Walt Disney World has added extra hours to the calendar by means of after the tip of peak Spring Break season in mid-April 2024, whereas additionally extending hours at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios & Animal Kingdom by means of Mardi Gras and Winter Break. This covers the additions plus zig once they zag technique for the parks and all the things else it’s best to know.
We’ll begin with the most recent launch of recent working schedules. All 4 theme parks have had hours for an additional week added to DisneyWorld.com’s park hours, and the present calendar now runs by means of April 15, 2024. Listed here are the hours for a lot of the newly-added dates:
- Magic Kingdom: 9 am to 9 pm
- EPCOT: 9 am to 9 pm
- Hollywood Studios: 9 am to 9 pm
- Animal Kingdom: 9 am to six pm
- Blizzard Seaside: 10 am to five pm
As a reminder, Walt Disney World’s regular follow is to launch boilerplate or placeholder hours earlier than extending these primarily based on attendance and lodge occupancy projections. This has been frequent follow for years, and can nearly proceed all through 2024. It’s completely nothing to get alarmed about and doesn’t imply that, for instance, Magic Kingdom will solely be open till 9 pm on Easter Sunday. There’s a 99% likelihood that’ll be prolonged, which nearly begs the query: why not submit the hours till they’re ultimate?!
Along with these newly added hours, Walt Disney World has additionally prolonged park hours all through February 2024. Let’s dig into what’s been prolonged…
Magic Kingdom
- February 8-10, 2024: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 11, 2024: 9am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 12-14, 2024: 9am to 10pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 15, 2024: 9am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 16, 2024: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 17-18, 2024: 9am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 19, 2024: 9am to 10pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 20-21, 2024: 9am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 22, 2024: 9am to 10pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 23-24, 2024: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
That is fairly the quirky schedule change, and a number of the decisions to increase (or not) are attention-grabbing. Particularly, each Monday–the busiest day of the week at Magic Kingdom–is barely 9am to 10pm. That is pushed by After Hours occasions on some dates, however not all. (So maybe it’s for the sake of consistency?) We’d’ve beneficial avoiding that earlier than, however it’s doubly true now because of the extra restricted extensions than different days.
It’s not likely an enormous shock, however weekends obtain the largest extensions. As you may recall, Saturdays and Sundays have been the slowest days of the week final yr. That is beginning to change, however we’d nonetheless be inclined to go to on Friday or Saturday over the times with 9am to 10pm hours. Simply be conscious of park opening instances, as a few of these 11pm closings have 8am openings whereas others (normally Sunday) are 9am.
The massive ‘bonus’ now could be that Magic Kingdom will open at 8 a.m. as a substitute of 9 a.m., which is massively advantageous for Early Entry. See our 7:30 am Early Entry at Magic Kingdom ‘Celebration Season’ Technique. (Winter isn’t ‘Celebration Season’, however the very same thought applies on these days!)
Talking of it not being Celebration Season, the After Hours at Magic Kingdom occasion doesn’t have a lot of an influence on crowds. This can be a query that we get requested loads, with some planners anticipating one thing much like MNSSHP or MVMCP.
The distinction right here is that Magic Kingdom (or whichever park is internet hosting After Hours) doesn’t usually shut early for the arduous ticket occasion. It’s, because the title suggests, after hours. There are occasions when whichever park closes 1-2 hours earlier on After Hours nights relative to adjoining dates (resulting from park hours extensions), however that’s not usually sufficient to maneuver the needle on crowds. Most individuals gained’t change their plans for a single hour–however many will for 3+ hours and no fireworks!
If something, we attempt to keep away from the park throughout daytime hours on After Hours nights. That is hinted at above with these Monday park hours non-extensions, however that’s as a lot resulting from day of week dynamics as it’s the barely earlier closing. (I’m actually a bit shocked they don’t do 8am openings on Mondays, which might make these days mildly extra enticing.)
This isn’t actually a ‘arduous’ rule, however our anecdotal expertise is that mix-in for After Hours tends to spike crowds on the finish of the night time once they’d in any other case be falling. Despite the fact that I can’t show this occurs (wait time information is unreliable on the finish of the night time), I’m assured sufficient that it does that we attempt to keep away from days of After Hours if we aren’t attending the occasion. Your mileage might range.
Past that, it’s good to see the 11 p.m. closings on sure nights throughout Mardi Gras and Mid-Winter Break, in any other case referred to as Presidents’ Day trip (or Ski Week to a seemingly small variety of faculty districts on the West Coast).
Truthfully, I hoped for greater than this. We’re anticipating that stretch to be notably busy (it’s on our 10 Greatest and 10 Worst Weeks to Go to Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025)–sufficient to justify extra 11pm and perhaps a handful of midnight closures. Possibly it gained’t be as unhealthy as we’re anticipating, although.
For the final couple of years, the week of Presidents’ Day has ranked as one of many worst 5 weeks as measured by common wait instances. Nonetheless, that break has additionally coincided with Mardi Gras, making it extra possible that colleges would have winter breaks. On prime of that, there was the runDisney Princess Half Marathon bookending the vacation.
