Walt Disney World has added more hours to the calendar through early December 2025 at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios & Animal Kingdom, and extended hours in October. This post covers the changes plus zig when they zag strategy for Magic Kingdom during the Halloween and Christmas seasons.
We’ll start with the latest release of new operating schedules. All four theme parks have had hours for another week added to DisneyWorld.com’s park hours, and the current calendar now runs through December 5, 2025. Here are the hours for the newly-added dates during the holiday season, from November 28, 2025 and beyond:
- Magic Kingdom: 9 am to 10 pm*
- EPCOT: 9 am to 9:30 pm
- Hollywood Studios: 9 am to 9 pm*
- Animal Kingdom: 8 am to 6 pm
- Typhoon Lagoon: 10 am to 5 pm
- Blizzard Beach: Closed
- Disney Springs: 10 am to 11 pm (11:30 pm on Fridays & Saturdays)
As a reminder, Walt Disney World’s normal practice is to release boilerplate or placeholder hours before extending those based on attendance and hotel occupancy projections. This has been common practice for years, and will continue for the remainder of this year and probably in 2026, 2027, etc–until the rise of the machines.
One exception to the park hours above is that Magic Kingdom closes on several nights per week at 6 pm to day guests for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party over the course of the next three months. Those separately-ticketed events begin at 7 pm and runs until midnight, and occur multiple nights per week.
Similar to Magic Kingdom on MNSSHP or MVMCP nights, Hollywood Studios closes at 7 pm on evenings when the Disney Jollywood Nights Christmas Party is held. That hard ticket event occurs with far less frequency than Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.
The big reason this schedule change is notable is that Walt Disney World has revealed that EPCOT hours will be extended for the 2025 EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays.
Starting on November 28th, EPCOT will be open until 9:30 p.m. rather than its current closing time of 9 p.m. The park will continue to open at 9 a.m., with Early Entry beginning before that at 8:30 a.m. EPCOT will also continue hosting Extended Evening Hours on (most) Monday nights, from 9:30 to 11:30 pm.
Our hope is that EPCOT gets even later closing times during the heart of the Christmas season. This is usually the busiest time of the year thanks to Candlelight Processional and Festival of the Holidays, along with nicer weather that draws out locals. I still don’t quite understand why EPCOT doesn’t close later. Surely the food & beverage sales alone would justify another 30 minutes?!
Every single visit we made to EPCOT last year after Black Friday, the park was absolutely slammed. This wasn’t always reflected in wait times at the front of the park, which does hollow out with the exception of Living with the Land – Glimmering Greenhouses, but World Showcase was packed. EPCOT could easily do 10 pm closing times and recoup the labor and operational expenses several times over.
Speaking of park closing times, Magic Kingdom is scheduled to close at 6 pm on October 21, 2025 for a park buyout during a colossal conference, the Gartner IT Symposium. This usually happens at EPCOT, but is moving to Magic Kingdom this year. (I wonder how much more that set Gartner back?!)
This one is easy to miss as you’re trying to dodge Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party dates that week, which also occur during this same week on October 19, 23, 24, 26. Suffice to say, pack your patience if you’re visiting Magic Kingdom on October 20, 22, or 25. Lots of crowds consolidated into those dates to see Starlight and Happily Ever After!
Honestly, the bigger thing might be the Gartner IT Symposium and return of convention ‘season’ as a whole. While attendees themselves aren’t spending all day in the parks, they will make time for evenings at EPCOT and elsewhere. Not only that, but many spouses and children tag along and visit the parks while the conventioneers sit in Crescent Lake conference rooms. Convention ‘season’ is one of the big reasons why October stopped being the off-season over a decade ago!
On the topics of shifting schedules and Magic Kingdom, here’s the current nighttime entertainment schedule for now through November 1, 2025:
- Starlight Parade: 8 pm
- Happily Ever After: 9 pm
- Starlight Parade: 10 pm
- Park Closing: 10 pm
After November 1st, there are no times posted for parades. If you look at the official Starlight page, it says “no performance today.” The same is the case for Festival of Fantasy. This has happened before, so before you freak out, it is not accurate. There’s no reason to believe either parade, let alone both of them, will pause for November and December.
Curiously, Happily Ever After continues to have 9 pm showtimes throughout November 2025. This has also happened before! For whatever reason, Walt Disney World keeps populating Happily Ever After showtimes even when there’s no schedule for the parades. I haven’t the slightest clue as to why, especially when there were just guest concerns and complaints about this last month. Making matters worse, this 9 pm showtime for Happily Ever After is also probably inaccurate.
Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday, November 2, 2025. This usually triggers showtime changes for the Magic Kingdom fireworks. Usually as in every single year. Last year, it meant Happily Ever After moving forward to 8:30 pm (this actually happened in late October, as sunset times had already moved forward). One week later, Happily Ever After moved forward to 8 pm and stayed in that time slot until DST started again in March.
