Summer opening hours

[rob@rar.org.uk]

I've just started to compile the opening hours for our forthcoming trip (30 July-12 August). US/IoA hours are available on the Universal website, and Disney's hours are available up until the end of July (so I'm extrapolating into August). Sadly, it looks like Disney's opening hours still haven't fully recovered from the reductions that we saw last year. I really appreciate the longer opening hours as it allows us a decent period of 'down-time' in the afternoon and still have a good few hours in the parks in the evenings. I also think that the parks look their best in the dark, when they are considerably more atmospheric.

Animal Kingdom is scheduled to open 9am to 6pm. So much for visiting AK on day 1 because it opens early! When I first visited AK it opened 7am to 8pm - I wonder if the animals need more sleep know, or do the guests miss the best of the animal's waking hours?

Magic Kingdom is 9am to either 9pm or 10pm.

Disney MGM Studios looks like 9am to 9pm, with Fantasmic starting at 9pm which will extend the day a bit in that park.

Epcot 9am to 9pm, although Future World will close at 7pm and World Showcase will not open until 11am.

Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach open 9am to 7.30pm.

The news at Universal is a bit better, with both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure opening 9am to 10pm (except for the last two days of our trip where they close at 8pm and 9pm respectively.

All of these hours are subject to change: Disney in particular revised their opening hours (mainly downwards) several times as the holiday season approached last year.

Regards

Rob

 

[CarolynU]

Ummmm I'm out there at roughly the same time as you Rob, and I used to love the days when in late July and Aug the MK was open until 11:00pm and there were two Spectros. It all seems in the distant past now. Luckily as we visit frequently the crowds and the reduction in hours, have little effect on our planning , but I think that it must be difficult for guests who are trying to see everything and fit everything in for the first time. Carolyn

 

[bengunn]

We are there from 16th August and the hours will probably scale down a bit from what you have quoted - certainly for US/IOA the hours cut back then. Never mind we are usually shattered by 10pm after a day in a theme park.

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

The hours after mid-August were scaled back in a big way last year. We were there for the last couple of weeks of August, and were unhappy with the closing time on some of the days (7pm in the Magic Kingdom for example). It meant we felt under pressure to have only a short afternoon break knowing that we only had a couple of hours of 'playtime' in the evenings. Hopefully this year will be better as attendance begins to pickup. The Universal hours seem to be pretty good, and hopefully Disney will respond...

Regards

Rob

 

[bengunn]

7pm certainly sounds like early closing - I hope that it is not that bad this year. I will just have to keep monitoring the various websites.