All-Day Park Hopping Returning to Disneyland in Summer 2026
Disney has announced that the 11 a.m. Park Hopping rule will be retired and all-day bouncing between Disneyland and California Adventure will be restored. This post covers the full details about the change, and our commentary about why DLR is doing this now.
This isn’t a huge surprise. Disneyland has gradually moved forward the start of the Park Hopping time since reopening 5 years ago. The last big change occurred over 3 years ago, back on February 4, 2023.
From that date through today, guests who enter a Disneyland or Disney California Adventure with a Magic Key pass or a Park Hopper ticket may begin crossing over between the parks starting at 11 a.m. Pacific. It was previously 1 p.m. prior to that.
The last big change occurred as part of the package of Good Changes Coming to Disneyland: Park Hopping, Ticket Prices, PhotoPass & Annual Passes. That was announced shortly after Bob Iger returned as CEO, replacing Bob Chapek. Iger was reportedly “alarmed” by price increases at Walt Disney World and concerned that Chapek was “killing the soul” of Disney.
He acted accordingly, making several changes one month later to improve the guest experience at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland, like bringing back free overnight self-parking at on-site resort hotels, adding on-ride photos to the Lightning Lane service, relaxing reservations rules, and more. An additional round of guest-friendly changes were announced several months later that undid more of the damage.
Fast forward three years, and current Parks Chair Josh D’Amaro will soon replace Bob Iger as CEO. Accordingly, we’ve been expecting a similar package of guest friendly changes as D’Amaro seeks to win over fans and set the tone for his tenure as CEO. (See 11 Great Changes Josh D’Amaro Could Make for Big Wins as New CEO, which covers Walt Disney World.)
The latest update comes courtesy of another Disneyland Resort Business Update. We were invited to attend an intimate media gathering with Disneyland President Thomas Mazloum and other leadership from the resort, who shared plans for the future and subtle changes they’ve made over the last year to improve the guest experience (more on that later).
Park Hopping Goes All Day Starting June 9th
By way of update, Disneyland has revealed that, beginning June 9, 2026, guests with Park Hopper tickets and Magic Key Annual Passes will be able to cross between parks without having to wait until 11 a.m., subject to availability of the applicable park.
When the change takes effect June 9th, guests will still need to select a first park on their park reservation, but they will not need to first tap into their starting park before Park Hopping. This is somewhat surprising, and makes the park selection a formality. (My guess is that it’s easier to just not change the backend infrastructure for whatever reason.)
Currently, guests must select reservations for Disneyland or Disney California Adventure.
Then, guests who purchase or have a Park Hopper ticket or Magic Key pass and an appropriate park reservation may cross over and switch between parks on the same day beginning at 11:00 a.m. (subject to availability).
However, guests who arrive at or after 11:00 AM are not required to enter the park for which they have the specific reservation. Meaning that after 11 a.m., it’s essentially a reservation for either or both parks. This is unlike Walt Disney World, which still requires entering that first park.
With the Park Hopping time restriction being eliminated, it stands to reason that so too could park-specific reservations.
Assuming the current policies hold, distinct reservations for DCA or Disneyland would become a formality once the Park Hopping restriction is dropped. Guests could make a reservation for whichever park is available, and then just start their day at the other park from the very beginning. Again, assuming the system uses the same logic that it does currently.
Arguably, eliminating the park-specific reservation would be as much of an incremental improvement as ending the Park Hopping restriction.
One thing we are not anticipating is the retirement of park reservations.
A couple of years ago, Walt Disney World long ago ended park reservations for regular ticket holders, relaxed rules for everyone else, and introduced Good to Go Days. That same change has not yet been made at Disneyland, which is just now “catching up” with the restoration of all-day Park Hopping.
More recently, we have argued that Walt Disney World should drop park reservations entirely, or at least make Good to Go Days the default. Meaning that days needing reservations should be the exception, not the rule. We have made no such argument for Disneyland, because it’s a fundamentally different destination.
Across Walt Disney World’s four parks, there zero danger of capacity constraints or problems on all but a couple of weeks per year. Even then, this is pretty predictable, with dates around Easter, Christmas, New Year’s, Columbus Day, etc. being hot spots due to the influx of tourists.
It’s a totally different story at Disneyland, where half of the visitor base is Californians. There’s a massive population of Annual Passholders within driving distance, and on top of that, resident ticket deals are a huge driver of attendance. In California, reservations are a useful tool for spreading attendance across the calendar, preventing surges over weekends, towards the end of ticket deals, etc.
Fans often point to park reservations as coming post-COVID, but that isn’t exactly true. They were actually one of new CEO Josh D’Amaro’s projects when he was President of Disneyland via the Flex Pass. They were an inevitability regardless, just as was paid FastPass. The only way that COVID changed the equation was enabling Disney to accelerate its reservations plans with a hard reset.
While we could see reservation rules relaxed at Disneyland, we’d be shocked if they ever truly go away. And unlike at Walt Disney World, it’s not something for which we’d even advocate–despite being Disneyland locals and Magic Key Annual Passholders.
Nevertheless, the return of all-day Park Hopping at Disneyland amounts to an incremental positive change.
That’s how Mazloum framed this during our conversation with him, sharing his perspective that a lot of little changes can amount to big changes in aggregate.
