Extended admission to the Walt Disney World theme parks via Extra Magic Hours will become available starting January 1 to guests of the seven non-Disney hotels in Disney Springs:
EMH currently is available only to guests staying at Disney's own on-site hotels as well as guests from the non-Disney Swan and Dolphin hotels. In addition, starting January 10, guests at the Disney Springs hotels will be able to book their Fastpass+ ride and show reservations 60 days in advance, if they have booked their stay through a vacation package sold by Disney's travel company. Currently, only people booked at a Disney hotel with a valid admission ticket can book Fastpasses that far in advance. For everyone else with a ticket, the reservation window opens 30 days in advance.
Disney also is opening up its restaurant reservations in 2018. Reservations in January and beyond for a handful of resort restaurants are now available through the online reservation service OpenTable.com in addition through Disney World's website and phone number (+1-407-WDW-DINE).
In addition to these locations, reservations continue to be available via Open Table for restaurants at the Swan and Dolphin and in Disney Springs. Open Table also offers dining reservations for the resort restaurants at Universal Orlando, as well.
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Option #2 ... ride what you want, when you want at Universal, BG, SW, LEGOLAND, Fun Spot, etc.
FP+ single-handedly drove us away from Disney. Wish it weren't so ...
Disney is not banning anybody from rides. They are just expanding some of the resort perks to other hotels.
The fine print says that the non Disney resort stay needs to be made through the Disney Travel Agency so there really isn't any "savings" given to these guests. These are not cheap hotels.
In all honesty, this is just a drop in the bucket. If you are pissed that you can't get a Fastpass+, blame the All Star, not the Best Western.
Honestly, I think this appears more like a data mine than anything else, and if Disney can generate revenue (markup of hotel bookings through partner properties) with little cost on their end, I wouldn't blame them one bit. This could also be a maneuver for Disney to allow properties to go through major renovations without Disney losing much in the way of occupancy. If All-Star needs to take a building down for a full gut and refinish, they could shift those rooms to partner hotels, and still give guests similar perks to staying at the on-site property. The resort maintains its capacity, which would prevent parks from losing admissions due to the loss of rooms during the renovation period.
The Open Table partnership is a bit strange, because participation is not free for the restaurant. Disney has a very robust and successful reservation system that accommodates both online and phone reservations. By partnering with Open Table, Disney is essentially duplicating their costs for reservation management while not providing any dramatic benefit to guests. I have not idea what Disney is trying to accomplish with this Open Table partnership.
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Us non-hotel Disney visitors struggle as it is ... as many of us know !
Also for those who may not know .... Splash Mountain is going to be down again for about a month Jan thru Feb.