Happily or sadly, relying upon your perspective, we had been unsuitable. After transferring over to Animal Kingdom in Summer time 2025, a welcome change we anticipated would final till early 2026, Prolonged Night Hours is returning to Magic Kingdom simply in time for Social gathering Season. Listed here are the main points, plus Walt Disney World crowds commentary, anticipated leisure schedules & park hours, and why this is perhaps a mistake.
Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours is nighttime counterpart to Early Theme Park Entry. There are a number of variations, most notably that company staying at Worth or Reasonable Resorts should not eligible for Prolonged Night Hours. Nevertheless it’s not simply the costliest resorts–you’ll be able to lower your expenses by renting DVC factors or staying on the Swolphin–these are each nice methods to hack ExEH and benefit from the perk and a nicer resort for a lower cost.
Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours has two tiers of resort eligibility, happens two nights per week, is at two parks, and runs for 2 hours. It’s normally Monday at EPCOT and Wednesday at Magic Kingdom. See our Technique Information Information for Prolonged Night Hours at Walt Disney World for extra ins and outs of the nighttime Deluxe profit.
For individuals who haven’t been following this saga, it initially revolved round Walt Disney World making a number of calendar modifications to put the groundwork for the potential debut date of Disney Starlight Evening Parade. That occurred through shifting Fortunately Ever After later, blocking out Forged Members from Magic Kingdom, and transferring ExEH over to Animal Kingdom. Even earlier than that, the 3-Day, 3-Park Ticket Deal excluding Magic Kingdom is an effective instance of this forward-thinking crowd management effort. Ditto the new AP reservation rule.
We are saying laying the groundwork as a result of Starlight ended up lacking its earlier goal and is now opening on July 20, 2025. So if something, Walt Disney World may unblock CMs and restore ExEH at Animal Kingdom in July. The previous would possibly nonetheless occur, however the latter is unlikely on condition that scheduling has been set.
Final minute park hours extensions are frequent, however not swapping ‘further hours’ places. Judging by the reader response to our authentic submit on the subject, I’m guessing few, if any, Walt Disney World company can be disenchanted by ExEH transferring again to MK for early to mid-July.
Talking of which, listed here are the dates when Animal Kingdom will host Prolonged Night Hours:
- Wednesday, July 2, 2025
- Wednesday, July 9, 2025
- Wednesday, July 16, 2025
- Wednesday, July 23, 2025
- Wednesday, July 30, 2025
- Wednesday, August 6, 2025
At the moment, Prolonged Night Hours is scheduled from 6:00 pm to eight:00 pm at Animal Kingdom, beginning after the park closes for normal day company and ending earlier than sundown. Nevertheless, park hours extensions for July haven’t but occurred, so these ExEH instances would possibly shift to six:30 pm to eight:30 pm or possibly 7-9 pm, if we’re fortunate!
Quick-forward to the subsequent week and Magic Kingdom is internet hosting Prolonged Night Hours on Wednesday, August 13, 2025. The transfer has not but been introduced by Walt Disney World, however you’ll be able to see the change through the My Disney Expertise app.
This can be a actually curious transfer, particularly since Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Social gathering begins two days later, on Friday, August 15, 2025. Following that, there are three weekly MNSSHPs from the bounce in August, which means that if Magic Kingdom continues to host Prolonged Night Hours throughout Social gathering Season, there shall be 4 post-closing occasions most weeks at Magic Kingdom by way of the tip of the yr, and 5 occasions some weeks.
Having ExEH at Magic Kingdom any dates throughout these weeks (together with August 20, 2025) can be a mistake. Which is exactly why Walt Disney World largely has averted any such scheduling throughout previous Social gathering Seasons (see under). That is doubly true this yr given the exaggerated impact that the opening of Starlight may have on attendance at Magic Kingdom throughout Social gathering Season.
UPDATE: Walt Disney World’s calendar now runs by way of August 20, and–shock, shock–Prolonged Night Hours has moved again to Animal Kingdom on that date. I’m not likely certain what the purpose was of transferring ExEH to Magic Kingdom for a single date, however we’d not count on the additional hours to return to MK once more till the second week of January 2026. Who is aware of, although. Possibly there’s one other week in early November after they can squeeze in a single final Prolonged Night Hours at Magic Kingdom this yr. Both means, we’ll hold you posted!
At the moment, Prolonged Night Hours is scheduled to happen from 10 pm till midnight at Magic Kingdom on August 13, 2025. It will in all probability (hopefully) shift to 11 pm to 1 am.
Magic Kingdom is at the moment listed as being open from 9 am to 10 pm each day in July and August 2025. Nevertheless, these are boilerplate hours. We’re absolutely anticipating 11 pm or (fingers crossed) midnight closures. If that’s not at the moment the plan, it’s a mistake.
I’m begging Walt Disney World to ship some operations and PAC folks over to Disneyland to see how they deal with Paint the Evening. Not even a joke–it might be severely helpful to be taught from the professionals, and watch how they do issues.
