Disneyland has announced that it will soon be ending its Early Entry perk, which allows guests staying at the Disneyland Resort Hotels to enjoy select rides and experiences in the parks before official opening. When this change goes into effect, Early Entry will be replaced by a new Lightning Lane Multi Pass perk.
Below, we will share when this change will take effect and details on the perk replacing Early Entry. Keep reading for everything you need to know!
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Disneyland Ending Early Entry Perk
Disneyland Early Entry enables guests of the three Disneyland Resort Hotels (Disney's Grand Californian, Disneyland Hotel, and Pixar Place Hotel) to enjoy 30-minute early access to select attractions, dining, and shopping locations at a designated theme park for each day of their visit. Currently, Early Entry is available for Disneyland Park on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and for Disney California Adventure Park on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Not every attraction is available during Early Entry, but many popular rides are open.
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At Disneyland Park, these available attractions include Alice in Wonderland, Astro Orbitor, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Disneyland Monorail, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, King Arthur Carrousel, Mad Tea Party, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Peter Pan's Flight, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, Space Mountain, and Star Tours – The Adventures Continue. At Disney California Adventure, the Early Entry attractions include Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission BREAKOUT!, Incredicoaster, The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!, Soarin' Around the World, and WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure.
Now, Disneyland has announced that starting January 5, 2026, it will no longer offer Early Entry for guests staying at the Disneyland Resort Hotels. Disneyland shared that on average, the majority of hotel guests were not taking advantage of this offering, and sometimes the designated entry park did not line up with where guests had theme park reservations for 1 Park Per Day tickets. The news comes as 2026 ticket and hotel packages go on sale today.
When Early Entry goes away in January, it will be replaced by a new Lightning Lane perk for Disneyland Resort hotel guests. Guests will receive one Lightning Lane entry for an available Lightning Lane Multi Pass attraction of their choice to use during their stay, subject to attraction availability. This perk will be offered once during their stay. Our understanding is that the perk will not vary based on the length of stay. Disneyland has updated their hotel perks page here.
While the Early Entry perk has been a major draw for the Disneyland Resort Hotels, there is no denying that it is not a very luxurious feeling to have to wake up so early in the morning to take advantage of this perk. This new Lightning Lane perk provides more flexibility for guests to enjoy expedited access on a more relaxed timeline.
We are a little surprised that this offering is limited to just one Lightning Lane entry for the entire length of stay. We would have expected to see 2-3 Lightning Lane entries for this perk to be an appealing replacement to Early Entry, but there are a few reasons why Disney may be limiting this.
The biggest reason is that they likely don't want this to cannibalize their Lightning Lane Multi Pass and premium Lightning Lane Premier Pass sales.
Demand has been very high for the three resort hotels over the last few years. This feels like they are testing to see if they can maintain that same demand without the cost of operating the theme parks half an hour early. While it is anecdotal, we always see lots of hotel guests taking advantage of Early Entry and know that it's one big draw for staying on property for us.
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This move also generally opens the door to giving Lightning Lanes to hotel guests as a perk. If the removal of Early Entry causes any decrease in hotel demand, perhaps they would increase the number of Lightning Lanes. It does feel a little bit strange to us that a one-night stay gets the same number of Lightning Lanes as a four-night stay. We even wonder if guests will try to break up their hotel stays into more than one check-in so that they can take advantage of this perk twice. The extra check-in and check-out periods would not be worth it, but it does feel weird that there's a loophole there.
More than anything, we wish that the announcement today was about an expansion of the Early Entry perk rather than a complete removal of it. We wish that this was paving the way for the return of Magic Morning, where all guests with 3-day or longer tickets purchased in advance got access to an early hour before park opening in Disneyland Park. It was a great incentive for a longer ticket stay and gave the perk to many guests staying at both the official Disneyland hotels and nearby. Magic Morning and Early Entry were both previously a full hour each day before park opening. Magic Morning for non-Disneyland Resort Hotel guests never came back after the theme parks reopened in 2021.
