Disney’s Hollywood Studios has good & bad days to visit, but some dates should be flagged as ones to target and avoid in 2025 & 2026. This explains why there are big differences in wait times, with lists of the least & most crowded dates in October through December to assist in planning your Halloween or Christmas trip to Walt Disney World.
As with the Best & Worst Dates at Magic Kingdom in 2025, this comes down to special events. Party Season is a big deal at Walt Disney World because it disrupts attendance dynamics and creates a “porcupine pattern” of wait times and crowd levels. In a nutshell, both Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party push attendance at Magic Kingdom much higher on the dates they’re not occurring and lower on days of the events.
This is nothing new–we’ve been banging the Party Season drum the last decade, at least. Magic Kingdom crowd patterns during Party Season are a key discussion points of our August through December crowd calendars. However, this post isn’t simply a ‘copy+paste’ of the Magic Kingdom recommendations. To the contrary, our advice for Disney’s Hollywood Studios is almost the opposite of what it is for Magic Kingdom!
As a reminder, we strongly recommend that readers visit Magic Kingdom during the day on Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party nights. In an ideal world, they’d have Park Hopper tickets and bounce to another park at around 4 pm.
The rationale for this is that many day guests avoid Magic Kingdom on days when MNSSHP or MVMCP is held at night because the park closes at 6 pm instead of 10 pm or 11 pm, and Disney Starlight Night Parade and Happily Ever After fireworks are not shown. This results in significantly lighter crowds on party days.
In theory, the dynamic should be very similar with Disney’s Hollywood Studios during its special events, which is largely just the Disney Jollywood Nights Christmas Party. However, there are several differences.
First, guests who attend Disney’s Hollywood Studios on party nights aren’t going to lose as many hours as those doing the same at Magic Kingdom. The castle park will close at 10 pm or 11 pm on non-party nights. That’s an extra 4-5 hours, plus seeing the night parade & fireworks, and getting to enjoy the cooler evening hours in the park.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios closes at 9 or 9:30 pm most normal nights and closes to regular guests at 7 pm on party nights, meaning that the amount of lost time on a party vs. non-party night is ~2 hours. That’s still a good chunk of time, but it’s not as much and not at the castle park. Moreover, day guests still have the opportunity to catch Fantasmic, so they’re not missing out on any nighttime spectaculars.
This brings us to the second key point. On a normal night, Disney’s Hollywood Studios really clears out in the final few hours of the day, whereas Magic Kingdom does not.
Doing DHS on a party day means essentially forfeiting that end-of-night slowdown, which won’t happen due to the party mix-in. (For those unfamiliar with it, mix-in is the informal term for the overlap between the regular operating day and time when guests with tickets to the special event are allowed to enter the park early.) It also means heavier crowds for Fantasmic, especially with the likelihood of only one performance on party nights, as both day guests and party guests try to see the show.
This essentially amounts to a negative double-whammy. Daytime crowds aren’t that much lower on party days because most regular guests won’t avoid DHS due to a 7 pm closure, so you’re not saving much time in line throughout the day. Then, when wait times would normally be falling at the end of the night, party guests arrive and keep those lines longer.
Finally, there are far fewer party dates at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Whereas MNSSHP and MVMCP are held 3-4 nights per week from October through December, there are a grand total of 13 dates for Disney Jollywood Nights at Christmastime. It’s never held on more than two evenings per week.
This means there are 5 non-party nights per week to absorb the displaced crowds from Jollywood Nights at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. As a result, the contrast in wait times between party days and non-party days at DHS is far less extreme than at Magic Kingdom. And on top of that, this isn’t happening in a vacuum. Guests can only schedule so much, and they’re more likely to plan around MVMCP, while ignoring Jollywood Nights.
Avoiding MVMCP is already a big hassle for many guests–juggling plans around two different parties in two parks is too much for the average guest. They won’t bother worrying about the DHS event and will just visit when they visit. This is doubly true since they can still see Fantasmic regardless of the night, and fewer guests feel the need to be at DHS from opening to closing like they do with Magic Kingdom.