The rationale for transferring Prolonged Night Hours from Magic Kingdom to Animal Kingdom resulting from Starlight comes right down to scheduling. As defined in our complete Information to Disney Starlight Parade’s Debut at Magic Kingdom, our greatest guess for the schedule is as follows:
- First Starlight Parade: 9 pm
- Fortunately Ever After: 10 pm
- Second Starlight Parade: 11 pm
- Park Closing: 11 pm or midnight
With the second Starlight Evening Parade stepping off at 11 p.m., this basically quantities to a midnight closing for Magic Kingdom even when the revealed time finally ends up being 11 pm. After all, this assumes there are two nightly performances of Starlight, which isn’t a certain factor given Walt Disney World’s penny-pinching methods.
Once more assuming two nightly parades, it behooves Walt Disney World to maneuver ExEH to Animal Kingdom for the remainder of the summer time to cut back the pressure on Magic Kingdom operations. Simply attempting to run Starlight and handle common crowd movement goes to be a significant problem.
Anyway, it’ll be fascinating to see simply how lengthy Prolonged Night Hours at Magic Kingdom lasts. Possibly it’ll simply be one week, bouncing again to DAK or DHS as soon as Social gathering Season kicks into excessive gear. Wherein case, what was the purpose? Attempting to squeeze in a single date for the sake of visitor satisfaction? If that’s the case, kudos to Disney.
The choice is barely regarding–that Disney doesn’t actually know what to anticipate/what it’s doing with Starlight. That is one thing we’ve talked about in a number of posts, however it bears repeating: Walt Disney World hasn’t hosted an evening parade in virtually a decade. Certainly one of my fears is that Walt Disney World has misplaced a lot institutional data since then that they don’t know how one can deal with operational logistics for an evening parade. The COVID closure resulted in lots of early retirements among the many previous guard who knew how issues labored, and Walt Disney World nonetheless hasn’t absolutely recovered from that.
Whereas this can be a concern, it was at the least reassuring that they moved ExEH away from Magic Kingdom, made the Fortunately Ever After schedule change, and blocked out Forged Members. All of this demonstrates that Walt Disney World does have a clue, and wouldn’t fumble issues after getting them proper initially. So possibly it’ll bounce over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the rest of August?
To that time, I nonetheless very strongly suspect there shall be few Prolonged Night Hours dates in Magic Kingdom from mid-August till the second week of January 2026. Observe that this isn’t but official–every part past the primary two weeks of August 2025 is solely speculative at this level.
Usually, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom take over internet hosting duties from Magic Kingdom annually in September or October. This happens due to Social gathering Season, which begins in early August and kicks into excessive gear in late September.
This yr, the circumstances shall be completely different with Starlight, which is able to trigger larger crowds in Magic Kingdom on non-party nights even in August and September. We expect pretty unprecedented attendance at MK on non-party nights from August by way of December resulting from Starlight.
Usually, Prolonged Night Hours strikes to Disney’s Hollywood Studios if Magic Kingdom has scheduling conflicts. Animal Kingdom is often the backup to DHS, taking on if that park is internet hosting events.
That normally occurs in November and December with the Jollywood Nights Christmas Social gathering. Now, it’s occurring resulting from After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which runs most Wednesday nights by way of September 3, 2025.
In idea, DHS may take over ExEH beginning then for a few months. In reality, that will be roughly the traditional cadence from the final two years. The purpose of all that is that there aren’t any ensures about which park(s) will host Prolonged Night Hours after August 13, 2025. Effectively, besides EPCOT. That’s just about a certain factor barring the uncommon park buyout throughout conference season. However as for the Wednesday ExEH, it could possibly be a mixture of DAK, DHS, and even the occasional MK.
It was a savvy transfer to shift Prolonged Night Hours to Animal Kingdom that will assist redistribute crowds, making the opposite three parks barely much less busy and Animal Kingdom much less of a ghost city on the tail finish of the day. From an goal “higher good” perspective, my hope is that DAK hosts ExEH for all dates after August 13, 2025.
Selfishly and subjectively, I hope Prolonged Night Hours stays at Magic Kingdom. We’ve got DVC stays booked for 2 Wednesdays in August and September, and doubtless extra past that. As a lot as I get pleasure from Animal Kingdom at night time (and I do!), I normally get my fill in the course of the vacation season when the park is most lovely, cooler, and closes after sundown nightly.
I do know Magic Kingdom shall be busier on ExEH if it does host the occasion, however I can take care of that. The prospect of being in Magic Kingdom till 1 am is fairly interesting to me, personally, if I do know it’s detrimental to the higher visitor expertise. That’s exactly why there was a little bit of ‘backlash’ to the DAK transfer–most readers right here perceive the ‘higher good’ angle, however nonetheless selfishly need what’s greatest for their very own journeys. Can’t blame anybody for that!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Will you be profiting from Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours at Magic Kingdom on August 13? Hope that MK continues to host ExEH all through Social gathering Season? Or do you view this from the ‘higher good’ perspective, worrying in regards to the monkey wrench that’ll be thrown into attendance traits if MK has a nighttime occasion 4-5 nights per week? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we may help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even while you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
