October Hours ???

[wild01ride]

So, I'm looking at some October hours, which are only available through the 20-something.

I had originally referred to 2012 hours during preliminary planning to get an idea of what to expect. According to 2012 hours, there were lots of late-ish park hour opportunities (AK until 7 each night, studios until 10 or so, etc.).

So, for Fri., October 18, DHS closes at 7:30!? What kind of closing time is that? It's both early and bizarre to have a 7:30 closing time.
Then, on Sat., October 19, Studios is open 9am-6pm.

Why so early?

I understand that park hours often get stretched out closer to the date, but why on earth would they have the initial times be so early?

Seems like something must be going on in the way of serious construction or events or something to warrant the early closings.

Does anyone know?

 

[wdwmagic]

So, I'm looking at some October hours, which are only available through the 20-something.

I had originally referred to 2012 hours during preliminary planning to get an idea of what to expect. According to 2012 hours, there were lots of late-ish park hour opportunities (AK until 7 each night, studios until 10 or so, etc.).

So, for Fri., October 18, DHS closes at 7:30!? What kind of closing time is that? It's both early and bizarre to have a 7:30 closing time.
Then, on Sat., October 19, Studios is open 9am-6pm.

Why so early?

I understand that park hours often get stretched out closer to the date, but why on earth would they have the initial times be so early?

Seems like something must be going on in the way of serious construction or events or something to warrant the early closings.

Does anyone know?

The initial release of hours is nearly always changed - and I assume they start off very conservatively with a view to extended them later, rather than having to reduce them.

BTW, you can see the entire month of Oct at http://www.wdwmagic.com/calendar.htm

 

[draybook]

I would assume that a 6pm closing at DHS would signal a private/corporate event.

 

[wild01ride]

The initial release of hours is nearly always changed - and I assume they start off very conservatively with a view to extended them later, rather than having to reduce them.

BTW, you can see the entire month of Oct at http://www.wdwmagic.com/calendar.htm

Thanks for the link to the wdwmagic calendar!
As for the times, I realize that they often change/are extended as the date grows closer, but 6:00pm at DHS on a night that was 10:00pm last year??
And the 7:30 thing still has me puzzled - in more than 20 years of planning, I can't remember a time seeing a hal-hour increment on a normal day's operating hours. Oddly, too, they have EMH 7:30-9:30 on one of those nights

I would assume that a 6pm closing at DHS would signal a private/corporate event.

That's one thing that I was thinking.
In particular, when visiting the entertainment page for that day, it says "entertainment details for this date are not available" when adjacent days in both directions have times posted.

Must be the night that they're bringing in the World of Color equipment/Carsland ride systems....

 

[G00fyDad]

We go every year in October and DHS always closes around 7PM. It's annoying, but it is what it is.

 

[jkl2000]

I was annoyed by these times, too. We're going late October and I'm pretty much doing our planning by assuming any park other than MK and Epcot we'd only go to in the morning - since we want to get some rest at the resort by mid afternoon, there's not really any going back to AK or HS for the evening. The Halloween party at MK doesn't help any. However, I'm not expecting there to be any lack of entertainment to be found.