All of this is why we do NOT recommend a zig when they zag recommendation for Disney’s Hollywood Studios like we do with Magic Kingdom. Attendance won’t be that much lower during the day before parties. Displaced crowds won’t be as big of a deal because there are fewer events. The intuitive approach is the correct one at DHS!
The loss of those quiet nights and ~2 hours is the bigger deal than all of the above. Those slower evenings will be lost due to the mix-in. Since Jollywood Nights will be the only chance many attendees have to visit DHS, they’ll arrive as early as possible to cram rides in before the party starts.
For the 2025 Disney Jollywood Nights, mix-in begins at 5:30 pm. This is earlier than the previous two years, as Walt Disney World attempts to give guests more incentive to buy tickets. Instead of wait times falling in the final two hours of the evening like normal, they will increase on DJN nights from 5:30 to 7 pm.
This is a big blow. That’s normally when we recommend knocking out Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Story Land. On some evenings, it’s possible to do those entire lands in the last two hours of the night. That will not be the case on DJN nights.
Consequently, we recommend doing Disney’s Hollywood Studios on non-party days if you’re spending all day in the park and don’t have Park Hopper tickets. Now that we’ve explained the why and how of this, here’s the list of dates to avoid at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the remainder of the year…
When to Avoid Disney’s Hollywood Studios – October 2025
- October 1, 2025
- October 8, 2025
- October 15, 2025
- October 22, 2025
- October 29, 2025
All of the dates on the list above are dates when Extended Evening Hours is held in the park. We should note that DHS is fantastic for this “free” perk, so if you’re among the guests eligible for Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, we highly recommend you attend. We’d just gently nudge you elsewhere during the day, especially if you’re not eligible for ExEH.
The same logic applies to ExEH as Disney Jollywood Nights, albeit to a much lesser extent. On these evenings, there will be mix-in crowds that result in less of an end of the night slowdown. We’ve also observed ever-so-slightly higher daytime crowds on Extended Evening Hours dates.
However, the big difference is that Disney’s Hollywood Studios closes at 9 pm, not 7 pm, on ExEH dates. So you don’t lose those 2 hours, and there still is some end of night slowdown, just not as pronounced as it’d be on adjacent dates. We don’t recommend going out of your way to avoid these ExEH dates, but it is a best practice to do so.
It also doesn’t matter as much in October because, aside from Fall Break, this month is generally slower than November and December. At the risk of stating the obvious, choosing dates wisely around Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, matters a lot more than picking the best dates in mid-September or early November.
When to Avoid Disney’s Hollywood Studios – Christmas 2025
- November 8, 2025
- November 15, 2025
- November 17, 2025
- November 22, 2025
- November 24, 2025
- November 29, 2025
- December 1, 2025
- December 6, 2025
- December 10, 2025
- December 13, 2025
- December 17, 2025
- December 20, 2025
- December 22, 2025
All of these dates in November and December 2025 are the 13 dates of Disney Jollywood Nights. Our advice with regard to DJN is more than the ‘gentle nudge’ that it is with ExEH, for the reasons discussed above: Disney’s Hollywood Studios does close early on those nights and there’s more of a mix-in with event guests.
Still, our recommendation is not as emphatic as it is with Magic Kingdom on party vs. non-party dates. If you’d leave DHS by 7 pm, regardless, and one of the above dates works much better for your schedule, it’s not the end of the world if you ignore our advice!
When to Avoid Disney’s Hollywood Studios – 2026
- January 14, 2026
- January 28, 2026
- February 4, 2026
- February 11, 2026
- February 21, 2026
- February 25, 2026
- April 29, 2026
- May 6, 2026
- May 14, 2026
- May 30, 2026
- June 3, 2026
- June 10, 2026
- June 17, 2026
- June 24, 2026
- July 1, 2026
- July 8, 2026
- July 15, 2026
- July 22, 2026
- July 29, 2026
- August 5, 2026
- August 12, 2026
- August 19, 2026
- August 26, 2026
- September 2, 2026
- September 12, 2026
The above dates are all After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which is almost exactly like Extended Evening Hours. Except instead of being “free” for eligible guests, this party costs ~$189 per person. Minor detail. I don’t want to fixate on After Hours since, like ExEH, we’d only offer the ‘gentle nudge’ advice that guests avoid DHS on these dates. Also, because we already explained the why of this above–it’s exactly the same as ExEH. There’s no material difference in planning around After Hours or that.
