The roller coaster saga of Extended Evening Hours at Walt Disney World is over (hopefully?), with Hollywood Studios now set to host the extra time perk for a few months during the remainder of 2025. This post shares date(s), details, and strategy for taking advantage of the on-site perk for guests staying at higher-end hotels.
As basic background, Extended Evening Hours (ExEH) is nighttime counterpart to Early Theme Park Entry. There are several differences, most notably that guests staying at Value or Moderate Resorts are not eligible for Extended Evening Hours. But it’s not just the most expensive resorts–you can save money by renting DVC points or staying at the Swolphin and still be eligible if you want to hack ExEH.
Extended Evening Theme Park Hours has two types of resort eligibility, occurs twice week, is at two parks, and runs for two hours. It’s usually Monday at EPCOT and Wednesday at Magic Kingdom. However, the big change in recent weeks is that Extended Evening Hours has (mostly) moved away from Magic Kingdom, likely until January 2026.
For those who haven’t been following this saga, it began with Walt Disney World making several calendar changes to lay the groundwork for the debut of Disney Starlight Night Parade. For the purposes of this post, the most notable of which was moving ExEH over to Animal Kingdom.
That’s been going on for about a month at this point, and will continue for several more dates in late summer. Interestingly, the other changes made to mitigate crowds for Starlight–Cast Member blockouts and Annual Pass reservation rules–have been rolled back. The difference is that Extended Evening Hours revolves around park hours, meaning Magic Kingdom would be open until 1 am if it hosted the perk.
Looking forward, Animal Kingdom hosts Extended Evening Hours on two more upcoming Wednesdays: August 6 and August 20, 2025. That’s it for the near-term, but as discussed below, ExEH will likely return to DAK at Christmas.
Extended Evening Hours are normally more popular during the summer months, regardless of lower crowds, due to higher temperatures. However, that’s also when guests get an extra two hours of late nights in Magic Kingdom or EPCOT. Animal Kingdom closes at 6 pm most nights this summer, meaning that these ‘extra hours’ have been beginning and ending before sunset.
Between this and Animal Kingdom not being nearly as popular as Magic Kingdom, the move to DAK has been controversial with guests. I recently did a park closing dinner at Tiffins and exited the park 90 minutes after closing, and it was still broad daylight (and very hot). That underscored to me why guests have been less than enthused about ExEH at DAK.
Likely recognizing this, Walt Disney World has added a couple more Wednesday night Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom on August 13, 2025 and September 3, 2025.
If you’re wondering why ExEH isn’t just hosted at Magic Kingdom throughout the coming months, it’s due to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. There are three weekly MNSSHPs throughout most of August and September, which is precisely why Walt Disney World largely has avoided this type of scheduling during past Party Seasons. The above weeks are the exception to that.
Going forward, we would not expect the extra hours to return to Magic Kingdom again until the second week of January 2026. Maybe there’s another week in early November when they can squeeze in one last Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom this year, but we doubt it.
This all brings us to the latest development, which is that Walt Disney World has added Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios from late August through October 2025 on the following dates:
- Friday, August 29, 2025
- Wednesday, September 10, 2025
- Wednesday, September 17, 2025
- Wednesday, September 24, 2025
- Wednesday, October 1, 2025
- Wednesday, October 8, 2025
That’s as far out as the schedule currently goes. Note that the first date on that list is a Friday, which happens from time to time, especially ahead of holiday weekends. Last year, it occurred ahead of Columbus Day, which is normally an incredibly popular weekend due to Fall Break.
Labor Day is not nearly as busy, but there is a Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party scheduled that Friday, so perhaps Walt Disney World wanted counterprogramming to that. There’s also the first weekend of Food & Wine at EPCOT. There’s also the reality that After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is scheduled that Wednesday, but guests would prefer ExEH at DHS as opposed to DAK, so shifting the schedule to Friday just makes sense.