He wasn’t trying to spin this as some hugely consequential change–because it isn’t. He instead recognizes that ending the Park Hopping restriction and returning to 2019 normal is one step of many that’s needed to remove friction from the guest experience and simplify visiting Disneyland.
I know the Park Hopper rules bug a lot of locals, but there aren’t many times when I’ve wanted to Park Hop before 11 am. Maybe there have been a couple of times when we’ve wanted to get a jump on the lunch rush, but that’s really about it.
The best “use case” for an earlier Park Hopping time is probably rope dropping Disneyland and knocking out Fantasyland+ via standby while making Lightning Lane Multi-Pass ride reservations for DCA. Then, switching parks as soon as the first reservation window is close to closing. Depending on the day, I could see that being around 10 a.m., so there is some advantage to this for savvy strategists.
Accordingly, I don’t think any further commentary is all that necessary here. This is a small step in the right direction, but my view is that this is more symbolic than it is substantive. A recognition that Disneyland needs to simplify the guest experience and remove friction from the process. But really, that’s about it.
My sincere hope is that there’s more to come once Josh D’Amaro becomes CEO, which also could be accompanied by Mazloum ascending to Parks Chair and Disneyland getting a new President. (See Who Will Replace Josh D’Amaro as Head of Disney Parks & Resorts?) Even if those final two things don’t happen, that’s the optimal timing for a ‘package’ of guest experience improvements. Hopefully we’ll have more to share soon on that front, because this alone is pretty inconsequential.
Planning a Southern California vacation? For park admission deals, read Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets. Learn about on-site and off-site hotels in our Anaheim Hotel Reviews & Rankings. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. For comprehensive advice, consult our Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide. Finally, for guides beyond Disney, check out our Southern California Itineraries for day trips to Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and many other SoCal cities!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you excited for the return of all-day Park Hopping once again at Disneyland? Does this move the needle for you, or would you not change parks before 11 a.m. (or at all) regardless? If you’re a Park Hopping Power User, what’s your ideal or niche use case for aggressively changing parks? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
This is the update I have been waiting for! We are East coasters on our 3rd trip to Disneyland and doing one day park hopper on 4th of July. We have never done park hoppers before so this should be interesting.
We are going on 4th of July this year on a single day park hopper ticket. Had planned to start in Disneyland at rope drop and then hop to California Adventure. This new change now has me trying to figure out the best time to hop over. We will do time in both parks but also want to see the fireworks in Disneyland and spend some time at Pixar Pier at night. We have lightning lane, don’t want to do Peter Pan or Radiator springs, and will pay for Rise if needed. I’m just not sure how crazy crowded the parks will be and when we should plan to hop.
I have a very similar plan for July 4. Start at DL, then hop to DCA before it gets very crowded (noon? 2 pm?). Maybe get a LL for Soarin as soon as possible for mid afternoon, since they’ll probably go really fast.
Seeing the fireworks at Disneyland (9:35 pm) and Pixar Pier at night (sunset at 8:06 pm) might be challenging if it’s more crowded this year.
Park hopping is such an expensive extra add-on. It’s weird that Disney has to add so much restrictions to use a benefit that they imposed on the public.
So happy that park hopping will be open all day. The line to switch parks at 11am, and having to stand-back on the bricks- for the last 10″ prior to 11am was kind of frustrating the last time I was there. And if you reserve DCA and a few headliners are down-as has happened to me more than once- all rides I wanted to do are done, and we are ready to switch before 10, but we have to wait. Big win!
Cool. I always get Park Hopper, and I never start at DCA, because I don’t want to be stuck there until 11:00 AM if there are delayed openings at rope drop.
As a former SoCal resident (who would love to be one again if it works out), the best thing about being a passholder was spontaneous trips. Bad day at work? Go hang out at the park for a couple hours and it’s all ok again. You can’t do that anymore. As a tourist, I don’t mind the reservations as much since I plan my trips out anyway but as a local, they suck. Even if they just did something as simple as “weekdays past 5 pm, key holders don’t need a reservation,” that would be huge and a win win all around. Not just for us but for Disney – the pass holders looking to come for a few hours on a weeknight are probably not going to marathon all the rides with long lines. But they might spend money on dinner or even just some churros or popcorn.
Josh, if you’re reading this, you can have that idea for free. You’re welcome
This is one of the last times I can bring this up, so please bear with me if you remember saying this before. I figure some time difference was due to the different demographics Tom mentioned above, but WDW and DL had park hopping start *at the exact same time* through much of this era. I just confirmed that WDW was starting at 2PM when DL started at 11PM, and I think I remember it starting at 4PM when I was at WDW while DL started at 1PM. It was almost like a senior executive in Burbank was throwing a literal switch to allow park hopping everywhere in the US all at once. Almost hilarious, but so weird; in its own way, the most cliche Chapek-era decision.
It’s a small positive start is my thought. Hopefully we get a few more big positive changes for both US parks coming soon as part of the D’Amaro good will campaign.
in terms of strategy. yes i think rope drop famtasy or tomorrowland and early stack up of fantasies on Guardians soarin and so on midday before building up my later im the day stack for a evening run of Disneyland.
with closures (like indy!) I often end up spending the last few hours before fantasmic or fireworks running through them.
This is great news! Hopefully only the beginning of positive changes going forward.
Finally ! Standing in front of the park gate waiting for your park hopper allowed in time was annoying. Especially when you think how much you just spent on those park hopper tickets. Glad the rule has finally been abolished !