Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours is an on-site perk for Walt Disney World friends staying at a Deluxe Resorts, DVC Villas, and choose different lodges this 12 months and in 2025. This technique information covers the whole lot you’ll want to know: eligibility, experience rosters, the way it works, and ideas for greatest utilizing the additional time. (Up to date November 1, 2024.)
When it comes to fundamentals, Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours (ExEH) is the oblique alternative for Night Further Magic Hours and is the present counterpart to Early Theme Park Entry. Nonetheless, there are a whole lot of variations between the morning and night additional time within the parks.
Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours is often supplied after common park closing on Monday nights at EPCOT and Wednesday nights at Magic Kingdom. That schedule does change infrequently, however is correct the overwhelming majority of the time. See Walt Disney World’s official calendar for particular instances for every occasion night time. Observe that if common hours are added inflicting park closing to happen later, which occurs regularly, Prolonged Night Hours shifts to after that.
The pool of eligibility for Prolonged Night Hours can also be smaller. This nighttime profit is completely for friends staying at Walt Disney World Deluxe Resorts, Deluxe Villas (Disney Trip Membership items), and different choose lodges (presently solely the Swan & Dolphin and Shades of Inexperienced). Visitors staying at Worth or Average Resorts will not be eligible for Prolonged Night Hours.
Whereas initially promoted as a particular perk for the fiftieth Anniversary, Walt Disney World has confirmed that Prolonged Night Hours will proceed all through all of 2024 and 2025. There are different updates because of official bulletins and omissions from Walt Disney World.
First, Walt Disney World has now added Nation Bear Musical Jamboree in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom to the Prolonged Night Hours lineup. That is the reimagined alternative for Nation Bear Jamboree (additionally a musical, albeit not in title), which mainly swaps out the music for Disney songs whereas additionally giving the Bear Band new costumes. Nation Bear Jamboree was not beforehand a part of Prolonged Night Hours, so it is a pure addition.
Second, Walt Disney World nonetheless has NOT added Tiana’s Bayou Journey to the Prolonged Night Hours experience roster. That is one other reimagined experience–the alternative for Splash Mountain, which was an ExEH attraction. Nonetheless, Tiana’s Bayou Journey is presently utilizing a digital queue throughout its preliminary opening interval to handle crowds (and take care of downtime points).
Usually, there could be a 6 p.m. digital queue entry time for Prolonged Night Hours. In all chance, Walt Disney World is ready till Tiana’s Bayou Journey drops the digital queue earlier than including it to the ExEH lineup.
Whatever the purpose, we hope that Tiana’s Bayou Journey is open throughout Prolonged Night Hours beginning quickly and makes use of a standby line throughout the bonus time. If and when Tiana’s Bayou Journey operates throughout ExEH, we wouldn’t be shocked to see Nation Bear Musical Jamboree minimize from the lineup. It looks as if an both/or factor, not each.
Talking of digital queues, TRON Lightcycle Run has switched to a standby line throughout common hours and Prolonged Night Hours. Which means you possibly can experience it as many instances as you’d like, time allowing, throughout ExEH. The 6 p.m. entry time for the digital queue is gone with the swap to standby.
These visiting Walt Disney World for the rest of 2024 needs to be conscious that there will likely be no Prolonged Night Hours at Magic Kingdom. The park stops internet hosting ExEH when Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Get together and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Get together kick into excessive gear.
Now that November has arrived, Prolonged Night Hours will likely be hosted at Disney’s Animal Kingdom instead of Magic Kingdom. It beforehand moved over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and can for yet one more date this vacation season, however that’s largely over now that Jollywood Nights will likely be hosted at DHS.
This will likely look like a downgrade, however we did Prolonged Night Hours at Magic Kingdom a few instances at the beginning of Get together Season final 12 months, and it was bonkers busy. Transferring it over to Animal Kingdom throughout these busy stretches is the proper transfer for everybody. Particularly since Animal Kingdom is underrated within the evenings.
