Walt Disney World has prolonged hours at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios & Animal Kingdom for the post-Spring Break interval in late April 2024. This covers additions together with reductions to the leisure schedule and to the costs of the Genie+ service, plus zig once they zag technique for the parks and every part else you must know.
We’ll begin with the newest launch of recent working schedules. All 4 theme parks have had hours added to DisneyWorld.com’s park hours, and the present calendar now runs by means of June 17, 2024. Listed here are the hours for a lot of the newly-added dates:
- Magic Kingdom: 9 am to 10 pm
- EPCOT: 9 am to 9 pm
- Hollywood Studios: 9 am to 9 pm
- Animal Kingdom: 9 am to six pm
As a reminder, Walt Disney World’s regular observe is to launch boilerplate or placeholder hours earlier than extending these primarily based on attendance and lodge occupancy projections. This has been widespread observe for years, and can virtually proceed all through 2024.
Nonetheless, given the low to reasonable crowd ranges anticipated throughout shoulder season and that Magic Kingdom has already moved to 10 p.m. closings for summer season, there’s truly an opportunity the Might by means of mid-June 2024 hours might be fairly near the ultimate schedule.
It’s doubtless extensions will happen as soon as Tiana’s Bayou Journey opens, however our expectation is that might be shortly after June 17, 2024. Additionally, on condition that Tiana’s Bayou Journey is a water experience, it’s going to in all probability make extra sense to maneuver to eight a.m. openings reasonably than 11 p.m. or midnight closings. Extra sunlight hours might be higher for absorbing crowds on that reimagined experience.
In any case, let’s dig into what’s been prolonged for the second half of April 2024…
Magic Kingdom
- April 13, 2024: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- April 14-18, 2024: 9am to 10pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- April 19-20, 2024: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- April 21, 2024: 9am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- April 22-25, 2024: 9am to 10pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- April 26-27, 2024: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
Given that every one of those dates are after the height of Spring Break season, this isn’t too shabby. As famous above, 9am to 10pm is the “new regular” for Magic Kingdom park hours as soon as Might and June roll round, so many of those dates quantity to no extensions from the baseline.
That’s an enormous sign that Spring Break season is actually over as soon as April 14 rolls round. Whereas our Spring Break crowd forecast has been spotty, we’ve predicted all alongside that Tax Day would mark the conclusion of the season, even when there are just a few straggler college districts nonetheless out that week. These hours extensions appear to substantiate that.
Nonetheless, opening at 8am and shutting at 11pm on the weekends is sweet to see. That in all probability has much less to do with colleges being out on break and extra to do with the combo of locals and vacationers, each of whom may have ticket offers to benefit from throughout this timeframe. (For individuals who have requested, we’ll be intently monitoring crowd tendencies in mild of the brand new ticket offers to see if Fridays, Saturdays and/or Sundays get markedly worse.)
Our expectation is that weekends will get busier, however to not the purpose that we’d advocate avoiding them–particularly when Magic Kingdom opens earlier and closes later.
As a reminder, we extremely advocate doing Magic Kingdom on an 8am opening day in case your journey straddles each 8am and 9am opening days. Between the additional hour within the morning and one other 2 at evening, technique turns into a lot simpler–and that’ll be doubly true if crowds are “solely” 7/10 or under.
I do know we repeat this advert nauseum, however the strategic significance of Magic Kingdom opening at 8am as a substitute of 9am can’t be overstated. Early Entry beginning an hour later is nearly ineffective, whereas it’s unimaginable at 7:30am. One hour makes a world of distinction. See our 7:30 am Early Entry at Magic Kingdom ‘Celebration Season’ Technique.
One other main Magic Kingdom signaling the tip of Spring Break season is the discount of parade performances, with Pageant of Fantasy switching from twice day by day showtimes to at least one. As an alternative, extra calvacades performances have been added. Right here’s the brand new schedule:
- Pageant of Fantasy Parade: 3 p.m. (beforehand midday and 3pm)
- Disney Journey Pals Cavalcade: 10:30am and 11:45am (beforehand 5:10pm and 6:25pm)
This schedule runs at some stage in the present leisure calendar, which is presently by means of Might 4, 2024. It’ll doubtless proceed past that all through shoulder season, with the potential for two Pageant of Fantasy parade performances returning between Memorial Day weekend and June 10, 2024.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- April 12-13, 2024: 9am to 9:30pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- April 14-18, 2024: No extension
- April 19-21, 2024: 9am to 9:30pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- April 22-24, 2024: No extension
- April 25-27, 2024: 9am to 10pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
Once more, not an enormous shock to see no extensions in any respect for a lot of of nowadays. Even when they find yourself being barely busier as an entire (and there’s no assure of that), we nonetheless advocate doing DHS on the 9:30pm or 10pm closing days.
These 10pm closings are literally fairly the shock, as DHS didn’t lengthen to that even throughout the peak of Spring Break. It’s additionally fascinating that the 10pm closing is going on with out an earlier opening (which did occur on numerous events throughout the peak of Spring Break).
My finest guess is that the cheer and dance championships being hosted at ESPN Extensive World of Sports activities on these dates will end in quite a lot of individuals within the park late, however not early. That may make sense, and it could possibly be a situation the place DHS truly does see a big spike in crowd ranges as a consequence of these teams. That, or this might merely be a check for later hours at DHS and never motivated by inside attendance projections. Only a chance to concentrate on, as quite a lot of common visitors hate being across the cheer and dance teams.
