Yesterday, April 18th, Disneyland tickets and reservations went on sale for the first time since the Disney Parks closed down back in March 2020. While the process seemed to go smooth at first, the day was littered with issues.
I signed in about 7:45am with a couple browsers and my phone hoping to increase my chances. The wait was long as we sat waiting for our wait time to go under an hour. Otherwise you sat staring at the "Over an hour"message taunting you. There didn't see to be many problems for a while. There were reports of people getting in, buying tickets and making reservations successfully.
The Troubles Begin
However, around 11 we ran into our first issue. The Disneyland online queue page suddenly said "Recalculating" and proceeded to remain that way for an hour. It was a torturous hour as we waited for the website to come back online. Thankfully it did around the 1 hour mark.
It was a little while after that, around 2 that I finally got one of my browsers to start counting down. A couple of my friends had already been able to get through and get their Disneyland tickets. I was getting hopeful that I was actually going to be able to have good luck. I really should have known better.
Around 3:00 was when I finally got in, however, it wasn't long before I realized that the queue was only for making reservations, not buying tickets. At that time, opening Saturday was still available, so it was extra frustrating to not be able to do anything and the rest of my browsers were not counting down yet. At this point, after 7 hours of waiting I started losing hope and getting down.
Success! Disneyland Tickets!!
Unfortunately, I had to wait another hour before I could finally get my tickets. That put my total wait time as 8 hours. I was able to successfully get tickets for:
Disneyland for Sunday 5/2
Disney California Adventure on 6/4 for opening day for Avenger's Campus
But my day didn't end there, I stayed in the queue for another friend to help them get Disney tickets as well. The process was so long and frustrating, a few of my friends teamed up to help each other out.
Keep an eye out for vlogs and videos once I get back to the Disney parks. I am very excited to be able to get some fresh content from Disneyland again! While I have enjoyed spending time in Downtown Disney and Disney California Adventure, there is no substitute for Disneyland.
Summary of Disney Ticket/Reservation Issues
Obviously, we didn't go into the day expecting it go smoothly without issue. However, I was disappointed with the issues that did arise while purchasing Disneyland tickets. I feel like they should not have occurred.
Here are the issues that I was aware of through my experience and my friends:
Reservations/Tickets Queues
Separate Queues: The online queues for reservations and tickets seemed to be separate. At times, they also seemed to be random.
Personally, I ended up in the reservations queue first and was unable to purchase tickets.
Another friend purchased their tickets and had to wait in another queue to make their reservations.
This could have been avoided by making one queue for all transactions.
Reservations Could Have Been Missed
Thankfully I didn't have this issue, but I know many people could easily miss making separate reservations
When you go to purchase tickets, you select the date you wish to purchase. While this was only to make sure you bought the correct ticket (Disneyland tickets are separated into tiers with separate prices), some people assumed that was the same as creating a reservation
Recalculating
For an hour, we got to stare at a screen that just said "Recalculating"
It's uncertain what the exact issue was, but it was maddening.
Comments