Walt Disney World has extended park hours at Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom for the start of Party Season. They’ve also revealed showtimes for Starlight: Dream the Night Away at Magic Kingdom through October 2025, which are probably wrong. This shares dates & details, plus predictions of actual parade performance times for Halloween & Christmas, and why the new schedule is likely incorrect.
Let’s start with the latest on park hours. Walt Disney World already extended park hours across the board at Magic Kingdom for August 3-30, 2025. The park will now be open from 9 am to 11 pm on non-party nights. This is not a new development–this calendar change occurred back on July 11. Prior to that, Magic Kingdom park hours were extended for the beginning on Starlight’s run. These hours are certainly correct and final.
Currently, Magic Kingdom reverts to its boilerplate 9 am to 10 pm schedule on non-party nights starting August 31, 2025. On Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party dates, the boilerplate hours for Magic Kingdom are 9 am to 6 pm. If you’re looking at dates anytime in September or beyond, those are the hours that you’re going to see. They might end up being accurate, but they are not final as of yet!
As longtime fans likely know, Walt Disney World’s standard operating procedure is to post boilerplate park hours for more distant dates, and then extend them based on internal attendance projections once those dates draw nearer (hours get longer or stay unchanged, but not shortened).
As of right now, Walt Disney World has only made targeted park hours extensions through August 30, 2025. Here’s a look at those:
Magic Kingdom Park Hours Extensions
- August 15, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- August 17, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- August 19, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- August 22, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- August 29, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
The reason for these extensions is Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. As we’ve discussed countless times, Party Season operating hours cause chaos with crowds, pushing attendance much higher on the dates it’s not occurring and lower on the dates it is occurring. On event nights, Magic Kingdom closes to day guests at 6 pm. It is also increasingly opening at 8 am, but note that there are exceptions to this (as of right now, August 24 & 26, but more weeknights in September will likely follow the same pattern).
If at all possible, we recommend being mindful of this schedule and doing Magic Kingdom on days when Early Entry starts at 7:30 am. That is, if you can get out the door in time to do Early Entry at that hour. If not, do MK on the other party dates. I’ll be doing field testing at Magic Kingdom on another 7:30 am Early Entry day very soon, but suffice to say, it (hopefully) won’t go anything like our recent post, Magic Kingdom’s New Early Entry Process & Pitfalls of Dreaded Delayed Openings.
Additionally, we strongly recommend visiting Magic Kingdom during the day on MNSSHP or MVMCP nights. This is something we’ve covered at length, again and again. See Best & Worst Days to Do Magic Kingdom in 2025 for a rundown of when crowds will be especially good or bad, including a handful of ‘red flag’ dates to avoid at all costs this month through December.
Animal Kingdom Park Hours Extensions
- August 16, 2025: 8 am to 8 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- August 23, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
Hollywood Studios Park Hours Extensions
- August 15, 2025: 9 am to 10 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
- August 16, 2025: 8:30 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- August 17, 2025: 9 am to 10 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
- August 19, 2025: 9 am to 10 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
- August 22, 2025: 9 am to 10 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
- August 23, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
- August 24, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
- August 26, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
- August 29, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
There are also several days in the next week or so when both water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, have their closing times extended until 7 pm or 8 pm. This is mostly on Friday through Monday nights, but we don’t expect it to continue for much longer as water park ‘season’ winds down. There’s also the fact that Walt Disney World hasn’t extended any hours past August 18, and we would’ve expected the following two weeks to be extended if that was going to happen.
As for why park hours at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are being extended, it’s also a result of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, albeit an indirect one.
When it comes to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, I tend to favor taking the extra hours assuming you’re going to be there all day. Or even if you’re doing a midday break but will return to the same park. More time is better. However, if you plan on leaving early, the best practice is avoiding these parks when the closing is later. There’s a reason these dates get extended hours and others don’t, and it’s because WDW’s internal attendance projections are higher.