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, but there’s good reason why that was the entertainment cadence a decade ago, and it makes even more sense in 2025 to revert to that schedule. This is Walt Disney World’s preferred schedule, as it allows families with kids who can’t stay out late the chance to see nighttime entertainment, and also helps clear out the park earlier. The only reason they had later showtimes over the summer was because sunset dictated it, and there’s a necessary hour gap between the showtimes.
In addition to these newly added hours, Walt Disney World has also extended park hours throughout the first few weeks of October 2025.
This is going to be happening more and more. We’re entering the home stretch of the year when crowds can spike due to long weekends, school breaks, holidays and other special events. As a result, you can expect a lot more extensions–on a weekly basis–from Walt Disney World going forward.
Anyway, on with the first waves of extensions for Fall 2025. As of right now, Walt Disney World has only made targeted park hours extensions through October 18, 2025. Here’s a look at those:
Magic Kingdom Park Hours Extensions
- October 3, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 4, 2025: 8 am to 11 pm (previously 9 am to 10 pm)
- October 5, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 6, 2025: 9 am to 11pm (previously 9 am to 10 pm)
- October 7, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 8, 2025: 9 am to 11pm (previously 9 am to 10 pm)
- October 9, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 10, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 11, 2025: 8 am to 11 pm (previously 9 am to 10 pm)
- October 12, 2025: 9 am to 11 pm (previously 9 am to 10 pm)
- October 13, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 14, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 15, 2025: 8 am to 11 pm (previously 9 am to 10 pm)
- October 16, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 17, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
- October 18, 2025: 8 am to 11 pm (previously 9 am to 10 pm)
Again, October 18th is the last date to be extended thus far; any date starting Oct. 19 is simply boilerplate hours at this point. Further extensions will follow, so don’t fret if you’re traveling in the second half of October and beyond. This is how it always works.
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 opens at 8 am on busier days, but there have been exceptions to that over the course of the last month.
The good news is that Magic Kingdom is opening at 8 am on most dates starting October 3, 2025. We expect this trend to continue in the second half of October, although there will probably be fewer days with 8 am openings until Veterans Day/Jersey Week in November, as Fall Breaks wind up and attendance typically decreases during that timeframe. See our list of the Best & Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2025, 2026 & 2027 for a rundown of the good and bad dates next month and beyond.
These 8 am rope drops mean that Early Entry starts at 7:30 am, which is huge. Look no further than our new field testing: Magic Kingdom’s Extra Early Entry is a Must-Do for Low Waits at Disney World’s Biggest Rides!
That covers how I looped TRON Lightcycle Run (x3), and did Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure as walk-ons. Don’t expect to replicate those exact results on busier October through December dates, but the animating idea and strategy is the same.
Do not sleep on this! The strategic advantage offered is immense, especially on days that will be busier around Fall Break. Even if you can’t knock out as much as I did (and you probably won’t be able to), the daytime crowds that hit around 10 am on those dates will be far, far worse than what I encountered. These 8 am rope drops and 7:30 am are you secret weapon to knocking out as much as possible without paying extra for Lightning Lanes!
To this point about rising crowds, you can expect to see party-shortened days at Magic Kingdom have crowd levels of 2/10 instead of 1/10. This will happen because crowd levels as a whole are increasing–they’ll be higher across the board for fall break, meaning on both party and non-party days. Second, party dates are becoming more frequent, making them more difficult to avoid. That means more guests will have no choice but to do Magic Kingdom on party days.
The upside, if you want to call it that, is that even more people will attempt to do Magic Kingdom on those rare non-party days, especially Saturdays. This means that the gap in wait times between party and non-party days will actually grow. Suffice to say, 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
- October 3, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 4, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 5, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 10, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 11, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 12, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 13, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 17, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
- October 18, 2025: 8 am to 8 pm (previously 8 am to 6 pm)
When it comes to Animal Kingdom, we 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 DAK 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.
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.”)
Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see how bad crowds end up being in October 2025, and what happens with park hours extensions for the holiday season that starts in early November 2025. Our hope is that Walt Disney World gets back to later closing times for the Christmas season. In an ideal world, 11 pm closings at Magic Kingdom would be the norm on non-party nights, with midnight closings occurring at least once per week. If I recall correctly, there were only 2-3 midnight closings last year between Veterans Day and December 29th.
As for next month, we’re pleased to have the extensions. It would be nice to have another 30 minutes in the morning or evening at DHS, and maybe even a few midnight closings at Magic Kingdom (the days wedged between 3-4 MNSSHPs will be brutal, especially with that Gartner IP event also in the mix), but all in all, it’s not too bad. Even though attendance is going to increase–and probably by a lot–Halloween and Christmas are our favorite times of the year in the parks and at the resorts!
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 of Walt Disney World’s operating hours extensions for October 2025? Think this schedule is reasonable? Do you think Magic Kingdom should be open earlier and/or later? What has been your experience with crowds and wait times? 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!