Right here’s the complete schedule of Prolonged Night Hours at Walt Disney World for late 2024 and early 2025:
- Monday, November 4 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, November 6 – Animal Kingdom
- Monday, November 11 – EPCOT
- Thursday, November 14 – Animal Kingdom
- Monday, November 18 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, November 20 – Animal Kingdom
- Monday, November 25 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, November 27 – Animal Kingdom
- Monday, December 2 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, December 4 – Animal Kingdom
- Monday, December 9 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, December 11 – Animal Kingdom
- Monday, December 16 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, December 18 – Animal Kingdom
- Monday, December 23 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, December 25 – Animal Kingdom
- Wednesday, January 1, 2025 – Animal Kingdom
- Friday, January 3, 2025 – Hollywood Studios
- Monday, January 6, 2025 – EPCOT
- Wednesday, January 8, 2025 – Magic Kingdom
Along with the basic Kingdom switcheroo (Animal instead of Magic), we wish to draw your consideration to the tip of 12 months anomalies. There isn’t a Monday ExEH throughout the peak week between Christmas and New Yr’s Eve, which is finished as a result of that gives Walt Disney World will extra flexibility in including hours for all friends. Unhealthy information for Deluxe friends, excellent news for everybody else.
Moreover, there’s one final ExEH at DHS on Friday, January 3, 2025. I suppose that is thought-about a “make up” day for the misplaced Prolonged Night Hours on December 30, however I ponder what number of friends from then are nonetheless round. A pleasant contact, regardless.
Lastly, Prolonged Night Hours returns to Magic Kingdom on January 8, 2025. From that time ahead, it’s our expectation that ExEH resumes its regular cadence of Mondays at EPCOT and Wednesdays at Magic Kingdom, with restricted exceptions, till September 2025 rolls round.
Turning to a subject of confusion, Prolonged Night Hours is distinct and completely different from After Hours at Magic Kingdom and After Hours at EPCOT. These are laborious ticket occasions to which anybody should purchase admission. After Hours additionally lasts longer and contains refreshments.
Though the schedule varies, Magic Kingdom sometimes hosts After Hours on choose Monday and Thursday nights–however not Wednesdays. It’s additionally value noting that After Hours costs vary from $125 to $175.
In contrast, Prolonged Night Hours are “free” for friends staying within the aforementioned resort tiers, are shorter in length, and don’t embody refreshments. After Hours and Prolonged Night Hours are additionally held on completely different dates. If cash isn’t any object, After Hours is certainly higher, however that’s a fairly large asterisk. We’ll take the “free” occasion any day of the week over having to pay additional–they’re not that a lot completely different.
Early Entry can also be completely different from Prolonged Night Hours. Clearly, one happens within the morning and the opposite at night time. Past that, Early Entry is obtainable in any respect 4 theme parks each single day, runs for half-hour, and each on-site resort visitor is eligible, together with the third celebration on-property lodges. For the whole lot you’ll want to learn about that profit, see our Technique Information for Early Theme Park Entry at Walt Disney World.
As soon as once more, Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours has two kinds of resort eligibility, happens two nights per week, is at two parks, and runs for 2 hours (just about the whole lot in regards to the perk happens in twos).
The opposite huge distinction is that you would be able to accomplish an incredible quantity throughout Prolonged Night Hours. We’ve finished it at each Epcot and Magic Kingdom, and it’s been nice in each parks–eerily uncrowded by the tip, with most sights being stroll ons.
With that stated, it’s undoubtedly superior at Magic Kingdom, and that’s largely as a result of extra sturdy experience roster–and the truth that a number of headliners are positioned close to each other. Magic Kingdom has as many fashionable sights in Fantasyland as is the case within the entirety of Epcot. (Examine one such expertise in our Night Prolonged Hours at Magic Kingdom Picture Report.)
Talking of which, a bit of extra strategizing is required in an effort to knock out Remy’s Ratatouille Journey, Frozen Ever After, Take a look at Observe, Soarin’ Across the World, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind throughout a single Prolonged Night Hours in Epcot.
Examine certainly one of our current makes an attempt at this in Night Prolonged Hours at EPCOT Technique & Report, which provides play-by-play from one night time that we did a pair months in the past. Nonetheless, we had a incredible time and extremely advocate profiting from Prolonged Night Hours in each parks, for those who’re eligible.
Earlier than singing its praises an excessive amount of, we should always most likely deal with the elephant within the room: that “if eligible” asterisk. Many Walt Disney World followers have been crucial about Prolonged Night Hours for excluding Worth and Average Resorts.
Their perspective is that it caters to the rich or creates two tiers of on-site resort friends. Clearly, the purpose about decrease tier resorts not being eligible is correct. The opposite factors are subjective, and the identical claims could possibly be made about off-site v. on-site friends with the Early Entry profit.
Clearly, nobody likes shedding entry to a perk, however the purpose Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours are this pleasing is as a result of it’s restricted to a small subset of friends. Night Further Magic Hours have been crowded to the purpose of being virtually ineffective and unenjoyable of their final couple of years.
