After shifting over to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, Prolonged Night Hours is returning to Magic Kingdom but once more through the 2025 Celebration Season. Listed below are the main points, plus Walt Disney World crowds commentary, anticipated leisure schedules & park hours, and why this may be 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 Average Resorts usually are not eligible for Prolonged Night Hours. But it surely’s not simply the costliest resorts–you possibly can get monetary savings 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 cheaper price.
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 often 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 many who haven’t been following this saga, it started with 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 by way of shifting Fortunately Ever After later, blocking out Solid Members from Magic Kingdom, and shifting ExEH over to Animal Kingdom. Even earlier than that, the 3-Day, 3-Park Ticket Deal excluding Magic Kingdom is an efficient instance of this forward-thinking crowd management effort. Ditto the new AP reservation rule.
Because it turned out, Starlight missed its goal date and all the modifications from July 6-19 have been for nothing (presumably). A few of these operational modifications may very well be undone, however not the shifting of ExEH. In any case, Disney Starlight: Dream the Evening Away is formally debuting on July 20, 2025, with even extra operational modifications hitting on that date.
Final minute park hours extensions are widespread, however not swapping ‘additional hours’ places. Judging by the reader response to our authentic put up on the subject, I’m guessing few Walt Disney World company can be dissatisfied by ExEH shifting again to MK for one more date in Fall 2025.
If something, Walt Disney World company would most likely applaud the choice for a last-minute schedule change and swap a number of the DAK dates for Prolonged Night Hours again to Magic Kingdom. There’s now no cause why Animal Kingdom “wants” to host ExEH on July 2, 9 or 16. Even when that upended some plans, folks would largely applaud it. (It’s most likely not going to occur–particularly with Solid Member schedules now set.)
Let’s begin with the most recent replace to this saga, which is that Magic Kingdom is as soon as once more internet hosting Prolonged Night Hours on Wednesday, September 3, 2025. The transfer has not but been introduced by Walt Disney World, however you possibly can see the change by way of the My Disney Expertise app.
This newest date comes after Prolonged Night Hours moved to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the prior Friday. As we reported then, it was doubtless shifting to Friday as a consequence of a mixture of Labor Day weekend, After Hours on Wednesdays at DHS, and detrimental suggestions about Animal Kingdom internet hosting ExEH.
We speculated that the next week would both carry a return of ExEH to DAK or one other Friday date at DHS. With September 3 being the ultimate date of After Hours in Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the yr, we additional speculated that Prolonged Night Hours would return to Wednesdays in Disney’s Hollywood Studios beginning September 10, 2025 and working by means of early to mid-November.
We nonetheless imagine this second half is prone to happen, however what we did not account for is Walt Disney World squeezing yet one more ExEH into MK throughout Celebration Season earlier than then. This can be a extra aggressive transfer than anticipated, particularly since ExEH has largely been an afterthought for Walt Disney World’s schedulers over the previous couple of years.
There are actually two dates throughout Celebration Season when Magic Kingdom has Prolonged Night Hours: August 13 and September 3. The commonality between these two dates is that they’re each in weeks when there are not 3 nights of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Celebration. August 13 is the beginning of Celebration Season, and there’s no Sunday MNSSHP on August 31. (Which is why we beforehand stated one of many Finest Weeks in 2025 at Walt Disney World Acquired Higher.)
That is nonetheless a very curious transfer, particularly with out seeing how disruptive Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Celebration is to attendance throughout Celebration Season. Though early September is (actually) the slowest stretch of your entire yr, Walt Disney World nonetheless hasn’t seen simply how large of a monkey wrench Celebration Season throws into Starlight demand.
The parade route is extraordinarily restricted capability, so even on 1/10 crowd stage days, viewing areas for Starlight may very well be packed! This can be a level we’ve emphasised beforehand with Fortunately Ever After demand, nevertheless it nonetheless appears contradictory to many followers. The straightforward rationalization is that park-wide capability is very large, whereas Most important Avenue or parade route viewing is extraordinarily restricted.
You can have whole park capability of 60,000 company, viewing space capability of seven,500 company, and precise attendance of 20,000. That’s nothing when it comes to whole capability–Magic Kingdom may simply take up that quantity with low waits all through the park. But when even half of that quantity needs to observe the parade or fireworks, that’s probably over capability of the parade route. (These are made up numbers, however you must get the purpose.)
For these following this Prolonged Night Hours saga at dwelling and hoping for extra Magic Kingdom dates, the subsequent time there’s a niche within the Celebration Season schedule might be early November. Beforehand, we might’ve guess towards MK internet hosting a random evening or two throughout that week-plus stretch, however this indicators the other–that they may. As for why, our greatest guess is widespread complaints about ExEH at DAK.
In any case, we positively don’t count on extra Prolonged Night Hours at Magic Kingdom in September or October 2025. Then once more, we didn’t count on this, so who is aware of anymore. Walt Disney World is already taking part in with fireplace by having fewer full days through the first few months of Starlight.
As talked about beforehand, Disney’s Hollywood Studios can host Prolonged Night Hours from September 10 by means of November 5, 2025, which is earlier than the anticipated begin of the Jollywood Nights Christmas Celebration. This has roughly been the cadence of earlier years, with ExEH switching from MK to DHS as soon as MNSSHP kicked into excessive gear, after which from DHS to DAK as soon as Jollywood Nights began.
Merely switching ExEH to DHS as an alternative of getting it bounce round to a special park every week is essentially the most smart choice. It makes issues extra predictable for planners. Presumably, there additionally gained’t be the identical visitor complaints about ExEH at DHS as there are about ExEH at DAK ending earlier than sundown.
Word that this isn’t on the official calendar and is solely speculative on our half based mostly on previous precedent. Simply because DHS “can” host ExEH doesn’t imply that’s what is going to occur. Don’t plan round this till Walt Disney World formally provides it to the calendar.
For now, Prolonged Night Hours is scheduled to happen from 10 pm till midnight at Magic Kingdom on each August 13, 2025 and September 3, 2025. This can most likely (hopefully) shift to 11 pm to 1 am.
Magic Kingdom is at present listed as being open from 9 am to 10 pm day by day beginning August 2, 2025. Nevertheless, these are boilerplate hours. We’re totally anticipating 11 pm or (fingers crossed) midnight closures. If that’s not at present the plan, it’s a mistake. Walt Disney World would possibly be capable to get away with an earlier closing that week as a consequence of low crowds, however we wouldn’t depend on it.
Walt Disney World has prolonged Magic Kingdom hours beginning July 20, 2025. Beginning on that date, day by day hours are listed as 9 am till 11 pm. That at present continues by means of August 2, 2025. Provided that the second Starlight is scheduled for 11 pm, these hours most likely should be maintained for the lengthy haul. It’s attainable that Walt Disney World may push a second parade to 10:30 pm with a ten pm park closure, however we doubt that. Park hours extensions are most likely incoming, which might shift these ExEH later. That occurs on a regular basis.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Will you be benefiting from Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours at Magic Kingdom on August 13 or September 3, 2025? Hope that MK continues to host ExEH all through Celebration Season? Or do you view this from the ‘higher good’ perspective, worrying concerning the monkey wrench that’ll be thrown into attendance tendencies if MK has a nighttime occasion 4-5 nights per week? 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 fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!
