Disneyland Resort Ending Early Entry January 2026
Disneyland Resort announced today that it will be ending the 30-minute Early Entry perk for Resort guests starting January 5, 2026. Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park will maintain the current Early Entry schedules posted on the Disneyland website calendar through January 4, 2026. Disney is offering a Lightning Lane entry in place of the Early Entry access.
What’s Changing
Disneyland Resort hotel guests will now receive one Lightning Lane entry per person, per stay, in lieu of the Early Entry benefit. This means that if you are staying at the Disneyland Hotel for 4 nights, each member of your party on your reservation will get 1 Lightning Lane entry at a Lightning Lane Multi Pass attraction.
In order to receive the benefit, each member of your party must be on your reservation, they must be checked in, and must have valid theme park admission and reservations. Since this is only valid at attractions that use Lightning Lane Multi Pass, Rise of the Resistance in Disneyland and Radiator Springs Racers in California Adventure will not be eligible for redemption using this Lightning Lane.
Does this change impact your plans to visit the Disneyland Resort? Let us know in the comments!
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They’ll have to tweak something, because it will ultimately fail. Jan 6th, 2026 price for the Howard Johnson by Wyndham Anaheim Hotel & Water Playground starts at about $153 and at Disneyland Hotel about $584. A single person can get the Premier pass daily for that difference, and a family of four multiple Individual LLs. That’s a major incentive to staying off site, and even puts those staying on site at a disadvantage. For those diehard fans who “have to stay” on site they’ll learn to beat the system by doing multiple split stays so they can get the “free” LL each new reservation stay. The time and space costs of having to hold their luggage and the extra costs of housekeeping to prep the new room while the guest enjoys that “free” LL in the park will quickly wear thin for both the hotel staff having to deal with it, and the guests beginning to weigh the costs of staying off-site and getting either the Premier or multiple Individual LLs. It’ll have to be tweaked or replaced with something else.
How soon will we know how the ending of Early Entry will affect the crowd calendar numbers? After literally dozens of Disneyland trips, I am staying at a DLR hotel for the first time ever in April. So bummed about the removal of this perk.
In October, I’ll be able to make my park reservations. I wish I knew which park to start in for each day of the trip. 🙁 I know the numbers won’t be all that different, but…data… (commences geeky weeping)…
This one is a big “wow, what are they thinking?” moment in Disney parks history. This can’t be saving the company as much money as they will lose in resort room occupancy.
The Disneyland on-site hotels are generally booked to capacity year-round. I assume they are thinking that the hotels will remain fully booked in the absence of the early entry perk (and they’re probably right!).
I have to concur with this. They know all the social media huffing and puffing will burn itself out eventually. The only question is what’s next for the corporate pruning shears.