The upside right here is 2 showings of Fantasmic. Double-bonus: the second showtime is half-hour after park closing. We extremely advocate seeing the second displaying. It’ll successfully lengthen your day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios by half-hour to an hour, which is greater than you’ll get by leaping in line for a experience on the finish of the evening.
Equally as vital, we’ve managed to see the second displaying of Fantasmic from spectacular seats with out arriving greater than 5 minutes prematurely of showtime. This has been the case even on evenings when the primary efficiency was fairly busy and seats stuffed up half-hour earlier than showtime.
On those self same busier days, the late performances of Fantasmic had a number of total sections that went unfilled. I used to be in a position to snag the third row of a terrific part at (actually) 2 minutes earlier than showtime, and that was on a busy day. That adopted doing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance shortly earlier than park closing with an precise wait of beneath 20 minutes.
Even with the worry of cheer and dance teams, we’d nonetheless do Disney’s Hollywood Studios on these later cut-off dates. In truth, we might be doing precisely that. So if it seems to be a spectacularly terrible thought…we’ll be making the identical mistake, not merely recommending it to others!
Animal Kingdom
- At this time by means of April 15, 2024: 8am to 7pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- April 16-18, 2024: 8am to 6pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- April 19-21, 2024: 8am to 7pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- April 22-25, 2024: 8am to 6pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- April 26-27, 2024: 8am to 7pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
The 8am opening time is clutch at Animal Kingdom. This implies Early Entry at 7:30am, which is fairly sparsely attended. See Animal Kingdom Park Opening & Early Entry Journey Technique (or, “How I Did Each Journey at DAK Earlier than 10:30am.”)
Even when these find yourself being excessive crowd degree days in Animal Kingdom, you’ll be able to just about run the desk on rides by benefiting from Early Entry and being aggressive with rope drop and the primary few hours of the day. The overwhelming majority of visitors can’t/won’t rise up that early. (Simply look what number of complaints there are about digital queue begin occasions being at 7am!)
On the reverse finish of the day, our Animal Kingdom Afternoon Arrival Technique is as soon as once more the perfect strategy for this park within the again half of the day. You may accomplish so much within the ultimate few hours of the day.
However, in case your plan is to reach late and depart early, Genie+ is usually a good choice. After experiencing 8/10 and above crowds there (and seeing the Lightning Lane truly be helpful for stage exhibits!), we aren’t fairly so assertive about Genie+ being categorically “dangerous” at DAK. It actually relies upon.
As all the time, the schedule adjustments make it simpler to beat crowds at these parks. There’s an enormous benefit to early risers or evening owls, and savvy technique or data of the way to leverage Genie+ and Lightning Lanes is usually a gamechanger.
We’re big followers of leveraging Park Hopping and splitting most days into two half days. If your loved ones is filled with early risers and staying on-site, I’d be benefiting from these Early Entry each time doable, particularly at DHS and DAK. I wouldn’t be doing any mornings at EPCOT, and would as a substitute begin the day doing Early Entry on the park that opens earliest and bounce round to leverage park hours and crowd dynamics.
To that finish, try our Genie+ v. Savvy Technique at Walt Disney World, which is the results of in depth ‘testing’ to find out the most effective and worst methods to beat the crowds. You can too do fairly effectively within the evenings at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios–and that’s someway nonetheless true even now that Fantasmic is again. EPCOT is extra of a wildcard–the mud nonetheless hasn’t settled on Luminous or the opposite new stuff there.
One ultimate signal that Walt Disney World is previous the height of Spring Break is plummeting costs on Genie+ beginning at this time. Right here’s the earlier than/after per-person prices:
- Multi-Park: $29 (beforehand $39)
- Magic Kingdom: $29 (beforehand $39)
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios: $26 (was $35)
- EPCOT: $21 (beforehand $32)
- Animal Kingdom: $18 (beforehand $29)
In a single day, Walt Disney World dropped from all-time excessive pricing to extra reasonable ranges. That is nonetheless excessive by historic (and even most of 2024) requirements, however it’s a dramatic drop to happen in a single day.
As Genie+ costs and park hours are often an excellent proxy for crowd ranges, this ought to be an indication of 4/10 to six/10 crowds this week. In fact, Walt Disney World’s inside forecasts aren’t good, so wait occasions might find yourself exceeding that. Easter falling sooner than regular this 12 months threw a little bit of a monkey wrench into these predictions, and extra districts than regular have delayed their recesses to keep away from Mid-Winter Break and Spring Break being too shut collectively.
The underside line is that between the ticket offers and later breaks, it wouldn’t be stunning to see crowds within the subsequent two weeks a bit on the elevated aspect. We’re nonetheless anticipating the second half of the month to be pretty quiet.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Study inns on our Walt Disney World Resorts Critiques web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Critiques. To save cash on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets submit. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys submit takes a novel take a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Journey Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the most effective place to begin is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every part it is advisable to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider Walt Disney World’s working hours for the second half of April 2024? Happy with the sooner openings or later closings? Confused in regards to the lack of extensions for sure dates, or EPCOT on daily basis? What has been your expertise with crowds and wait occasions? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we will help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even if you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