Frankly, there are fewer reasons for guests to stay on property now with this change, as Early Entry was one of the biggest perks of staying at a Disneyland Resort hotel. You can now pay less for a hotel room and use the difference to purchase full Lightning Lane Multi Pass. I am curious to see if demand shifts to some of the other upscale properties in the area, like the Westin Anaheim and JW Marriott, and the closest walking distance hotels on Harbor Boulevard.
The end of Early Entry and implementation of the new Lightning Lane perk will take effect in 2026. In the meantime, guests can still enjoy this perk through the end of the year. Don't miss this – there was also another hotel perk removed today as part of this news.
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Wow, what a jip. Paying that much money and only getting a LL for one ride compared to being able to ride multiple times with early entry. I have been saving for years for a once in my lifetime stay at the Disney hotel, to be in the bubble. Now I wonder why. How much more magic can Disney strip from their customers.
Really curious to see how people actually react in bookings. Will there be a big decline in hotel occupancy rates? If so, then they will play with this perk. I’m not sure how people will react here.
I won’t be staying at the hotels anymore. Lighting lane was free and the hotels were over 1/2 the price pre covid and guests got a hour before opening. The cost is ridiculous the (grand is averaging 900-1000 per night) but justified it for our kids. Now there is truly no reason to stay at a Disneyland property.
We’ve been to the grand once this year and have two more trips booked before the end of the year…this was one of the primary reasons to stay and pay the huge cost of the grand was its closeness and the early entry. We’d ride guardians, then head straight over to incredicoaster and midway mania and have all three done basically with a walk on…with this perk gone we will definitely be staying off property to save the difference and use the money doing other non-Disney things. since the reopening, me and my family have been to the grand twice every year….this is a terrible call by Disney and they will lose out.
Is there a verified source that confirms this is ending? The only information on Disney’s website is “can instead” and “to enjoy EE OR LL entry benefit… I’m not seeing any official statement from The Walt Disney Company saying it’s ending.
This is the official wording shared on the Disneyland website seen linked in the article above.
Stay at a Disneyland Resort hotel and delight in special benefits.
Prior to January 5, 2026: Guests who are checked in and staying at one of the Disneyland Resort hotels can take advantage of 30-minute early entry to a designated theme park every day of their hotel stay to enjoy select attractions, dining and shopping locations. Each day, either Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park will be open early. Please check the theme park calendar for the schedule.
Starting January 5, 2026: Guests who are checked in and staying at one of the Disneyland Resort hotels can take advantage of one Lightning Lane entry to a Lightning Lane Multi Pass attraction during their Resort stay.
Valid theme park admission and a park reservation for the same park on the same date are also required for Guests (ages 3+). Park reservations are limited, subject to availability and not guaranteed. Lightning Lane Multi Pass entry benefit for hotel guests is subject to attraction availability and restrictions, including the Lightning Lane Multi Pass terms and conditions.
Link theme park tickets or passes, theme park reservations and hotel reservations to the Disneyland app to show verification of these requirements. Tickets and passes can be viewed by selecting “Tickets and Passes” and hotel dates of stay can be viewed by selecting “My Hotel Reservation” in the Disneyland app.
Is there a verified source that confirms this is ending? The only information on Disney’s website is “can instead” and “to enjoy EE OR LL entry benefit’… I’m not seeing any official statement from The Walt Disney Company saying it’s ending.
For news like this Disneyland often reaches out to us to share it directly since it isn’t something they are promoting and it is instead a policy change. On the Disneyland website linked on this page you can see that they state it is ending with the date.
Wow. The last 2 times we went to DL (’22 & ’24), we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and a big reason we did was because of EE. Even though it was only 30 minutes, it allowed us to hit a few rides before rope drop, and placed us deeper into the parks to get first dibs on other attractions at official opening. Not to say there aren’t other perks of staying on-property, but the value doesn’t justify the cost for our next trip.