All Disney Blockout Dates, Blackout Calendars, and Schedules

As an annual passholder you might wonder when Disney blockout dates apply to you. If you’re considering an annual pass, you want to know what passes can go at which times. This allows you to get the best pass for your calendar. It also lets you schedule without worrying about Disney blackout dates.

What is a Disney blockout date? Disney blockout dates are days during the year that certain annual passes aren’t valid.

This can also apply to other special tickets, like Military Discounts, for example. Always make sure that you have the right pass at the right time. To do this, it’s important to know which days apply to your pass for you and your family. Whether it’s a day trip or vacation, you don’t want any surprises. (This happened to me! Read my story below…)

What to Expect from This Disney Blockout Dates Guide

In this post, annual pass holders can see every Disney blockout date with a web schedule for each AP tier. Links below allow you to click on your pass and sort through different days, weeks, and whole months of the year. This way, you can decide which season has the most options available for you without worrying about Disney annual pass blockout dates getting in the way.

Table of Contents:

• Disney Blockout Dates, Calendars, and Schedules (Scroll to the big green images)
• The Difference Between Blockout and Blackout Dates
• How Disney Blockout Dates Work
• Examples of Blockout Day Situations
• What to Do If You Accidentally Go on a Blackout Day (Like we did!!)
• How Non-Annual Passholders Can Take Advantage of Disney’s Blockout Dates…
• Disney Blockout Dates Wrap-up

What’s the Difference Between Blockout Dates and Blackout Dates?

Before we begin, I want to address a quick question that some people have asked. There’s confusion about the difference between a Disney blockout date and a Disney blackout date. I use both words so I want to make sure everybody understands what they mean.

What is the difference between blockout and blackout? These words mean the same thing as far as Disney theme parks are concerned. Disney blockout dates and Disney blackout dates mean the exact same thing. There is no difference between these words.

Your pass is blocked out from the park on these particular days of the calendar during which the scheduled dates appear. Sometimes people refer to these as “blackout” dates instead, but the two terms are identical.

There’s no difference between Disney blockout dates and Disney blackout dates for the general public. But, you won’t hear Disney call them blackout dates. If you’re looking for these weeks or months on Disney parks’ official websites, then you should use the word “blockout” instead of “blackout”. (In fact, blackout usually refers to a very dark bedroom curtain that keeps most light out of the room).

How Do Disney Blockout Dates Work?

If your pass is open for a given day, then you can enter the park. If it’s blocked out, you cannot.

You always want to remember to check all parks before you go. At Disneyland in particular, sometimes your AP may be open for either Disneyland or California Adventure, but not both. It’s crucial to know this before you go and make a trip, whether it’s one day or a whole week or longer.

3 Sample Disney Blockout Date Situations

• #1: If you want to make a trip down for a parade or special event…
• For things the Food and Wine Festival, you want to check those specific dates before planning your day or extended stay.

• #2: If a new theme park area, ride, or attraction is set to launch or open soon…
• Check the Disney blackout dates calendars and schedules before planning your trip to the Opening Day (or month!) of that attraction. This goes especially for major lands, like the new Marvel Land Avengers Campus at Disneyland in Summer 2020. It can also extend well past the opening of the ride or land itself, such as with Rise of the Resistance.

• #3: If you need special reservations…
• When Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opened up, you needed to have reservations for that new park area. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be allowed entry. Disney does this on occasion to keep crowds from being too overwhelming, which might lessen the enjoyment of the experience for people. This goes for people with annual passes and those without, so make sure you check this in addition to your own blockout schedule.

Disney Blockout Days Summary

As an annual pass, discount ticket, or armed services member ticket holder, you are allowed to enter the park whenever your pass provides valid entry.

For annual passholders in the United States, Disneyland and Walt Disney World provide this information online. For park visitors in Europe, you’ll want to check the Disneyland Paris calendars. Visitors in Asia can check the Disneyland Hong Kong, Disneyland Shanghai, and Disneyland Tokyo schedules.

For Disney employees, you can check the official Disney blockout dates website here. The water parks admission information and other questions answered for employees is here.

What to Do If You Accidentally Go on a Blackout Day!

Once upon a time…

When my wife and I were about to get married in 2019, we decided to take a quick day trip down to Disneyland for some rejuvenation. We got all the way down there. We paid for parking. We took the tram over to the front gates. Finally, we showed our pass to the gatekeeper for entry… But, it wouldn’t let us in. We discovered, much to our dismay, that our passes were not even valid for that day. Embarrassed, we made our way over to the customer service booth to ask what we could do. They said we really had two options. We could pay for a one-day ticket or upgrade our passes. Well, you might be able to guess what we did next. We promptly upgraded our annual passes on the spot and spent the day at Disneyland as we’d planned.

