A lot of good things are happening at Disneyland these days, but I don’t know if you could classify these future adjustments as positive changes…
While expensive, the three Disneyland Resort hotels offer a MAJOR benefit: All three are within walking distance to Downtown Disney and the two nearby theme parks. Not only that, but they come with a set of perks that incentivize ponying up and staying on-property. However, two major perks are about to change in early January.
In 2025, Disneyland announced that the dedicated park entrance to Disney California Adventure at Pixar Place Hotel will be closed beginning January 5th, 2026.
This entrance provided guests staying at Pixar Place with EXCLUSIVE access to and from the park, eliminating the need to use the regular turnstiles or walk all the way through Downtown Disney and other hotels to enter.
The next closest entrance will be through the dedicated Grand Californian Hotel & Spa entrance. This entrance isn’t as far of a walk as going all the way to the Disneyland Esplanade, but it’s still a trek compared to how close the other Pixar Place entrance was.
Unfortunately, the perk changes don’t stop there. Disney also confirmed that the resort will no longer offer Early Entry for Disneyland Resort hotel guests beginning January 5th, as well. This longtime perk used to let hotel guests enter a select theme park 30 minutes earlier than the normal posted park opening time. Now, if you want to get into the park first, you’ll have to do so via rope drop.
As compensation, Disneyland is offering hotel guests one Lightning Lane pass for any Multi Pass eligible attraction per trip. This pass can only be used ONCE per length of stay per person, and cannot be used on Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland or Radiator Springs Racers in Disney California Adventure, since both are Single Pass rides.
If you’re looking for a travel agent to help with your vacation, we recommend our friends at Mouse Fan Travel. They’re experts in the field with over 20 years of vacation planning experience, and they can help take a bunch of the stress out of the entire booking process for you!
How are you feeling about these changes? We’ll be visiting Disneyland constantly to monitor the fallout and will keep you posted year-round to keep you up-to-date on all the latest Disneyland updates, tips, and tricks — so stay tuned right here at AllEars!
Disneyland Lightning Lane Rules Are Changing in 2026
What are your favorite Disney hotel perks? Let us know in the comments!
Keep raising the cost but taking the perks and I have been to Disney in Florida and my first trip was so magical second trip was ok third trip and 4th trip were so different workers were rude and there was no magic to pay all this money for people to be rude never again I was in magic kingdom in November paid extra for the Christmas party and the workers were RUDE so that was my last trip when disney looses the magic its like going to
An over priced county fair.