December Hours

[beedee12]

Can you guys calm my fears a little bit? I've looked at WDW for official hours and the travel agent calendar for first week of December hours and I am seeing a lot of 9pm closes at MK (obviously not looking at party nights). We've done several 1st/2nd week of December trips and have seen many 11pm closes with 11pm-1am EMH and even a 1am close with 1am-3am EMH. If I remember correctly though, prior to those trips, we saw early closures with extending happening like 15-30 days before the trip. Is this still something that happens? The hubby and I are big on like 8am-1am kind of days at MK, so it's a bummer seeing just 9am-9pm days listed.

 

[FelisLachesis]

The hours for December are still very preliminary. Disney just defaults to 9-9 when they can't think of any good reason otherwise. Once the Disney statisticians see how many ADRs are booked, and once they get a glimpse on how many Fastpasses are taken, how many hotel rooms are occupied, they'll get a better view on how busy it should be and adjust the hours accordingly.

First week of December should be closing probably between 10:30 pm and midnight on non-party days.

Christmas week is still set to close at 10:00 pm, 12/30 and 12/31 set for Midnight. Now we know that's not what's going to happen at the end. I wouldn't be surprised if MK finally sets at 11:00 pm to midnight most nights, and with 12/30 and 12/31 closing at 1:00 am.

I'm actually interested in 1/2/18, as that's when I'm coming. The last few years, it's closed between 11:00 pm and midnight. The upcoming calendar? Yup, 9-9.

Touringplans.com made a post a couple years ago that analyzed the closing hours for the 4 major parks, looking at when the hours first got announced at 180 days proir against the time the park actually closed that day. His analysis showed that there was a better than 50/50 chance that the park hours shown for MK when they were posted 180 days out were NOT the same hours that the park was actually open. If they were changed, it was almost always to a later closing time.

http://blog.touringplans.com/2015/05/19/how-often-do-disney-world-park-hours-change/

Edit: doing some deeper number works on the TP.com stats, if you take out the 7:00 pm (now 6:00 pm) closing times, since they're always for the hard ticket events, MK's closing hours actually change closer to 2/3 of the time (64.7%) and it's almost always later. I'm guessing that TP's data shows closing time went earlier maybe 5 times, total, in 4 years worth of data.

 

[beedee12]

Awesome! This is exactly what I thought, but needed someone to reassure me lol. I hope you get some good hours your week, too!

 

[whiporee]

The first weeks of December have traditionally been slow, so I'm surprised you got 11s in the past. With an average of three parties a week and an EMH, that leaves three days a week for normal operating hours. I'd be surprised if you got extended past 10 -- since they didn't extend past 10 in much of July this year -- and wouldn't be amazed if they didn't get moved past 9. I hope I'm wrong, but if you're making plans, I'd plan on 9pm (maybe 10) closures at MK during those weeks.

 

[whiporee]

and it's almost always later.

I don't think WDW ever reduces from previously published hours, or at least I can't think of any times that's been the case. You can plan on published hours and hope for longer ones, but you don't have to worry about them being reduced.

 

[FelisLachesis]

I don't think WDW ever reduces from previously published hours, or at least I can't think of any times that's been the case. You can plan on published hours and hope for longer ones, but you don't have to worry about them being reduced.

According to the blog post I linked to, which has data from 2011 to 2015, 1/2 of 1% of the times the park originally was set to close at 8pm, did it really close at 7pm. He has 1461 dates worth of data, and the park was originally slated to close at 8pm 12.2% of the time. So that leads to it going backwards (1461 * .122 * .005 = 0.891 days) once in his entire pool of data. Looking at the backwards from 11pm to 10pm, (1461 * .231 * .002 = 0.674) also once.

So my estimation of 5 times was even too high. It appears Disney did it a total of two times in 4 years. While not exactly never happening, it's so rare, that I think we can count on Disney not actually planning on doing it.

(I'm not sure if my 1461 days, which is 4 full years, is accurate, but any adjustment won't change the calculations that much)

 

[DekrRini]

The first weeks of December have traditionally been slow, so I'm surprised you got 11s in the past. With an average of three parties a week and an EMH, that leaves three days a week for normal operating hours. I'd be surprised if you got extended past 10 -- since they didn't extend past 10 in much of July this year -- and wouldn't be amazed if they didn't get moved past 9. I hope I'm wrong, but if you're making plans, I'd plan on 9pm (maybe 10) closures at MK during those weeks.

There are actually 4 parties a week this year-Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday-- leaving only 3 non-party days. And the park closes at 6pm instead of 7pm on party days. I'd think they'd extend the hours the remaining 3 days for non-party goers. Time will tell.

 

[LucyBC80]

Are the hours usually extended on all 4 parks? Hopping to see AK at night and riding a few rides after dark but the park closing at 7 with ROL supposedly at 6:45 there would be no time to see anything else.

 

[DebbieB]

Are the hours usually extended on all 4 parks? Hopping to see AK at night and riding a few rides after dark but the park closing at 7 with ROL supposedly at 6:45 there would be no time to see anything else.

Epcot is pretty set. DHS maybe. AK likely.