Parks Magic
Disney World's Website Is Testing an AI Guided Search Tab Built With Google Cloud and Gemini, and Selected Guests Can Describe the Trip They Want
News

Disney World's Website Is Testing an AI Guided Search Tab Built With Google Cloud and Gemini, and Selected Guests Can Describe the Trip They Want

Michael Travels
·
Published

Planning a Walt Disney World trip could soon start with a few typed sentences, not just a row of search filters. Disney is testing an AI guided booking experience on its website, developed in partnership with Google Cloud and Gemini, where guests describe the vacation they want in their own words, according to WDW News Today.

WDW News Today's examples of what you might type: "I want to visit during Food & Wine Festival" or "I want to stay at a resort with a nice pool."

The Walt Disney World website homepage with Mickey Mouse and a young boy in front of Cinderella Castle under the headline Let's Plan an Unforgettable Vacation, above a search panel with three tabs, Resorts and Packages, Tickets and Passes, and a selected Guided Search BETA tab offering to find lowest resort and ticket prices by date, compare and share options and offers, and use chat to get quick answers, with a Log In To Start button

Disney's image of the Guided Search BETA tab, shown next to the usual Resorts & Packages and Tickets & Passes search. Image: Disney, via WDW News Today

Who gets it

For now this is a limited beta. WDW News Today reports that Disney is showing it to a random sample of visitors to the Walt Disney World website in the US and Canada, and those picked will see a tab labeled Guided Search BETA. Disney plans to expand availability in phases.

The AI tool is optional either way. Guests can still search resorts and dates the normal way and still see the lowest rates, and they can still call a Cast Member to plan a trip.

What it does

A pastel Walt Disney World planning page with illustrations of the Tree of Life, Cinderella Castle, Spaceship Earth and the Hollywood Tower Hotel, next to the heading Let us help you find the right Resort hotel and tickets, with a Month of Nov selector, a 2 Adults, 2 Kids selector, and a text box reading First time visiting Walt Disney World. Celebrating our son's 7th birthday. He is obsessed with The Lion King. Easy access to the parks, a nice pool, and any available offers.

An example of a trip described in plain language, with a travel month and party size set above it. Image: Disney, via WDW News Today

WDW News Today describes it as a structured booking interface with AI features, rather than just a chatbot. The main pieces:

  • Plain language search: tell it when you want to go, who is coming and what matters to you, and it returns resort and ticket options with AI summaries of why each one fits. Those summaries pull information from official Disney sources.
  • Best offer, per room type: the site finds and applies the best available offer on its own, even when it differs between room types. WDW News Today's example is a standard room priced with the Florida resident offer and a water view room priced with a room only offer, in the same search.
  • Pricing calendar: a new pricing and availability calendar for guests with flexible arrival and departure dates.
  • A resort map: it shows where a resort sits relative to other resorts and the parks. Alongside the map, guests can see the transportation options at the resort they are viewing.
  • Videos: resort details show videos instead of photos.
  • Side by side comparisons: resorts can be compared on transportation, dining, recreation and more, and guests can type questions such as "Can I walk from Caribbean Beach to EPCOT?"

A Walt Disney World resort booking page showing a November and December 2026 calendar for The Little Mermaid Standard Room with a nightly price under each available date, November 2 to 6 selected, a note that the average nightly rate for a 4 night stay is $275, an Ask or Refine Results BETA box, and a room card for The Lion King Family Suites at a standard price of $533 per night

The pricing and availability calendar, with a price under each available night. Image: Disney, via WDW News Today

A phone screenshot of a Google map of Walt Disney World showing EPCOT and Hollywood Studios with resort price pins of $869, $740, $366, $275 and $228, and a card for Disney's Art of Animation Resort tagged Largest hotel pool at Walt Disney World Resort with a standard price of $274.50 average per night

The resort map on a phone, with average nightly prices pinned to resorts on the map. Image: Disney, via WDW News Today

A phone screenshot of an Ask or Refine Results BETA chat in which a guest asks to compare Disney's Art of Animation Resort and Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, and the reply describes Art of Animation as a Value property with family suites, Disney Skyliner access and food court dining and Animal Kingdom Lodge as a Deluxe property with savanna views and bus only transportation, above a fine print note that the experience is powered by AI and can make mistakes and that chats are saved for quality assurance

A resort comparison in the chat panel. Note the fine print at the bottom: the experience "is powered by AI and can make mistakes." Image: Disney, via WDW News Today

Saving and sharing plans

If you are logged in to the Disney website, the tool saves your vacation preferences for later. It also creates a shareable link so the people you are traveling with can look at the same options. WDW News Today reports that if you come back later, Disney will tell you when a better rate is available, and that for logged in guests with a vacation planned, the site can flag pertinent information such as scheduled refurbishments during your dates or Annual Passholder deals.

What it cannot do yet

During the beta, multiple rooms cannot be booked together, so trips that need more than one room will still need a phone call. Longer term, WDW News Today reports that Disney wants to take the tool beyond resorts, tickets and packages and into dining reservations and Lightning Lane.

This is not Disney's first AI test on the site. In July, we reported that an AI Overview panel on DisneyWorld.com had moved into Cast Member testing. WDW News Today's report does not say whether the two are connected.

Our take: the room type offer matching is the quietly useful part. Anyone who has run the same dates through three different discounts to see which one wins will appreciate the site doing that math for them. The catch is that, during the beta, trips needing more than one room still go through the phone, and those are exactly the trips where planning help matters most.

Sources

Image credits: All screenshots show Disney's website, as published by WDW News Today.

Related News