Park Hours

[lorileahb]

Tomorrow is hopefully our day for extending - week of April 26!

 

[Mousey0324]

Park availability calendar looking fairly full for HS and MK...Thoughts on if park hours will be extended for the rest of April and May?

 

[GBRforWDW]

Park availability calendar looking fairly full for HS and MK...Thoughts on if park hours will be extended for the rest of April and May?

Yes, they're updated about 2 weeks before. Park hours have been getting updated on Fridays for 2 weeks later running Sunday through Saturday. For example, tomorrow, Friday April 9th, hours should be updated for April 25th - May 1.

 

[byanks7]

It looks like they reduced park hours starting April 24. Hollywood studios and magic kingdom from 9pm to 6 pm. Did I read that wrong? https://www.wdwmagic.com/calendar.htm

 

[beesly]

You may find this thread helpful.

 

[GBRforWDW]

It looks like they reduced park hours starting April 24. Hollywood studios and magic kingdom from 9pm to 6 pm. Did I read that wrong? https://www.wdwmagic.com/calendar.htm

April 24th has the longer hours. April 25 has the standard boiler plate hours that will be extended tomorrow.

 

[jpakstis]

April 24th has the longer hours. April 25 has the standard boiler plate hours that will be extended tomorrow.

Yeah, looking on MDE, 4/24 has the same hours as the rest of that week (MK 8AM - 9PM, EP 11AM - 11PM, DHS 9AM - 8PM, DAK 8AM - 8PM). I would imagine that the following week (starting with 4/25) would get extended tomorrow.

It looks like WDW Magic just didn't update the MK hours in that link above. All the other parks' hours reflect the extended hours.

 

[beesly]

It looks like they reduced park hours starting April 24. Hollywood studios and magic kingdom from 9pm to 6 pm. Did I read that wrong? https://www.wdwmagic.com/calendar.htm

Yeah, looking on MDE, 4/24 has the same hours as the rest of that week (MK 8AM - 9PM, EP 11AM - 11PM, DHS 9AM - 8PM, DAK 8AM - 8PM). I would imagine that the following week (starting with 4/25) would get extended tomorrow.

It looks like WDW Magic just didn't update the MK hours in that link above. All the other parks' hours reflect the extended hours.

This is why I recommend always checking the official WDW website for the latest official hours. Even the DIS is still showing inaccurate hours for the week of 5/2 (other folks and I notified the site admin over two weeks ago).

 

[jdd]

Read through the thread but didn't see this come up. When they extend hours, do they also open up more park reservations? Seems like there would be a metric on how many people are in the park at any one time if it's open for 9 hours as compared to 11 hours. Having to reschedule our May trip as my son's school scheduled a last minute concert, and all days for DHS are full in May

 

[jpakstis]

Read through the thread but didn't see this come up. When they extend hours, do they also open up more park reservations? Seems like there would be a metric on how many people are in the park at any one time if it's open for 9 hours as compared to 11 hours. Having to reschedule our May trip as my son's school scheduled a last minute concert, and all days for DHS are full in May

I think the issue is that even if they extend the hours, that doesn't also increase the capacity limit, right? Pre-Covid, extending hours would most likely stagger the crowds quite a bit. But that doesn't mean less people going to that park and that's all the capacity limits and park reservation systems are concerned about. It doesn't matter if you have a park reservation and you go at rope drop or go in the afternoon, you still are counted toward that capacity. In fact the extending of the hours might make park reservations for DHS and MK more scarce, since if you have park-hopper tickets you pretty much know you'll get into the other parks after 2 and have plenty of time there.

We are going to be there in a week and other than Saturday 4/17, Epcot has park reservations available every day we are there. MK and DHS were gone months ago. If we were trying to maximize the park reservation system, we'd probably just book MK and DHS every other day (with maybe one DAK day somewhere in there) knowing we could always park hop to Epcot later.

 

[beesly]

Read through the thread but didn't see this come up. When they extend hours, do they also open up more park reservations? Seems like there would be a metric on how many people are in the park at any one time if it's open for 9 hours as compared to 11 hours. Having to reschedule our May trip as my son's school scheduled a last minute concert, and all days for DHS are full in May

No, sorry - that is not something we’ve seen happening. Park hours are being extended to accommodate the crowds when park passes are selling out. They didn’t need to extend them during low-crowd periods.

 

[Tawney]

Really looking forward to tomorrow - hopefully we will see hours extended for the (week of) 4/24 crowd! HS and MK are at capacity the majority of the days that week, so lets see those extended hours!

Also, send some luck my way for getting an Oga's ADR for two on my Hubby's birthday (4/27)!

 

[MaxsDad]

Really looking forward to tomorrow - hopefully we will see hours extended for the (week of) 4/24 crowd! HS and MK are at capacity the majority of the days that week, so lets see those extended hours!

Also, send some luck my way for getting an Oga's ADR for two on my Hubby's birthday (4/27)!

That is my daughter's birthday too and we will be in dhs as well! Good luck!

 

[jdd]

I think the issue is that even if they extend the hours, that doesn't also increase the capacity limit, right? Pre-Covid, extending hours would most likely stagger the crowds quite a bit. But that doesn't mean less people going to that park and that's all the capacity limits and park reservation systems are concerned about. It doesn't matter if you have a park reservation and you go at rope drop or go in the afternoon, you still are counted toward that capacity. In fact the extending of the hours might make park reservations for DHS and MK more scarce, since if you have park-hopper tickets you pretty much know you'll get into the other parks after 2 and have plenty of time there.

We are going to be there in a week and other than Saturday 4/17, Epcot has park reservations available every day we are there. MK and DHS were gone months ago. If we were trying to maximize the park reservation system, we'd probably just book MK and DHS every other day (with maybe one DAK day somewhere in there) knowing we could always park hop to Epcot later.

No, sorry - that is not something we’ve seen happening. Park hours are being extended to accommodate the crowds when park passes are selling out. They didn’t need to extend them during low-crowd periods.

Thanks - I kinda thought it was wishful thinking!

 

[Mousey0324]

Don’t see updates for park hours...?

 

[beesly]

Don’t see updates for park hours...?

We usually see them between 11:00am and 12:00pm ET.

 

[Mousey0324]

We usually see them between 11:00am and 12:00pm ET.

haha ok....thanks!!!

 

[maryj11]

I see currently Epcot is closing at 11:00. Is this only because of spring break? Just wondered if anyone thinks Epcot will continue the 11:00pm closing.

 

[kevgraub]

I think it will this summer when the parks are all running at, or near, capacity (the 35% kind of capacity). However, that gap period between spring break and start of summer, when attendance will probably be down quite a bit, I suspect they will close earlier.

 

[beesly]

They’ve started to make updates for the week of 4/25 - similar to last week when we saw a couple of parks update first, and then the others caught up. I’ll wait to see if additional changes are made in the next 30 minutes or so before I update the first post.