Walt Disney World has prolonged hours at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios & Animal Kingdom for the height of Spring Break season via Easter week in late March 2024. This covers the additions plus zig after they zag technique for the parks and the whole lot else it is best to know.
We’ll begin with the newest launch of recent working schedules. All 4 theme parks have had hours for an additional week added to DisneyWorld.com’s park hours, and the present calendar now runs via Might 18, 2024. Listed here are the hours for a lot of the newly-added dates:
- Magic Kingdom: 9 am to 9 pm
- EPCOT: 9 am to 9 pm
- Hollywood Studios: 9 am to 9 pm
- Animal Kingdom: 9 am to six pm
As a reminder, Walt Disney World’s regular apply is to launch boilerplate or placeholder hours earlier than extending these based mostly on attendance and resort occupancy projections. This has been frequent apply for years, and can nearly proceed all through 2024. It’s completely nothing to get alarmed about and doesn’t imply that, for instance, Magic Kingdom will solely be open till 9 pm on Easter Sunday. There’s a 99% probability that’ll be prolonged, which nearly begs the query: why not submit the hours till they’re last?!
Along with these newly added hours, Walt Disney World has additionally prolonged park hours all through the second half March 2024. Observe that these extensions have occurred in two waves, with the latest additions on March 8, 2024. Let’s dig into what’s been prolonged…
Magic Kingdom
- March 10-16, 2024: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- March 17, 2024: 9am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- March 18-22, 2024: 9am to 10pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- March 23, 2024: 9am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- March 24-30, 2023: 8am to 11pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
For probably the most half, we like what we see right here. What’s most fascinating about this from my perspective is that Walt Disney World is treating the primary full week because the busier than the second. Magic Kingdom is opening at 8am and shutting at 11pm each single day between now and March 16, 2024. That is sensible, as Spring Break will likely be busy.
What makes much less sense is reverting to a 9am to 10pm schedule–two fewer hours–the next week. Each Seminole and Orange County have March 18-22 off for Spring Break, to not point out a ton of different counties all through the South. Against this, fewer massive districts are on recess for the earlier week (the massive native ones being Osceola and Polk).
For this reason our current Spring Break 2024 Crowd Calendar for Walt Disney World recognized March 15 because the date that crowds would begin to get actually unhealthy, and just about not let up till after Easter. That’s nonetheless our expectation, even after seeing these park hours that counsel a forecast of reasonable crowd ranges in Magic Kingdom (therefore the modest 9am to 10pm hours).
We might be flawed, but it surely’s additionally value wanting again to final 12 months’s vacation season. In a nutshell, Walt Disney World acquired very aggressive with extensions round Veterans Day, crowds didn’t materialize as anticipated, so that they acquired extra conservative with extensions nearer to Christmas…whilst crowds acquired a lot worse. I do know this as a result of I loved a few gloriously uncrowded 8am to midnight days in Magic Kingdom in early to mid-November, solely to see hours on 9am to 10pm later within the season on 9/10 crowd days between MVMCP dates.
I’m not saying the identical factor will occur, but it surely wouldn’t shock me if historical past repeats itself. One other risk is that Walt Disney World circles again and extends hours for March 18-22. That isn’t completely unprecedented, but it surely’s additionally not regular. Excellent news for anybody visiting subsequent week, although, as these 8am to 11pm hours are nice and a very good offset to Spring Break crowds.
As a reminder, we extremely advocate doing Magic Kingdom on an 8am opening day in case your journey straddles each 8am and 9am opening days. Between the additional hour within the morning and one other 2 at night time, technique turns into a lot simpler–and that’ll be doubly true if crowds are “solely” 7/10 or under.
I do know we repeat this advert nauseum, however the strategic significance of Magic Kingdom opening at 8am as an alternative of 9am can’t be overstated. Early Entry beginning an hour later is sort of ineffective, whereas it’s unimaginable at 7:30am. One hour makes a world of distinction. See our 7:30 am Early Entry at Magic Kingdom ‘Celebration Season’ Technique. (Spring Break just isn’t ‘Celebration Season’, however the very same concept applies on these days!)
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- March 10-16, 2024: 8:30am to 9:30pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- March 17-24, 2024: No extensions
- March 25-26, 2024: 9am to 9:30pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
- March 27, 2024: No extension
- March 25-30, 2024: 9am to 9:30pm (beforehand 9am to 9pm)
Much more “fascinating” park hours extensions–or lack thereof–at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Based mostly on the above, Walt Disney World appears to consider that subsequent week would be the worst week of Spring Break–busier than Easter week, which didn’t obtain an earlier opening time.
Whereas I’ll permit for the chance, nevertheless unlikely, that subsequent week will likely be busier than the next week, there’s nearly no means it’ll be worse than Easter. I do know quite a lot of followers are deferential to Disney and suppose that they’ve tons of information and are nice with it or no matter, however they get these items flawed fairly continuously. So certain, there’s an opportunity that they’re proper and that our crowd forecast has ignored main college districts or faculties on break early.
There’s additionally a robust probability Walt Disney World is whiffing by itself attendance projections or park hours extensions. Wouldn’t be the primary time or the final. (I’d add that park tickets–which additionally replicate attendance forecasts–are larger for the 2 weeks earlier than Easter than subsequent week. Whereas these costs themselves can have a redistributive high quality, that doesn’t apply to Spring Break. The breaks are when they’re.)
