Still Waiting for July hours

[LAS321]

Tomorrow is June 1st and I can't understand why the hours for July aren't going to be updated and expanded. During out 11 day mid-July trip the MK closes every night but one at 10:00. Epcot has one EMH and DHS closes every night we're there at 9:00. What's going on??? We've been going in the summer for many years and they always have late hours, especially at MK. You need to plan 180 days out but it's not easy when you don't know what the hours are going to be!!

 

[Cinderella94]

Unfortunately I think we do know what the hours are going to be, for the most part anyway. My trip is the 1st week of July. I've read here that hours can be updated up to the 15th - 18th of the previous month, so we have a couple of weeks before we're certain, but the late late nights at MK are a thing of the past unfortunately.

 

[Dakota731]

How do you make your ADRs and fast passes then? I figure out which park we are going to by the hours of the day!

 

[Cinderella94]

How do you make your ADRs and fast passes then? I figure out which park we are going to by the hours of the day!

You assume that the currently posted hours are going to be the final hours. I agree it's a frustrating situation. Disney doesn't hold up their end of the "deal," if you will, in terms of telling us what we need to book early. But the currently posted hours are all you have to go off of.

 

[Klayfish]

How do you make your ADRs and fast passes then? I figure out which park we are going to by the hours of the day!

Easy. Book for the hours they're open. I can't imagine it would have a huge effect on dinner reservations, unless you planned a midnight dinner. MK is scheduled open until 10pm as of now. If that's the way it stays, so be it. Check daily...if they change it, then you just got a few extra hours of park time. You can then modify your FP+ as needed. Consider it a bonus.

I have to say that if they do keep the hours at 10pm this time, it'll be the first time I can recall the park closing at 10pm routinely in July. We've made at least 6 or 7 trips to WDW in July over the past 13 years and it's always been open until 11pm or later. The ironic thing about it will be that we never used to stay late because the kids were young. Now that they're getting older, they want to stay later (though DW and I are still not late night owls). Oh well, it is what it is.

 

[bettybooplove]

Someone linked this site last night and it shows the park hours for the previous year: http://www.characterlocator.com/?p=cal_index&mo=08&yr=2016&cweek=2

There was at least one very late night EMH for Magic Kingdom during the first week of July 2016.

 

[AtlantaDisneyDreamer]

If I recall correctly, they expanded the hours last July only a couple of weeks or so before the dates. I had planned on EMH on the 3rd to be earlier, but they expanded park hours and EMH so everything was pushed back a couple of hours.

That being said, the hours for early July are already pretty late, if you include EMH. On the 3rd, the EMH go until 1 am, and on the 4th, regular hours are until 1 am. AK is open until 11 and has EMH from 11-1 am through the 4th. After that it is open until 10.

Epcot ha EMH from 9-11 on the 4th.

All of those hours seem pretty late to me, especially given the low crowds in the parks after 10 pm or so.

Still it is possible they could extend July hours. They have not posted times for the 3rd or 4th of July fireworks, so they could be waiting to determine those showtimes until they have determined park hours.

 

[DaisyJ]

I am waiting for mid July hours to update, too. When we made our plans, we worked within the hours that were posted, but at least ONE MK late night would be nice!

 

[PolyRob]

I am waiting for mid July hours to update, too. When we made our plans, we worked within the hours that were posted, but at least ONE MK late night would be nice!

I am wondering the same about MK the weekend after the 4th. Its hard knowing I was in MK until 11pm for regular hours on a weekday in early May last year and the weekend following July will close at 10pm this year.

 

[Dakota731]

It matters if you won't even be in the park the day you made dining reservations! A lot of us plan days with the EMH or late evening hours!

 

[wareagle57]

Being in MK late at night is my favorite part of every trip. It makes going at high crowd times worth it. We are going the weekend before 4th of July knowing the crowds would be bad, but assumed we'd have lots of late nights in MK. We are lucky in that our final night they have EMH until 1, but the other nights it closes at 10. That doesn't even give us time to do anything after the fireworks and gives us almost no time in the park after dark. Guess we will go back to December trips so at least it gets dark earlier and we can do a party night if we really want to stay out late. But I really miss the 2-3am nights.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

We will be there July 6-13. I'm not exactly counting on longer hours, but I'm thinking surely to goodness we will get at least one night where MK is open until 1am or so. Time will tell

 

[whiporee]

There's two issues. If you're hoping for more late EMH at MK, I don't think it's going to happen. They've settled into this routine of Wednesdays as the late MK EMH, and I don't expect that to change, not with AK taking some of the demand this summer.

If you're hoping for the standard hours to be extended, that might happen -- we might get until 11. I don't see any midnight or 1 am closings as operating hours (the Wednesday EMH might get pushed back from 11-1). But I'll be there in July and don't expect we'll get anything beyond 11, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the hours stay 9-10. I hope not, but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[tlmadden73]

I don't blame Disney. They want to wait as long as possible before possible expanding hours waiting to see how booked their hotels are, how many Fast Pass reservations are made for that day .. etc.

Remember, the only reason the expand the hours is because they expect big crowds and want to disperse it .. not just to be nice to the guests.

I guess look at it this way .. if Disney isn't extending the hours then it should be (in theory) less crowded than previous years?

 

[maryj11]

I am waiting for mid July hours to update, too. When we made our plans, we worked within the hours that were posted, but at least ONE MK late night would be nice!

Although we are not going until August I'm keeping my eye on June and July so I can get some idea of what August hours will be.
We usually make our plans to be at MK during late hours because we love the park at night. If it closes at 10:00 that will not make us happy.

 

[Texans_loyal]

ha! in that case, i'm screwed. if they don't change July hours, no way they are changing sept. hours

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Aug hours were updated on Jul 15th last year, and I believe it was the same for Jul. They went from MK closing at 10pm every night to closing at 11pm some nights and 12am others during our entire 11-day trip.

I would guess we'd see something similar this year. I just plan for the 10pm closure, keeping in mind that hours will likely be extended.

 

[ArielSRL]

June hours were last updated on May 12th. I thought they would wait until Monday 5/15, but they did it in the evening of Friday May 12th. So you have a couple weeks still...

 

[Ferrentinos]

I'm waiting to see if they change the opening times at AK to 8am after July 4th - we are planning to do AM EMH there on July 5 - that would change us from an 8am EMH to a 7am EMH - that may require a bit of changes the night before and that evening in order to make sure we are in good spirits that early in the morning!

 

[Cinderella94]

I'm waiting to see if they change the opening times at AK to 8am after July 4th - we are planning to do AM EMH there on July 5 - that would change us from an 8am EMH to a 7am EMH - that may require a bit of changes the night before and that evening in order to make sure we are in good spirits that early in the morning!

I would love this!