This yr, Mardi Gras and Presidents’ Day are one week aside, successfully diluting the crowds. It’s thus doable that each weeks will probably be busy…however not bonkers. Regardless, Walt Disney World is a well-liked vacation spot for households with winter breaks who go for heat climate and sunshine over ski slopes. I assume we will see!
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- February 9-10, 2024: 8:30am to 9pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 12, 2024: 8:30am to 9pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- February 15-24, 2024: 8:30am to 9pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
The entire different park hours extensions are a lot much less attention-grabbing than these at Magic Kingdom.
Early Entry will as soon as once more formally begin at 8 am on the above dates that Disney’s Hollywood Studios opens at 8:30 a.m. Unofficially, Early Entry ought to start even earlier. This can be a actually huge deal. As we’ve talked about numerous instances, the sooner that Early Entry begins, the higher. There’s much less “competitors” and you will get far more carried out.
Actually, that’s how I Did Each Experience at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Earlier than 11am By way of Standby Strains. Don’t rely on replicating these outcomes, however the technique is sound. We’d thus extremely suggest doing DHS on one in every of these dates if in any respect doable.
It undoubtedly must be doable, as Walt Disney World moved ahead the opening time on all however a couple of dates. At the least, doable as long as you don’t gloss over them on the calendar–it’s straightforward to see the entire 8:30am openings and mistakenly suppose it applies to all dates within the subsequent few weeks.
Animal Kingdom
- February 9-10, 2024: 8am to 8pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- February 11-12, 2024: 8am to 7pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- February 13-15, 2024: 8am to 6pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- February 16-20, 2024: 8am to 8pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- February 21-22, 2024: 8am to 7pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- February 23-24, 2024: 8am to 8pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
For a similar cause as above, 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 Experience Technique (or, “How I Did Each Experience at DAK Earlier than 10:30am.”)
On the reverse finish of the day, Animal Kingdom continues to formally shut after dusk for all of today! Between the later closing and earlier sundown, you will get a pair hours in DAK after darkish for the primary time shortly. We extremely suggest staying for evenings in DAK to benefit from the Tree of Life Awakenings, plus Pandora and the remainder of the park after darkish.
Our Animal Kingdom Afternoon Arrival Technique is as soon as once more the perfect method for this park. Genie+ is a greater choice throughout Mardi Gras and Mid-Winter Break than in the course of the slowest stretches of the yr, however these 8pm closings nonetheless ought to permit so that you can accomplish loads within the ultimate few hours of the day. However, in case your plan is to reach late and depart early, Genie+ generally is a good choice. After experiencing 8/10 and above crowds there (and seeing the Lightning Lane really be useful for stage reveals!), we aren’t fairly so assertive about Genie+ being categorically “unhealthy” at DAK. It actually relies upon.
As all the time, the sooner opening instances at Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Magic Kingdom make it simpler to beat crowds at these parks. There’s an enormous benefit to early risers, and savvy technique or data of the best way to leverage Genie+ and Lightning Lanes generally is a gamechanger.
We’re enormous followers of leveraging Park Hopping and splitting most days into two half days. If your loved ones is stuffed with early risers and staying on-site, I’d be profiting from these 7:30am Early Entry instances (and that features DHS, unofficially). 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 very best and worst methods to beat the crowds. You may as well do fairly properly within the evenings at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios–and that’s one way or the other 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 (and now it’s Pageant of the Arts).
In the end, a good variety of park hours extensions for February 2024, which was to be anticipated given the entire faculty breaks on the horizon. The extensions at Animal Kingdom are actually good–and even that 30 additional minutes at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is nice. We proceed to be puzzled by the dearth of extensions at EPCOT, particularly after the crowds we’ve skilled this yr for Pageant of the Arts, however that’s develop into par for the course, too.
Magic Kingdom’s prolonged hours are hit and miss. As long as you keep away from Mondays and different mid-week days which can be solely 9am till 10pm, you ought to be in fairly good condition. Bonus factors for doing these 7:30am Early Entry dates, which ought to provide you with a pleasant aggressive benefit to knock out Seven Dwarfs Mine Prepare and Peter Pan’s Flight earlier than bouncing to Adventureland and Frontierland.
Trying ahead, we count on to see much more park hours extensions for the final week of February and March 2024. Spring Break begins and peaks earlier this yr, however even earlier than that, there must be extensions earlier within the month. Beginning across the center of subsequent month, right here’s hoping Magic Kingdom will get some midnight closures, and the opposite three parks have extra opening instances earlier than 9 a.m. These two strikes alone can be enormous in serving to scale back crowding.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider Walt Disney World’s working hours for Mardi Gras and Mid-Winter Break? Is that this schedule is cheap, or are extra extensions wanted to assist soak up crowds? Do you suppose Magic Kingdom must be open from 8am till midnight on extra days? What about earlier opening instances on the different parks? What has been your expertise with crowds and wait instances? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we will help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even once you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
