May park hours

[JoRollo]

Travelling from the uk and will be spending only 3 days in Disneyland on 18,19,20 May 2016. I've noticed that there may be grad nights on 2 of our park days? Feeling worried now as can't change dates. Will parks close very early and we will miss out. Also does anyone know are paint the night and new firework show's on every night? I can't find any info. Thanks for any help.

 

[figment_jii]

Grad nights usually do not impact park operating hours. The event is held in DCA after the park closes to general public at its normal time (often between 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm depending on the night - early closing is usually on weekdays). You can see the hours for May 2015 to get a sense of when the parks might close next year. Just note they kicked off the summer season on May 22 in 2015 (Friday before Memorial Day) and it might not happen until May 27 in 2016 (Memorial Day is on May 30, 2016). Official operating hours won't be released until about 45-days/6-weeks in advance.

In terms of PtN and Disneyland Forever (the fireworks show), we don't really know what the schedule will look like for the non-peak season in 2016. Historically, things like fireworks, are only presented on weekends (Fri to Sun) during the non-peak periods. There hasn't been a true nighttime parade in a while, so we really have no recent frame of reference to predict the off-season schedule. DL has been presenting both Disneyland Forever (except on MHP nights) and PtN nightly since they debuted, which is unusual. Normally, fireworks are only presented on weekends (Fri to Sun) and during MHP after Labor Day until the start of the Holiday season. This year, they continued nightly presentation of fireworks. If I had to guess, I think they'll go back to their more normal schedule at some point in 2016, so, to be safe, I would plan on fireworks (and maybe the parade) only being presented on weekends in mid-May.

 

[JoRollo]

Grad nights usually do not impact park operating hours. The event is held in DCA after the park closes to general public at its normal time (often between 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm depending on the night - early closing is usually on weekdays). You can see the hours for May 2015 to get a sense of when the parks might close next year. Just note they kicked off the summer season on May 22 in 2015 (Friday before Memorial Day) and it might not happen until May 27 in 2016 (Memorial Day is on May 30, 2016). Official operating hours won't be released until about 45-days/6-weeks in advance.

In terms of PtN and Disneyland Forever (the fireworks show), we don't really know what the schedule will look like for the non-peak season in 2016. Historically, things like fireworks, are only presented on weekends (Fri to Sun) during the non-peak periods. There hasn't been a true nighttime parade in a while, so we really have no recent frame of reference to predict the off-season schedule. DL has been presenting both Disneyland Forever (except on MHP nights) and PtN nightly since they debuted, which is unusual. Normally, fireworks are only presented on weekends (Fri to Sun) and during MHP after Labor Day until the start of the Holiday season. This year, they continued nightly presentation of fireworks. If I had to guess, I think they'll go back to their more normal schedule at some point in 2016, so, to be safe, I would plan on fireworks (and maybe the parade) only being presented on weekends in mid-May.

Thank you very much for all that info much appreciated it's difficult to predict anything I'm used to WDW and 6 months of schedules in advance. I wondered as they had extended the 60th anniversary celebrations to September next year if that meant PtN and fireworks would be still on nightly while celebrations continued as that's the reason we are going but like you say who knows. I will keep my fingers crossed they are, at least we are there on a Friday so should get to see them. Glad grad nights are no real problem too put my mind at rest