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The opposite upside of the 9:30pm closing days is 2 showings of Fantasmic. Double-bonus: the second showtime is half-hour after park closing, that means that it’s at 9:30pm or 10pm, relying on the night.
We extremely advocate seeing the second displaying. It’ll successfully lengthen your day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios by half-hour to an hour, which is greater than you’ll get by leaping in line for a trip on the finish of the night time.
Equally as essential, we’ve managed to see the second displaying of Fantasmic from spectacular seats with out arriving greater than 5 minutes upfront of showtime. This has been the case even on evenings when the primary efficiency was fairly busy and seats crammed up half-hour earlier than showtime.
On those self same busier days, the late performances of Fantasmic had a number of total sections that went unfilled. I used to be in a position to snag the third row of an ideal part at (actually) 2 minutes earlier than showtime, and that was on a busy day. That adopted doing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance shortly earlier than park closing with an precise wait of underneath 20 minutes.
We adopted that technique repeatedly final 12 months, together with throughout the peak of Spring Break. (With that mentioned, I haven’t tried it since final November and would by no means advocate anybody else for whom Fantasmic is a must-see minimize it so shut.)
Animal Kingdom
- March 8, 2024: 8am to 7pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- March 11th of September, 2024: 8am to 8pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- March 12-14, 2024: 7:30am to 8pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- March 15-16, 2024: 8am to 8pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- March 17-24, 2024: 8am to 7pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
- March 25-30, 2024: 8am to 8pm (beforehand 9am to 6pm)
The 8am opening time is clutch at Animal Kingdom. This implies Early Entry at 7:30am, which is fairly sparsely attended. See Animal Kingdom Park Opening & Early Entry Journey Technique (or, “How I Did Each Journey at DAK Earlier than 10:30am.”)
Even when these find yourself being 10/10 crowd degree days in Animal Kingdom, you may just about run the desk on rides by benefiting from Early Entry and being aggressive with rope drop and the primary few hours of the day. The overwhelming majority of visitors can not/is not going to stand up that early. (Simply look what number of complaints there are about digital queue begin occasions being at 7am!)
On the reverse finish of the day, Animal Kingdom continues to formally shut after dusk for many of as of late–even after the clock “springs ahead” in March! Between the later closing and earlier sundown, you will get a pair hours in DAK after darkish for the primary time shortly. We extremely advocate staying for evenings in DAK to benefit from the Tree of Life Awakenings, plus Pandora and the remainder of the park after darkish.
Our Animal Kingdom Afternoon Arrival Technique is as soon as once more the perfect method for this park. Genie+ is a greater choice throughout Spring Break than throughout the slowest stretches of the 12 months, however these 8pm closings nonetheless ought to permit so that you can accomplish rather a lot within the last few hours of the day.
However, in case your plan is to reach late and go away early, Genie+ generally is a good choice. After experiencing 8/10 and above crowds there (and seeing the Lightning Lane really be useful for stage exhibits!), we aren’t fairly so assertive about Genie+ being categorically “unhealthy” at DAK. It actually relies upon.
As at all times, the sooner opening occasions make it simpler to beat crowds, which is a giant motive why it’s unlucky to see Magic Kingdom stick to 9am park opening for a lot of Spring Break. At the least for Animal Kingdom (and generally DHS), the sooner opening is a giant benefit to early risers. That plus savvy technique or information of methods to leverage Genie+ and Lightning Lanes generally is a gamechanger.
To that finish, take a look at our Genie+ v. Savvy Technique at Walt Disney World, which is the results of intensive ‘testing’ to find out the perfect and worst methods to beat the crowds. You may also do fairly nicely within the evenings at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios–and that’s one way or the other nonetheless true even now that Fantasmic is again. EPCOT is extra of a wildcard–the mud nonetheless hasn’t settled on Luminous or the opposite new stuff there (and now it’s Competition of the Arts).
In the end, the newest rounds of extensions for the second half of March 2024 are a blended bag. We’d actually wish to see extra for the week of March 18-22 (Orange County’s Spring Break), however perhaps–hopefully–Walt Disney World is aware of one thing we don’t, and this can be a signal crowds gained’t really be that unhealthy. I wouldn’t financial institution on that, although. Plan to reach for Early Entry and/or rope drop and make use of zig after they zag technique and a robust Genie+ sport (as essential) to beat the crowds.
Wanting ahead, it’ll be fascinating to see the diploma to which park hours are prolonged in April 2024. They positively will to some extent since quite a lot of college districts within the Midwest and Northeast have later breaks, however we don’t anticipate any week in April being busy than mid-March. Who is aware of, although. Possibly Walt Disney World does. Or perhaps they’ll base park hours extensions on final 12 months’s crowd patterns when Easter fell later and the parks had been busy till mid-April. Stranger issues have occurred! We’ll maintain you posted.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider Walt Disney World’s working hours for Spring Break season? Upset that there aren’t earlier openings or later closings for March 18-22 (or thereabouts)? Is that this schedule is affordable, or are extra extensions wanted to assist soak up crowds? Confused concerning the lack of extensions for EPCOT? What has been your expertise with crowds and wait occasions? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we will help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even once you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
