Any chance Disney will extend MK hours during October

[maryj11]

Yep, and starting in November, sunset is at 5:30 in Orlando. Half an hour to get dark enough for castle priojections before closing.

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/orlando?month=11&year=2020

Yeah I don’t think 30 minutes would be enough time for people to enjoy them.

 

[Alynw]

If their not extending hours for Thanksgiving week, thats not a good sign for possible Xmas hours being extended.

 

[siren0119]

Yeah I don’t think 30 minutes would be enough time for people to enjoy them.

The castle light shows/fireworks are generally about 15 minutes long so....

 

[maryj11]

The castle light shows/fireworks are generally about 15 minutes long so....

I don’t think would have it just towards closing. That would create crowds.

 

[yulilin3]

Since this thread is about October hours maybe lets veer away from the Castle Lights/Projection, Thanksgiving discussion. thanks

 

[maryj11]

Since this thread is about October hours maybe lets veer away from the Castle Lights/Projection, Thanksgiving discussion. thanks

Yes sorry about that.

 

[morganms22]

I wish they would extend them as well, but I know more than likely it will not happen until the holidays at the earliest.

I’m like you...a night owl and prefer to be at the parks in the evening. My only saving grace for our trip this time is that we will have a one year old in tow who will be done by the time 6:00PM rolls around.

 

[Gypsybear]

Night owl as well......and we will be there the week of Halloween. What my guess is, is that they will increase capacity, but not the hours (not a fan of that idea)...again, that's just a guess on my part. I'm bummed that we were moved from our Easter trip to Halloween, as we were just there this past Halloween...and we hadn't tried Easter yet. Oh well....there's always 2022....2021 will be DL....for, you guessed it...Halloween!!

 

[jacobzking]

Well, there is hope! At least Epcot and Animal Kingdom are extending their hours, by an extra hours, on a few certain days. So it IS possible.

https://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories/epcot-and-animal-kingdom-extend-operating-hours-on-select-days/

 

[Wild4Walt]

I could see a last minute update to hours for Columbus Day Weekend and Halloween Weekend but even that is iffy. And by extension maybe an hour or two. We're night owls too so I understand the desire for later hours.

 

[Apeters430]

They need to extend the hours at all the parks to thin out crowds early in the day and reduce wait times. These are pre Covid wait times without fast pass, same price, less experiences and shortened days. It’s starting to look quite ridiculous in them parks

 

[djmeredith]

I could see a last minute update to hours for Columbus Day Weekend and Halloween Weekend but even that is iffy. And by extension maybe an hour or two. We're night owls too so I understand the desire for later hours.

I'm going Columbus Day week (11-18) so I hope they not only extend hours that weekend but that entire week. It is the first sold out DHS week thus far, so it will likely be the busiest full week since reopening. They have either quietly increased capacity and/or are more busy because of the resort discounts. Either way, the reported wait times since Labor Day are greatly increased. The majority of people who booked trips this fall were willing to pay full price for lesser experience because of the lower wait times. Without that "benefit" people are going to start canceling (including possibly me). It's literally not worth the money to stand in 1hr+ lines all day and the real possibility of not getting to do all your favorite rides because the hours are too short. Disney is going to have to figure out a way to better disperse crowds to lower wait times before that week or it could be a very bad look for them.

 

[Apeters430]

resort guest don’t have any availability that week at HS but APs do which I kind of think is totally bull

 

[jacobzking]

Wow! Lots of hours extended this weekend already. MK till 7pm, Epcot till 9pm. HS till 8pm and AK till 6pm! WooHoo! We might be getting our time back in the park! At least a little of it!

 

[DisneyNDecember]

They only did it for this weekend and only this weekend? I wonder why only one weekend? To test it out first?

 

[yulilin3]

They only did it for this weekend and only this weekend? I wonder why only one weekend? To test it out first?

They have extended some park hours before, they won't go ahead and extend far out unless they see large numbers of bookings. This weekend's extension is a good sign that they will add hours when they see it's needed
The first hour and last hour of the day is still your best time to ride attractions with low wait times. But I can tell you i see the increase in visitors every week i go. It's time to bring the shows back, just increasing hours won't help

 

[SugarSweetLee]

My guess is they will keep waiting and making any applicable hour extensions week by week. With so many question marks about what the pandemic will look like in fall - if it gets a lot worse, some regions may reinstate lockdown or quarantines that would impact travel and lead to many canceling their trips - and the optics of announcing longer hours early on and then having to backtrack and make cuts are a lot worse than the flip of happy surprise announcements about extending hours.

 

[vossjemi]

Hmmmmm.... This makes it difficult to plan ADR’s. I mean do you think they’ll stay open late on Halloween? The park is scheduled to close at 6 PM so I have 6:30 PM reservations at Narcooses (sp?). But if the park is open until 7, then I might want a later reservation. But if they never change the time, I don’t wanna hang around for a couple of hours for no reason. By the time they make up their mind, it might be too late for me to change things around. Hmmmmm...

 

[ArielSRL]

Hmmmmm.... This makes it difficult to plan ADR’s. I mean do you think they’ll stay open late on Halloween? The park is scheduled to close at 6 PM so I have 6:30 PM reservations at Narcooses (sp?). But if the park is open until 7, then I might want a later reservation. But if they never change the time, I don’t wanna hang around for a couple of hours for no reason. By the time they make up their mind, it might be too late for me to change things around. Hmmmmm...

I can complete relate to this. Not so much for October because we are at YC and want to finish early to take advantage of the pool but I am making Thanksgiving week ADRs tomorrow and I want to be in the parks as late as possible.

 

[jacobzking]

I can complete relate to this. Not so much for October because we are at YC and want to finish early to take advantage of the pool but I am making Thanksgiving week ADRs tomorrow and I want to be in the parks as late as possible.

yep! pretty annoying. I tried to get after hour reservations, but failed. so I got some that are very close to closing time so I can eat after the park is closed. but now, I'm most likely gonna cancel those because the park days are already so short, last thing i wanna do is spend the last 90 minutes at a sit down. very frustrating indeed.