Prolonged Night Hours are approach higher than that, and likewise superior to the brand new early entry providing. That’s regardless of this solely occurring two nights per week and thus “consolidating” crowds into that single night. For probably the most half, there haven’t been a ton of friends profiting from this–and that has been true even throughout peak season. Prolonged Night Hours have been superb–for many who are eligible.
In any case, we’re not right here to debate the basic equity of Prolonged Night Hours. Somewhat, the aim of this information is to offer information in regards to the profit and make it easier to take advantage of it.
To that finish, potential choices for profiting from Prolonged Night Hours with out breaking the financial institution embody doing Disney Trip Membership Level Leases or reserving the Swan & Dolphin Resorts, that are often roughly the price of a Average Resort.
One other concept that we actually like is doing a cut up keep, splurging on an evening at a Deluxe Resort (see Learn how to Do Cut up Stays at Walt Disney World Lodges) after which doing funds lodging the remainder of your trip. You could possibly additionally do a two night-stay, checking in on a Monday and out on a Wednesday, in an effort to make the most of each Prolonged Night Hours nights.
Should you actually needed to go huge, pair that with Membership Degree, profiting from the early/late hours and having fun with the membership throughout the center of the day. You could possibly fairly accomplish each worthwhile attraction in Magic Kingdom or Epcot throughout the first few hours of the day plus the previous few hours of the night time.
Do breakfast in one of many Membership Degree lounges, whereas additionally having fun with a pool day and each different foods and drinks unfold (save for desserts). That might be an superior strategy to TREAT YO SELF, and could possibly be made attainable by reducing prices elsewhere out of your Walt Disney World trip funds.
Subsequent, let’s check out the eligible lodges for Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours…
Prolonged Night Hours Eligible Disney Owned Lodges
Deluxe Resorts
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
- Disney’s Seashore Membership Resort
- Disney’s BoardWalk Inn
- Disney’s Modern Resort
- Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
- Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
- Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
- Disney’s Yacht Membership Resort
Disney Trip Membership & Deluxe Villa Resorts
- Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Modern Resort
- Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
- Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas – Jambo Home
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas – Kidani Village
- Disney’s Seashore Membership Villas
- Disney’s BoardWalk Villas
- Disney’s Previous Key West Resort
- Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
- Disney’s Riviera Resort
- Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa
- Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
Prolonged Night Hours Eligible Third Get together Lodges
- Walt Disney World Swan Lodge
- Walt Disney World Dolphin Lodge
- Walt Disney World Swan Reserve
- Shades of Inexperienced
Subsequent, the sights lineup for Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours…
Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours Points of interest – Magic Kingdom
- “it’s a small world”
- Astro Orbiter
- Massive Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Buzz Lightyear’s Area Ranger Spin
- Nation Bear Musical Jamboree
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- Haunted Mansion
- Mad Tea Get together
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic
- Monsters Inc. Giggle Ground
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Practice
- Area Mountain
- Swiss Household Treehouse
- The Barnstormer
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- TRON Lightcycle Run (now through standby)
- Underneath the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid
- Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room
Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours Points of interest – Epcot
- Magnificence and The Beast Sing-Alongside
- Frozen Ever After
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (through digital queue beginning at 6 pm)
- Mission: SPACE
- Remy’s Ratatouille Journey
- Soarin’ Across the World
- Spaceship Earth
- Take a look at Observe (closed for reimagining till 2025)
- The Seas with Nemo & Mates
Prolonged Night Hours Points of interest – Disney’s Hollywood Studios (Seasonal)
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Rock ‘n’ Curler Coaster Starring Aerosmith
- Slinky Canine Sprint
- Star Excursions – The Adventures Proceed
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
- Toy Story Mania!
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Prolonged Night Hours Points of interest – Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Seasonal)
- Avatar Flight of Passage
- DINOSAUR
- Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain
- It’s Robust to be a Bug!
- Meet Favourite Disney Buddies at Adventurers Outpost
- Na’vi River Journey
- TriceraTop Spin
As you possibly can see, not all Walt Disney World sights can be found throughout Prolonged Night Hours. With minor exceptions, these lists are equivalent to the previous night Further Magic Hours with headliners being the emphasis.
Furthermore, the Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours schedule and obtainable sights are topic to alter with out discover. Relevant theme park, days and instances of operation, attraction and repair availability could differ and are topic to alter with out discover. Topic to capability and cancellation. [Insert other boring boilerplate caveats.]
