Hi there, Rachel! I'm so glad you reached out! I'm always happy to help a friend plan their visit to the Happiest Place on Earth!
With the new theme park reservation system, all Guests are required to have both a theme park ticket and reservation to enter the parks. I think it's easiest to think about the two separately - your ticket gets you into the gates while your reservation is the date on which you are attending. The reservation can be canceled and rescheduled depending on your plans. When purchasing tickets, you are asked to choose a specific date for your reservation, and I'm guessing this is where you are seeing some limited availability. With spring break upon us, everyone is eager to spend some time with Mickey and Minnie! While my magic wand does not extend far enough to open up that calendar for you, I'm happy to give you some tips and tricks that will hopefully lead to a happily ever after for your kiddos!
While reservations are limited and subject to availability, this does not mean they are gone forever for March 23rd. Guests are always changing their plans, so reservations can (and often do!) open up! My best advice here is to grab some patience and a whole lot of faith, trust, and pixie dust and continue to check the theme park reservation calendars. It sounds like you are traveling to
Disneyland Park, but I'm also including a link to the
Walt Disney World Resort reservation calendar where you would find the Magic Kingdom just in case! Guests have until 11:59 p.m. the evening before to cancel, so as the date gets closer, you may see some openings pop up!
If a reservation does open up, it can go quickly, so I would have your fast fingers ready to purchase those
tickets! The reservation is not guaranteed until you have confirmed your purchase. While this may not be ideal, one option would be to purchase tickets and choose the next available reservation date. When you are checking the calendar, it can be more time-efficient to cancel and rebook a reservation rather than go through the entire check-out process. Reservations can be easily canceled within the Disneyland Mobile App or on the Disneyland Website. In the app, navigate to the three-bar menu in the bottom right-hand corner and tap into "Future Plans". Here you will see any upcoming reservations. Click on the one you'd like to change and you will see the "Cancel Reservation" option. Once complete, it will take you back to the starting page where you can rebook. Tickets are non-refundable, but if for some reason the stars do not align on March 23rd, you have until December 30, 2023 to use single-day tickets. Even after they expire, you can always put the original value towards the purchase of a new ticket - the magic never fully burns out!
When you are looking at the theme park reservation calendar, note that you can toggle between One Park Per Day ticket availability and Park Hopper ticket availability. These two different types of tickets pull from their own pools of reservations, so be sure to check both! With a Park Hopper, your kids can choose if they want to spend the morning in Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park and then have the ability to hop between the two after 1 p.m. If you see that Disney California Adventure Park is open for Park Hoppers on the 23rd, you may consider purchasing those tickets knowing that your kids will be able to meet up with their friends after 1 p.m.
Rachel, I know this was a lot to take in. If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out!
Magic awaits!
Tara