Park Hours and Planning

[Herdman]

The park hours for November are just starting to extend into our trip to coincide with our 180 day ADR window opening on Sunday. WDW is sure making it difficult to plan. I'm struggling with what to do with AK. The current hours are 9:00 - 5:00 for each day of our trip so far. Most people seem to think the park will be open later than that with the new nighttime activities. I'm not going to be happy if I make my ADR's, and AK only ends up being open later a few nights during our trip, I guess wrong, and I can't change our plans. I think being in that park at night could be one of our trip highlights. Anyone else feeling my pain?

 

[JohnD]

We are going to Cali grill too and not on a party night but the latest reservation I could get was 5.40 so we are going to dine then do a loop of the monorail and check out the other resorts, or in my case go and try a Lapu Lapu the go back to the contemporary for Wishes.

I'm doing something comparable. 7:40pm for CG, then either hang out or do the Monorail Crawl before Wishes.

 

[lemon meringue]

I don't know. To my knowledge it wasn't going to be seasonal. Right now they have it as 11pm through June 30 but haven't just extended the late hours yet. I'm planning as if it will be at night in late October / early November.

I don't think it's seasonal per say either but it just seems like it's taking so long for things to come together for Animal Kingdom at night. I guess what I'm afraid of is that it won't be continued day to day consecutively. (That they'll take breaks from it) This isn't based on anything I've heard specifically. It's just because of what happened in April with the ROL not being ready. I've lost confidence in expecting something that isn't officially bookable. At this point I really can't hold an evening open in early July. We'll be back again in September but my itinerary for that trip is already almost done too. We may not get to do the evening stuff until 2017. I really like everything planned in advance for Disney trips.

 

[JohnD]

I don't think it's seasonal per say either but it just seems like it's taking so long for things to come together for Animal Kingdom at night. I guess what I'm afraid of is that it won't be continued day to day consecutively. (That they'll take breaks from it) This isn't based on anything I've heard specifically. It's just because of what happened in April with the ROL not being ready. I've lost confidence in expecting something that isn't officially bookable. At this point I really can't hold an evening open in early July. We'll be back again in September but my itinerary for that trip is already almost done too. We may not get to do the evening stuff until 2017. I really like everything planned in advance for Disney trips.

I hear you. My recommendation is to make contingency plans now but be ready to act if more becomes known. For example, I made dinner reservations for Sanaa the evening of 11/3 because Tiffins isn't open and park hours for AK are right now until 5pm. If park hours get extended, Tiffins opens, and Rivers of Light is nightly then I may change plans. But for now I have a contingency plan.

 

[sophie_the_pooh]

I hear you. My recommendation is to make contingency plans now but be ready to act if more becomes known. For example, I made dinner reservations for Sanaa the evening of 11/3 because Tiffins isn't open and park hours for AK are right now until 5pm. If park hours get extended, Tiffins opens, and Rivers of Light is nightly then I may change plans. But for now I have a contingency plan.

I love that idea, thanks, I might use that recommendation for my November trip, I'm really stressed out about DHS's Star Wars fireworks hours not being released for a while...

 

[JohnD]

I love that idea, thanks, I might use that recommendation for my November trip, I'm really stressed out about DHS's Star Wars fireworks hours not being released for a while...

I don't see how the hours would be any different for Galactic Spectacular from Symphony in the Stars. Both are fireworks. The new show will just have added projection effects. If anything, subtract an hour as you'll likely be going during standard time instead of daylight time. Symphony is currently showing a 9:45pm EDT start time. If you go anytime November 6 or later, it will be standard time. So, I'd guess 8:45pm EST for Galactic Spectacular.

 

[sophie_the_pooh]

I don't see how the hours would be any different for Galactic Spectacular from Symphony in the Stars. Both are fireworks. The new show will just have added projection effects. If anything, subtract an hour as you'll likely be going during standard time instead of daylight time. Symphony is currently showing a 9:45pm EDT start time. If you go anytime November 6 or later, it will be standard time. So, I'd guess 8:45pm EST for Galactic Spectacular.

I know I wrote "hours" in my post, but what I meant is that I am waiting for the schedule/calendar (maybe it was too early for me to write a post...!). I don't know if Galactic spectacular will be a nightly show or if it will only happen on certain days of the week. I will be able to make my ADRs soon, and I'd like to make a reservation at one of DHS's restaurants on a night were I can see the fireworks. I'll take a guess (maybe a Friday?) and adjust my ADRs later when the schedule comes out!

 

[NelleBelle]

Glad to hear that I'm not alone in my ire at this. My husband wants ADR at Tuskerhouse but we typically only make those meals for dinner. Was hoping to get something set-up for our trip late Oct/Nov and like ya'll have posted, the hours aren't "night time" yet and you can't make those ADRs! So frustrated because our whole trip generally ends up revolving around what park we will be in based on what time/where we eat our meals. So this year we thought we would make it easy on ourselves and just do dinners. I guess we will be passing on Tusker and end-up doing plans elsewhere for dinner. In case the hours do extend, any opinions on whether it would be better to jump over to AKL for dinner or suck it up and eat our big meal at lunch at Tusker?

 

[cdeev8690]

Looks like hours have been extended through Labor Day Weekend. My ADR's open up this weekend for my December trip so I know it's highly unlikely hours will be extended for AK by then. I'll just have to test my luck and stick to the original plan until the park hours are updated. Maybe they'd like to see how the summer goes with these hours. I doubt the park will be open till 11 in December but at least 8 or 9 seems reasonable

 

[JohnD]

Looks like hours have been extended through Labor Day Weekend. My ADR's open up this weekend for my December trip so I know it's highly unlikely hours will be extended for AK by then. I'll just have to test my luck and stick to the original plan until the park hours are updated. Maybe they'd like to see how the summer goes with these hours. I doubt the park will be open till 11 in December but at least 8 or 9 seems reasonable

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm going 10/29 - 11/4. Not expecting 11pm closure but hoping extension into the evening regardless. I'm going the last week of daylight time so 9 or 10 would be nice.

 

[prfctlyximprct]

I'm hoping they change the hours soon! All my dinners are 7 pm or later and then my animal kingdom day I have to eat at 4pm... Ugh! Come on night time ak!

 

[Herdman]

I'm hoping they change the hours soon! All my dinners are 7 pm or later and then my animal kingdom day I have to eat at 4pm... Ugh! Come on night time ak!

Depending on when you are going that may be good. We are going in November and have a 4:00 PM ADR at Rainforest Café on our AK day. I'm hoping the park will be open to at least 8:00 or 9:00 so we'll have dinner out of the way to enjoy some of the nighttime activities.

 

[rob0519]

The park hours for November are just starting to extend into our trip to coincide with our 180 day ADR window opening on Sunday. WDW is sure making it difficult to plan. I'm struggling with what to do with AK. The current hours are 9:00 - 5:00 for each day of our trip so far. Most people seem to think the park will be open later than that with the new nighttime activities. I'm not going to be happy if I make my ADR's, and AK only ends up being open later a few nights during our trip, I guess wrong, and I can't change our plans. I think being in that park at night could be one of our trip highlights. Anyone else feeling my pain?

In general, I feel your pain. As fans of the "most visited place on earth with such limited capacity" I feel the pain of trying to find a dinner reservation 180 days or 4.320 hours before I need it. Toss in changing hours, longer, shorter, or not yet posted and it's sheer frustration. We've started referring to WDW as a trip, because there is certainly no longer any point in calling it a vacation.