Legitimate theme park admission and MagicBand, Key to the World Card, or Disney MagicMobile move is required. Visitors with out the Park Hopper Choice or Park Hopper Plus Choice should spend the day on the similar park the place they’d prefer to benefit from the Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours profit.
To validate eligibility, Forged Members are stationed outdoors every attraction entrance, scanning MagicBands, resort room keys, and so on. Not like Early Entry, this occurs at each single attraction all through the night time—not simply as soon as upon arrival. That’s as a result of different friends are already within the parks–that’s the one possible strategy to decide who can experience sights because the parks will not be actively cleared at the beginning of Prolonged Night Hours.
Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours Technique
Technique for Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours is surprisingly easy. Begin with much less fashionable sights and end with extra fashionable ones. Mainly, do rides in reverse order of wait instances, whereas nonetheless conserving in thoughts that 2 hours goes by rapidly, that means you don’t wish to waste any of that point on sights that may have minimal daytime waits (assuming you’re additionally visiting the identical park throughout the day).
One key to that is coupling Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours technique with Genie+ and Lightning Lane utilization, or lack thereof. (See our Information to Genie+ and Lightning Lanes FAQ for the whole lot you’ll want to know.) Particularly, friends who’re eligible for ExEH most likely do not want to purchase Particular person Lightning Lanes, and will as an alternative backload these sights into the tip of their night.
Let’s rapidly run by means of what this implies for every park.
At Magic Kingdom, your final three sights needs to be Area Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Practice–with that order making probably the most sense. Attempt to time it so that you get into line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Practice ~5 minutes earlier than the tip of Prolonged Night Hours. Disregard the posted wait time, because it’ll nearly actually be considerably inflated to discourage you from doing it.
Then there’s TRON Lightcycle Run.
As famous above, TRON Lightcycle Run dropped its digital queue, proper as Prolonged Night Hours ended at Magic Kingdom for the 12 months. We haven’t had an opportunity to check technique for TRON’s standby line throughout ExEH, and gained’t till early 2025. Our expectation is that doing it on the very finish of the night is the perfect method, however we’ll verify and report again.
At Epcot, the technique is a tad harder as a result of there are solely a handful of fashionable sights, all of which command decently-long waits throughout Prolonged Night Hours. Conversely, the whole lot else is comparatively unpopular and will likely be a walk-on, however that’s additionally true throughout a lot of the daytime working hours. With that stated, finish your night with Soarin’ Across the World, Take a look at Observe, Frozen Ever After, and Remy’s Ratatouille Journey.
Ideally, you’ll bounce into line for the Rat Experience about 5 minutes earlier than the tip of the night time. The additional advantage right here is that you simply’ll be capable to take an extended, leisurely stroll out of World Showcase with nobody else round. You would possibly even be capable to go the “great distance” round to exit the park–assuming you’re not leaving by means of Worldwide Gateway.
Since Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind makes use of a digital queue, slot that in at any time when your return known as. We sometimes do that on the very finish of ExEH, largely as a result of the pre-shows are so lengthy that Cosmic Rewind takes up a whole lot of time from start-to-finish.
When DHS provides one other Prolonged Night Hours, our advice is beginning with Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, adopted by Rock ‘n’ Curler Coaster and Tower of Terror, and ending with Slinky Canine Sprint earlier than leaping in line for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance proper on the very finish of the night time.
Mainly, the concept is beginning with the lowest-demand sights and ending with highest. It stays to be seen whether or not Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will take part in ExEH in Late 2024. It’s not on the official checklist, but it surely was open final 12 months. If it’s not taking part, we’d advocate leaping in line for that shortly earlier than official park closing.
Finally, that’s the whole lot you’ll want to learn about Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours at Walt Disney World. What you do earlier within the night time doesn’t actually matter, as long as you put aside enough time for the aforementioned headliners on the very finish.
We’ll proceed updating this technique information within the coming months as Prolonged Night Hours proceed to evolve, and as issues “cool down” and discover their groove. Keep tuned–we’ll proceed to cowl all the necessary planning particulars and likewise share extra Prolonged Night Hours picture stories from our experiences with this new on-site resort profit!
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Study lodges on our Walt Disney World Lodges Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To save cash on tickets or decide which kind to purchase, learn our Suggestions for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets publish. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys publish takes a novel take a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Experience Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the perfect place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for the whole lot you’ll want to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Ideas on Prolonged Night Theme Park Hours at Walt Disney World? Excited to make the most of the brand new on-site visitor perk or assume it’s too quick to be helpful? Disenchanted in regards to the eligibility guidelines or attraction lineups? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we may 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 beneath within the feedback!
