Disney World and Disneyland are rolling out major My Disney Experience app updates, including AI-powered search, vacation countdowns, personalized checklists, easier trip planning, and new family-sharing features.
Walt Disney World, and Disneyland shortly after, are making some big changes to the My Disney Experience app to make planning and booking easier. This is all in an effort to help guests feel more confident that they are making the right choices for their upcoming vacation.
We recently attended a media preview of Disney’s efforts to simplify the planning and booking experience, and the cast members on hand shared that the focus was on putting the vacation front and center and providing more tools to make sure you aren’t missing out on important dates or pre-arrival items that could make your trip much more enjoyable.
Disney Is Redesigning the My Disney Experience App
Alongside a striking redesign that modernized the look and feel of My Disney Experience with a softer color palette, all the most important info about your vacation will be available as soon as you open the app. This means your park, resort, and dining reservations, Lightning Lane choices, and more. There will also be a countdown on the main screen to build anticipation and give you a better sense of how far away your trip is.
Screenshot from My Disney Experience
Countdown Timers and Personalized Checklists Are Coming
The countdown actually feeds into one of the biggest additions to the My Disney Experience app, as there will now be a customized checklist feature, similar to the one Disney Cruise Line has, that will help guests see what still needs to be completed before arrival. This includes everything from making final payments, making your Lightning Lane choices as soon as the window opens, making dining reservations early enough to hopefully secure a favorite restaurant or two, and even calling to actions like adding your park ticket to your Apple Wallet for easy access.
Planning With Friends and Family Is About to Get Much Easier
Planning with friends and families is also getting a very welcome upgrade, as that can be one of the most cumbersome parts of planning a Disney trip. As it stands, guests need to send an email to their friend or family member, hope they accept, and then they become a managed guest, and plans may start appearing in places they shouldn’t.
Text-Based Invites Will Replace the Current Linking Process
When these new changes go live, you’ll simply be able to send a text message (and you can even import/use your contacts in the app), set permissions and determine who can see what, and manage the whole party in a much more streamlined way.
AI-Powered Search Could Be One of the Biggest Improvements Yet
The last big overhaul is to search, and this is happening with the help of AI. The cast members giving us our preview showed us an example of searching in the My Disney Experience app as it stands today, and it was pretty eye-opening.
Disney Wants Search Results to Actually Answer Your Questions
If you jump into the app when you are in Magic Kingdom and try to search for chicken fingers, the first option is Chicken Guy!, and the next two are Il Mulino Lounge and Tony’s Town Square Restaurant. While Chicken Guy! Obviously, it has chicken fingers; it’s in Disney Springs, and not Magic Kingdom, and Il Mulino Lounge and Tony’s Town Square Restaurant don’t even have chicken fingers on the menu.
Photos by Courtney Reynolds.
With this new change, the app will encourage you to ask a question, such as, ‘Where can I find chicken fingers at Magic Kingdom?” It will then send back a concise summary with tons of detail on where around you chicken fingers can be found and how you can find them, etc. etc. Disney wouldn’t share what or who is powering this AI search functionality, but it is another way they are trying to get the right information into the hands of guests in a quick, simple, and highly effective way.
Why Disney Is Making These Changes
The team really stressed that, especially for first-timers, there is a lot to know about planning a Disney vacation. In many cases, there are parts of planning a trip you would never even think of if they aren’t explicitly shared with you, and these changes aim to make the most important info available when it’s needed.
Guest Feedback Is Driving the New Features
They also shared that guest feedback was integral to planning these changes, and they provided a few stats and details on how previous updates have led to significant increases in guest satisfaction and laid the foundation for these upcoming changes.
Photo by Laurie Sapp
For example, when Disney combined today’s and future plans into a single “My Plans” page, it led to an 8% increase in ease of use for guests. By letting guests search multiple dates and more for dining reservations, satisfaction rose by 5% and “drove record-high website ratings.” Lastly, the renaming of Lightning Lane and the change to day-of booking to pre-arrival led to a “double-digit gain in both ease of use and overall experience.”
More Planning Tools Are Coming Beyond the App
This is only the beginning of meaningful changes to the My Disney Experience apps for Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and there will also be improvements coming to planning on Walt Disney World’s website. While we didn’t get to see as much of this, they promised guests will soon be able to compare vacation options, review rates across multiple dates, “better understand when a visit might best align with their needs,” and more.
Spanish Language Support Is Expanding
And the focus is not only on English speakers, as Spanish will be added as an option for My Disney Experience even before many of these changes take effect. The website already has multiple language options, and these are now slowly being extended to the app as well.
What These Changes Mean for Disney Vacation Planning
These updates, in addition to Cool KIDS’ SUMMER and special offers like the ‘Summer After 2 PM Ticket’ at Walt Disney World, free dining plans for kids ages 3 to 9, and the highly-rated perk of free entry into one of Walt Disney World’s water parks on the day of your arrival, are all offering options and flexibility for guests of all types.
Photo by Brett Svenson
Disney stressed it is very committed to continuing to make the guest experience as smooth as possible and that many more updates and ideas are currently in the works. And, as we mentioned, we’ll start seeing the first of these big changes very soon at Walt Disney World and not too much longer at Disneyland.
My Take on the New Countdown and Checklist Features
Personally, I love how they are focusing on the vacation and guests not missing important dates and details that are hard to keep track of, as these small windows to make decisions can significantly improve your trip if done properly.
I also love the idea of the countdown and checklist, and hope it can eventually be fine-tuned to include younger guests as well, with parental supervision, of course. My son and daughter both LOVE a good countdown. I know they would also love a checklist that makes sure they pack their princess dress or secure their favorite attractions, shows, and entertainment they can’t wait to see.
What I’ve learned from taking many Disney and non-Disney trips, sometimes the most fun can be had with planning and making sure you have everything in place to make your vacation the best possible, and I’m very glad we are getting tools to make that easier and more manageable for a much wider range of guests. Hopefully, this leads to fewer families without a game plan waiting in hours-long lines and melting in the sun, and to an even greater number of guests having the most magical vacation of their lives.