Anecdotally, my experience is that this is (usually) fairly marginal–especially this time of year. I’ll take the longer hours with the view that more time outweighs higher average wait times. If you’re Park Hopping to those parks, the later closings are gravy–especially with the afternoon exodus and Animal Kingdom and early evening departures at DHS.
With all of that said, you really don’t need that much time at Animal Kingdom. If you arrive for Early Entry or even regular rope drop, you can easily run the table on all of the rides before lunch. That leaves stage shows and animal exhibits for the afternoon, which still won’t require you stay after 6 pm, unless you plan on doing like a dozen countdowns to extinction on DINOSAUR. See Animal Kingdom Park Opening & Early Entry Ride Strategy (or, “How I Did Every Ride at DAK Before 10:30am.”)
Starlight Showtimes Shenanigans
Here’s the current Magic Kingdom nighttime entertainment schedule:
- Starlight Parade: 9 pm
- Happily Ever After: 10 pm
- Starlight Parade: 11 pm
- Park Closing: 10 pm or 11 pm
Walt Disney World has officially added more night parade dates to the entertainment calendar, and Starlight will continue to be performed at 9 pm and 11 pm through at least October 4, 2025 on nights when Magic Kingdom closes at 11 pm.
Walt Disney World has already confirmed that Starlight will only be presented on non-party nights during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party dates. This means that, for example, Starlight will not be performed at all on August 15, 17, etc.
It’s absolutely zero surprise whatsoever that Starlight is going to continue being performed twice nightly through October on dates when the park closes at 10 pm or 11 pm. As we’ve said on countless occasions, it will continue to be added to the schedule, so don’t panic when you see “no times available” on the calendar. That’s simply because it hasn’t been updated yet.
The real surprise here is the 9 pm and 11 pm showtimes all the way into October. This is not what we expected, and at least some of these showtimes are probably wrong. Here’s why…
The surprise here concerns Happily Ever After, as that nighttime spectacular previously had showtimes scheduled for dates deeper into the year.
From now through August 30, Happily Ever After’s showtime is 10 pm, which is actually late by historical standards–it’s to accommodate an earlier performance of Starlight, which cannot occur before 9 pm due to sunset times. This is certainly accurate, meaning Starlight’s schedule is also accurate through then.
Beginning Sunday, August 31, 2025, the fireworks will begin at 9:30 pm. Only a couple of weeks later, starting September 15, 2025, Happily Ever After will be at 9 pm. For reference, the current sunset time is 8:17 pm, whereas it’ll be 7:30 pm on September 15, 2025.
All of this makes sense and is to be expected. Even in the absence of a night parade, Happily Ever After has its showtime move forward as the earlier sunset and dusk time allows. The reason for this is pretty simple and straightforward, as it allows more guests (younger families) with earlier bedtimes to experience the fireworks, and also is advantageous with staggering exit times (shifting the fireworks away from park closing).
The ‘shenanigans’ here are that Happily Ever After and Starlight have conflicting showtimes.
The current cadence of one hour between Starlight and Happily Ever After isn’t by accident–it’s out of necessity from a crowd control perspective. Starlight and Happily Ever After cannot have performance times within 30 minutes of one another, let alone overlapping schedules with both presented at 9 pm. Something’s gotta give.
It’ll probably be the Starlight showtimes. For the same reason that it’s advantageous to move forward Happily Ever After, it’s also beneficial to have night parade showtimes that are earlier than 9 pm and 11 pm. There’s a reason that the later performance is often uncrowded, and that’s because it’s simply too late for many guests. It’s hard to imagine park operations wanting to maintain this schedule when it could shift the times forward.
As we often see with park hours and entertainment calendars, the times often start as boilerplate additions. That’s likely what’s happening with Starlight. It’s just odd that Walt Disney World has specifically updated these calendars on several separate occasions for Happily Ever After, park hours, and Starlight, but hasn’t caught this discrepancy.
