Acadia reservations.

What you need, and when.

You do not need a reservation to enter Acadia, and the one thing that needs a vehicle reservation is driving Cadillac Summit Road to the top of Cadillac Mountain. The park says vehicle reservations are not required for any other area of the park, or for visitors who reach the summit area on foot, by bike, or by taxi.

How the booking works.

Reservations are per vehicle, not per person, and motorcycles count as vehicles. A sunrise reservation gives you a 90-minute entry window, and a daytime reservation gives you 30 minutes. You do not have to leave until the road closes to cars at 9 p.m., but you cannot re-enter. You can hold one sunrise reservation per seven days and one daytime reservation per day. Sunrise slots are the ones that go fastest, so if the 90-day wave is gone, set an alarm for the two-day release at 10 a.m. Eastern. If your plans change, the park lets you move a reservation to another time or date at no cost before it starts. Print or save your confirmation first, since the park says connectivity is unreliable.

What if you don't have one.

Inside the reservation season you cannot drive to the summit without one, but the rest of the park stays open to you. The Park Loop Road, the carriage roads, Jordan Pond, and the trails need no vehicle reservation. Cadillac is not served by the Island Explorer bus, so the bus is not a way up. Walking or biking up the mountain needs no vehicle reservation, and outside the season the road itself needs none either.

When it matters most.

The Cadillac reservation covers the whole warm season. August is the busiest month of the year here, with about 798,914 visits in a typical recent year and 844,268 in 2025. The summer stretch from June through September carries roughly 72 percent of the whole year's visits, so that is when lines, parking, and any booking pressure are heaviest. For the full month-by-month picture, see the crowd calendar linked below.

Common questions.

Do you need a reservation to visit Acadia in 2026?
Not to enter the park. The only one is a vehicle reservation to drive Cadillac Summit Road, required May 20 through October 25, 2026. The rest of Acadia needs no vehicle reservation.

How much is the Cadillac Summit Road reservation?
It is $6 per vehicle, sold online at Recreation.gov and not at the park. You still need a separate park entrance pass to get into Acadia.

How do I get a Cadillac sunrise reservation?
Book on Recreation.gov. Thirty percent of each day's spots open 90 days ahead at 10 a.m. Eastern and the other 70 percent two days ahead at the same time. You can hold one sunrise reservation per seven days, and sunrise fills fastest.

Can you drive up Cadillac Mountain without a reservation?
Not during the season, which runs May 20 to October 25 in 2026. A vehicle reservation is required to drive the summit road in that window. Outside the season the reservation is not in force, and arriving on foot, by bike, or by taxi never needs one.

How we read the crowds

The monthly visit counts on this page come from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics. "Share of peak" compares a month against the park's own busiest month, so 100 percent marks the single busiest month of the year. The reservation and permit rules come from each park's official NPS pages, linked above and last verified on September 13, 2026. We are an independent site and not affiliated with the National Park Service.