The moral of the story is that you always, always want to remember to check the annual passholder Disney blockout dates for your pass’s tier before making the drive over to the parks. Otherwise, you might end up our shoes, upgrading your pass before you had fully intended to do so…

That being said, if you do ever get a pass with no blackout dates… It can make quite a difference in your life. Here’s one AP that’s a no-blockout happy camper!

now that blockout dates are over! I can start putting this beauty to use 💙 #disneyland #disneyap pic.twitter.com/5TnyMvhfrp

— tori fernandes (@buxbles) January 6, 2020

How to Take Advantage of Disney Blockout Dates

If you’re not an annual passholder at one of the Disney theme parks, then you can use the Disney blockout dates calendars and schedules to your advantage. Here’s how it works…

Take a look at the Disney blockout days below for the park you want to visit, then find the date with the most blockouts. The more people that have a blackout date on their pass, the better, because you can use these days as guides for when the park might not be too super crowded.

Example: If you see that July 1st has most passes blacked out, then you can safely assume most pass holders won’t be there that day because they would have to pay extra. This means that the park has a chance of not being too super crazy and crowded.

As an alternative you can use Disney crowd calendars to try and time your trip just right to avoid the heavy, massive crowds that make lines long and the parks super congested.

Here’s another pro tip, this time from my podcast: you can ask these simple questions to hack your way to an empty Disney theme park trip.

Disney Blockout Dates, Calendars, and Schedules

Use the Disney blackout dates, calendars, schedules, and annual pass printable lists below to find the best time to go for you and your family. I’ve created these downloadable AP lists so that you can see all the APs at a glance. Quick, easy, and handy to compare passes, even across the different parks around the world!

Each calendar on the sites below represents a given annual pass. If you’re an annual passholder, compare your pass to the color code for each day of the week or day of the month that you want to go.

Please note: Complete and accurate Disney blockout date details are not currently available for these passes due to technical issues with the parks’ websites. Check back soon for more details.

Disneyland Blockout Dates Calendar and Schedule

Here is the list of Disneyland blockout dates, including the complete calendar and full schedule for every type of annual pass for the rest of 2020.

Walt Disney World Blockout Dates Calendar and Schedule

Here is the list of Walt Disney World blockout dates, including the complete calendar and full schedule for every type of annual pass for 2020.

Get the Official Birnbaum’s Guide to WDW to have a full at-home vacation planner guide. Even better (and cuter), they have an Official Kids Version, too.

Disneyland Paris Blockout Dates Calendar and Schedule

Here is the list of Disneyland Paris blockout dates, including the complete calendar and full schedule for every type of annual pass for 2020.

Tokyo Disney Blockout Dates Calendar and Schedule

Here is the list of Tokyo Disneyland blockout dates, including the complete calendar and full schedule for every type of annual pass for 2020.

Hong Kong Disneyland Blockout Dates Calendar and Schedule

Here is the list of Disneyland Hong Kong blockout dates, including the complete calendar and full schedule for every type of annual pass for 2020.

Shanghai Disney Blockout Dates Calendar and Schedule

Here is the list of Disneyland Shanghai blockout dates, including the complete calendar and full schedule for every type of annual pass for 2020.

Disney Blockout Dates Wrap Up

I hope that you found this page helpful in figuring out which Disney blockout dates fit your personal annual pass. When it comes to Disney theme parks, there’s always more to learn. For instance, you can make the most of any day at Disneyland with MaxPass. And, of course, knowing which days to visit goes a long way.

As an annual passholder myself, I know firsthand how disappointing it is to arrive at the parks, ready for a fun day, just to find out that you can’t even get in. It was an unfortunate experience. That said, we did make the most of it by upgrading our pass so we could enjoy Disneyland and California Adventure.

The best way to avoid this is to always check back for the updated Disney blockout dates. That way, you can make sure that you know exactly when and where your own annual pass holder dates are valid. And remember to check all the parks! Because sometimes an annual pass ticket will work for one park but not the other. It’s always good to check them all. 🙂

If you’re wondering how you can make the most of your next trip to Disneyland or Walt Disney World by upgrading your annual pass, read my full guide for how to do that here.