Disney World has revealed a new planning experience coming to DisneyWorld.com, built around four significant upgrades: flexible date-range search, side-by-side resort comparison, AI-generated resort summaries, and a pricing and availability calendar. The changes are designed to reduce the number of times guests need to visit the site before they feel ready to book. The upgrades were revealed during a recent presentation to media, and BlogMickey was in attendance. While we were shown proof-of-concept mockups, we were not given any visuals to share. Here’s what to expect, and examples of what we saw from other websites in the industry.
Disney World Is Overhauling Its Website To Make Planning Easier
In This Article
- Search across flexible date ranges
- Side-by-side resort comparison
- AI-generated resort summaries
- Pricing and availability calendar view
- When to expect the changes
FLEXIBLE DATE SEARCH
The first update we’ll cover gives guests the ability to search for trips across a range of dates, rather than locking in specific dates. Today, guests must enter a precise check-in and check-out date before browsing resort options. That changes with the new experience.
With the update, guests will be able to search across a broader window. An example given was summer break. Kids are out of school for multiple months, and perhaps you want to find the cheapest time to visit during Cool Kids Summer. The new planning feature will allow guests to search across a span of dates. The site will return options across a specified date range, surface the lowest available price, and flag offer availability. Package combinations, resorts with tickets, and resorts only will all be presented together. Guests won’t need to run multiple separate searches to compare them. One screenshot showed simply being able to search by season, such as “Summer,” without the need to input dates.
This update mirrors the flexible date search Disney already introduced to the dining reservation system, bringing the same logic to the broader trip-planning flow.
SIDE-BY-SIDE RESORT COMPARISON
With over 25 resort options on property, choosing a hotel has long required guests to toggle between multiple pages. Disney is addressing that directly with a comparison tool built into the booking flow, similar to the tool seen below on Hotels.com.
Guests will be able to select two (or more) resorts and view them side by side. Differences in theme, pricing, dining, and amenities will be laid out for easy review. Disney demonstrated the feature using the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian as examples. The two resorts share a price tier but differ meaningfully in character and offerings.
The tool is positioned as a confidence builder. Disney noted during a recent media briefing that guests frequently visit the website multiple times before booking. The main reason is that they struggle to weigh their options efficiently. The comparison tool is a direct answer to that.
AI-GENERATED RESORT SUMMARIES
Alongside the comparison tool, Disney is introducing AI-generated summaries on individual resort pages. When a guest drills into a specific resort, a contextualized summary will appear at the top. It will explain why that resort might be a good fit, based on what the guest is looking for.
As we covered in our look at AI coming to the My Disney Experience app, Disney is leaning on AI across the planning experience to surface relevant information faster. The goal is to spare guests from sifting through long detail pages to find what they need.
The resort summaries will pull forward information that guests identify as being important to their decision-making, synthesizing it, making it easily accessible, dynamic, and more contextualized. The aim here is to provide guests with what they need to continue to move forward and make a decision. Disney confirmed it is prioritizing that information based on direct guest feedback.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY CALENDAR
The fourth addition is a pricing and availability calendar view. Guests can pull up a calendar that shows pricing variations day by day. It makes it easy to see whether shifting a check-in by a few days unlocks a lower rate or opens up availability on a specific offer. This feature looked similar to the calendar for booking flights in Google.
This is particularly useful for guests chasing promotions. Availability on those offers can vary by date. Rather than running repeated searches to find an open window, guests can scan the calendar and spot it at a glance.
Combined with the flexible date search, the calendar gives guests a complete picture of pricing and availability across their preferred travel window. It reduces the back-and-forth that has historically frustrated guests.
WHEN TO EXPECT THE CHANGES
Disney confirmed the new website experience will roll out iteratively over the coming months. Walt Disney World will receive the updates first, with Disneyland to follow. No specific launch dates have been announced, but Disney indicated the rollout begins in the near term.
These updates are part of a broader push across DisneyWorld.com and the My Disney Experience app to simplify planning and pre-arrival preparation. We’ll continue to cover each update as it goes live.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!