It’s a confluence of circumstances, and one we might see repeated around mid-October to Fall Break. The same is possible again in early November as a result of Veterans Day, Jersey Week, and the start of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and Disney Jollywood Nights. We shall see.
In any case, our expectation is that Disney’s Hollywood Studios will host Extended Evening Hours on future Wednesdays through November 5, 2025, which is before the anticipated start of the Jollywood Nights Christmas Party.
This has more or less been the cadence of previous years, with ExEH switching from MK to DHS once MNSSHP kicked into high gear, and then from DHS to DAK once Jollywood Nights started. There might be the aforementioned schedule anomalies on a couple of dates, but that should be the trend for the remainder of the Halloween season.
It’s our expectation that Extended Evening Hours will switch back to Animal Kingdom starting November 12, 2025. It will probably continue there until early 2026, perhaps with a couple of exceptions once DJN and MVMCP wind down. But that hasn’t happened in previous years–it moved to Animal Kingdom and stayed there. Although Extended Evening Hours still isn’t as desirable at DAK, at least in November, it occurs entirely at night due to the earlier sunset time.
Again, nothing after October 8, 2025 is on the official calendar. The rest is purely speculative on our part based on past precedent. Just because DHS “can” host ExEH doesn’t mean that’s what will happen. Don’t plan around any of this until Walt Disney World officially adds it to the calendar.
Rides Open for Extended Evening Hours at DHS
Here’s the eligible attraction roster for Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
- Slinky Dog Dash
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
- Toy Story Mania!
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
The conspicuous omission from that list is Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which was part of Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios a couple of years ago. It wasn’t last year, so we presume this to be accurate for 2025. (Especially since MuppetVision 3D has been removed from the list, indicating it was updated relatively recently.)
Strategy for Extended Evening Hours at DHS
We highly recommend doing Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I attended one of those evenings two years ago, and it was great. We’d expect the same to hold true for Extended Evening Hours at DHS in Fall 2025, even without Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
I’m currently debating whether to do Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on August 29 or a second Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party for the sake of research. Not much is changing at this year’s MNSSHP, so that feels like overkill. Plus, that’ll cost money and this is “free.” Also, I haven’t written-up step-by-step strategy for ExEH at DHS in a while, so that feels more valuable, even if there’s a limited shelf life. Not that you care–just thinking aloud.
Tentatively, our recommendation for ExEH at DHS is doing attractions in the following order:
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (a few minutes before official park closing)
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
- Tower of Terror
- Toy Story Mania (time permitting)
- Slinky Dog Dash (as many times as possible, which is probably just once)
If arriving to DHS a couple hours before closing, try to knock out RnRC and Tower of Terror before park closing. It’s been a bit since I’ve done ExEH at DHS, and the above plan might be overly ambitious depending upon crowd levels. Better to aim lower and, time permitting, just loop Slinky Dog Dash at the end of the night.
Ultimately, we’re big fans of Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and are happy to have this option from late August through at least mid-October, and hopefully beyond. Frankly, DHS is my second-favorite park for Extended Evening Hours after Magic Kingdom. It’s definitely better than Animal Kingdom, especially given the limited ride roster of the latter.
Then there’s EPCOT. Although few things are as pleasant as a serene stroll through World Showcase after park closing, the ‘country route’ is often closed off after a certain time and ride breakdowns can make EPCOT Extended Evening Hours much less productive. (I’ve had a couple of ExEHs “ruined” at EPCOT due to downtime.)
On the plus side, EPCOT may be better now that Test Track 3.0 has debuted and there are 4-5 headliner rides, depending upon what you count. Disney’s Hollywood Studios is still better suited to host Extended Evening Hours thanks to its ride roster and compact layout. See our Strategy Guide Guide for Extended Evening Hours at Walt Disney World for more info & tips.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Will you be taking advantage of Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Fall 2025? Did you do this at DHS last year when it was offered? Hoping Extended Evening Hours stay at DHS through Christmas? Thoughts on the ride roster excluding Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