If you’re looking for a quasi-VIP splurge, we recommend attending After Hours at DHS. Not as forcefully as with Extended Evening Hours given the whole $0 vs. ~$189, but it’s nevertheless a good premium product offering that can help you beat the crowds. See our Guide to After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for strategy and more.
Best Dates to Do Disney’s Hollywood Studios – 2025 & 2026
As for the best days to visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the low density of parties shouldn’t really disrupt our regular Best & Worst Days of the Week to Do Every Walt Disney World Park recommendations that much.
The one thing I will point out is that Jollywood Nights November dates are set for select Saturdays and Mondays, while December dates fall on Saturdays, plus select Mondays or Wednesdays. (Again, it’s never more than two times in one week.)
Sunday is our favorite day to do DHS, but only if you’re staying until the bitter end. If you’re arriving in the afternoon, you can accomplish a surprising amount in that half-day at DHS. Tourists clear out early as always, and locals visiting for the day also head for the exits since Monday is a workday.
Statistically speaking, Wednesdays and Thursday are the objective best days to do Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The Wednesday part won’t be true on Extended Evening Hours dates, December 10 & 17 when the park is hosting DJN, or on After Hours dates in 2026, but it should otherwise remain accurate in November and December 2025 and select 2026 dates.
Thursdays will be great at Disney’s Hollywood Studios throughout the remainder of 2025 and all of 2026. That’s the clearest-cut recommendation that doesn’t require any asterisks.
Another savvy strategy if you have Park Hopper tickets is starting at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Jollywood Nights dates, and then bouncing to a different around 6 or 7 pm for the rest of the night.
From a practical perspective, this might be especially attractive when paired with the zig when they zag strategy for Magic Kingdom during Party Season since Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and Disney Jollywood Nights are always held on different dates. Meaning you could start at Magic Kingdom on a MVMCP day and hop to DHS that night; then do the opposite on the Jollywood Nights day.
This will be doubly true if DHS gets earlier openings on days when the park closes early, as was the case some dates last year. Even if this only ends up being 30 minutes, Early Entry at 8 am instead of 8:30 am, or rope drop at 8:30 am instead of 9 am, could offer significant upside.
Ultimately, that’s how we recommend approaching a day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios when the park is hosting Extended Evening Hours or (more importantly) the Jollywood Nights Christmas Party. This is a notable departure from our Magic Kingdom zig when they zag advice.
It’s worth reiterating that this dynamic will not be as extreme at DHS as it is at Magic Kingdom. There’s a chasm in wait times on party vs. non-party days there for reasons discussed above. The contrast won’t be nearly as stark at DHS since guests aren’t losing as many hours or nighttime entertainment. So if you can only follow our Party Season advice at Magic Kingdom or Disney’s Hollywood Studios, do so at MK.
It’s also worth underscoring that Park Hopper tickets add a different dimension to this, especially when you pair two MK/DHS half days together. That should work really well, especially if DHS ends up getting its opening time extended by 30 minutes or an hour. This is precisely what we plan on doing over Veterans Day weekend!
As is hopefully clear, the purpose of this post isn’t the list of dates that you could’ve pulled up on a calendar in 30 seconds. Rather, it’s helping you make more sense of this dynamic, and why Disney’s Hollywood Studios is different than Magic Kingdom during Party Season. We favor the “teach a person to fish” approach–helping you understand the why of Walt Disney World, so you can take the advice and apply it to your own circumstances, vacation dates, and so forth in 2025, 2026 and beyond!
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
Does this convince you that you can, from an objective perspective, come out ahead by doing non-party days at DHS? Or, are you still unpersuaded, favoring the counterintuitive approach? 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!
