney, Barbara. How exciting you are vacationing at Walt Disney World in just a few days. I'm certain there is no better way to start off a new year.
To enter a
Walt Disney World Theme Park, even just for dinner, you need two things. The first is valid theme park admission and the second is a park pass reservation for the initial theme park you plan on visiting for the day. Your dinner reservation alone is not enough to gain entry into the parks even if you are just planning on eating and leaving.
You have a few different options for tickets, Barbara. You can purchase a standard theme park ticket that allows you to enter one park per day or you can upgrade to the park hopper option. The park hopper allows you to enter multiple Walt Disney World Theme Parks in one day. After you have purchased your tickets and linked them to your
MyDisneyExperience account, you can then go ahead and make park pass reservations for the first theme park you are planning on visiting each day.
Park pass reservations are like a virtual placeholder in line at the theme park you'd like to visit each day since the Walt Disney World Theme Parks are still operating at a limited capacity.
I wanted to mention that park hopping looks a little bit different than it did before. Here's how
park hopping is currently working:
- Guests wishing to park hop must have valid theme park admission with the park hopper option
- Guests wishing to park hop must have park pass reservations for the initial theme park they plan on visiting each day
- On the day of, Guests wishing to park hop must scan in and enter the theme park with the park pass reservation first before continuing on to other theme parks later in the day
- Park hopping hours now start at 2:00 p.m. and lasts until each park closes in the evenings
- To make park hopping a little bit more convenient for Guests, complimentary park-to-park bus transportation is currently being offered
To clarify, yes, you will need theme park tickets and park pass reservations to enjoy dining at a restaurant in a Walt Disney World Theme Park. If you are looking for dining recommendations that don't require a theme park ticket, I suggest looking at restaurants at the Walt Disney World Resort Hotels and at Disney Springs.
If you have any other questions about this or anything else, please feel free to stop back by and
ask me. I'm here to help.
Have fun and enjoy!
Jackie H.