Party Season Starlight Performance Predictions
Once the final schedule for Starlight is set, we expect the night parade to continue its nightly cadence of two performances with Happily Ever After in between, spaced apart by an hour, but with earlier showtimes for everything. If we take a time machine back to September 17, 2015–10 years ago–we can see that the schedule was Main Street Electrical Parade at 8 pm and 10 pm, with Wishes in between at 9 pm.
There was a reason for this approach a decade ago. It’s desirable from Walt Disney World’s perspective because it will more evenly redistribute crowds if the Starlight showings are at 8 pm and 10 pm as opposed to 9 pm and 11 pm. Perhaps most importantly, it’s also my understanding that the schedule cannot be condensed any further, as 60 minutes is about the minimum possible buffer between the parade and fireworks showtimes.
The latter showtime is tough for families, resulting in a massive imbalance in demand for the two showtimes, and a mass exodus after Happily Ever After. That imbalance will still exist because 10 pm is still too late for many small children, and it means leaving the park around 10:30 pm and not being back at the resort and in bed closer to 11:30 pm. But it’s an improvement and should help!
What will also help is if Walt Disney World continues extending the closing time until 11 pm. Longer hours are good for obvious reasons, but having yet another point for staggered guest exits makes things more orderly in the evenings, allowing for less chaotic crowds outside the park, shorter lines for buses, boats, monorails, etc.
We expect this to occur throughout Party Season, but there’s no guarantee that it will. Once Starlight shifts forward (assuming that happens and HEA isn’t the one that has its schedule changed), the park won’t need to stay open until 11 pm. If the second Starlight is at 10 pm, the park could close then. We want to believe that won’t happen during Party Season due to higher crowds, but it might.
The other concern that we’ve mentioned previously is that Walt Disney World might try to “get away” with only one nightly performance of Starlight on select nights in September. In the above time machine scenario, we went back to September 17, 2015. Had we gone back one day earlier, we would’ve only had one MSEP performance–at 8 pm.
I don’t think Walt Disney World will do this. Starlight being scheduled for two performances (even if they are at the wrong times) through October 4, 2025 is a pretty strong sign that this isn’t the intention. Walt Disney World often adjusts park hours and entertainment times once they’re posted but before they’re deemed “final.” But one thing they rarely, if ever, do is take things away. The park hours updates are about giving–and it’s very rare to see cutbacks made to the boilerplate schedules. It’s almost always (over 99% of the time) additions.
If there were going to be a time when only one nightly performance of Starlight were to occur, it’d be weekdays in September. I would’ve said (and did say!) that was unlikely in the first place. With this schedule update, I’d say there’s virtually no chance of it happening in 2025. October through December is when crowds pick up, and Walt Disney World knows better than trying to cut costs then.
Looking forward a little further, if we went back in time to November 3, 2015, we’d see showtimes of 7 pm and 9 pm for Main Street Electrical Parade and 8 pm for Wishes. I would expect similar showtimes for Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away and Happily Ever After throughout November and December 2025.
Obviously, nothing is official yet that far into the future, but there’s good reason why that was the entertainment cadence a decade ago, and it makes even more sense in 2025 for Walt Disney World to revert to that schedule.
Accordingly, we’d expect Starlight to shift its schedule in accordance with those historical times and the current Happily Ever After schedule.
It’s frankly odd that Starlight received the more recent update and that’s what we’re saying is probably wrong (as opposed to Happily Ever After, which had its schedule updated a while ago). After all, why wait to add the Starlight showtimes until after everything else is already up…and then post the wrong showtimes?!
It makes no sense, but that’s par for the course–the Walt Disney World calendar is often wrong. Trying too hard to make sense of it is probably a fool’s errand…and I guess that makes me a fool, since we’ve just devoted a lot of words to it. If all of this leaves you confused, welcome to the club. Regardless, that’s what we expect–and we’ll keep you posted about future Party Season park hours extensions and entertainment schedule adjustments!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about Walt Disney World’s calendar updates? Expect to see two nightly Starlight showtimes throughout 2025 and 2026? Think the parade will continue at 9 pm and 11 pm, or is that a schedule glitch by Disney? 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!
