It’s been a few weeks since our last update, and while there have been a handful of small updates we really only missed one big one—the announcement of holiday plans at Walt Disney World.

In this post, we cover the updates at Disney World and Disney parks around the world from the last few weeks, including a summary of the currently shared holiday plans for Walt Disney World.

We also briefly talk about the current status of the site, mostly just to tell you that despite being away for a few weeks and despite the ongoing pandemic, we remain committed to the site.

PREVIOUS UPDATE + WDW MASTERPOST

In case you’re behind (it’s easy to fall behind these days…even for us), our last update was on September 1. If you’re brand new and would just like a thorough look at the Disney World reopening, we have a Disney World Reopening Masterpost that covers the basics and links to our deeper content.

Walt Disney World Updates

The Latest On Disney World Park Hours

This isn’t the flashiest news but it has been one of the most active area of updates this month, as Disney has updated park hours through December 5 repeatedly. Here’s a rundown of what the currently look like (always confirm at the Disney website before planning).

Magic Kingdom. 9AM to 6PM or 7PM through December 5. Currently the 7PM closes are standard beginning November 6—the start of Christmas season at Walt Disney World—but they also might pop up on short notice, particularly on weekends, before then.
Epcot. 11AM to 7PM/8PM/9PM. 7PM is most common, but 8PM and 9PM closes occasionally pop up.
Animal Kingdom. 9AM to 5PM. This weekend has 6PM closes, but 5PM is the standard after that.
Hollywood Studios. 10AM to 7PM. This weekend has 8PM closes, but 7PM is the standard after that.

The Latest on Parks Pass Availability

You still need a reservation to visit Disney World’s parks, so we like to check in on the availability calendar every so often to see what space is looking like. Here’s the actual calendar. (You can also read more about Disney World’s park pass reservation system here.)

Disney Resort Guests. We’ll start with guests staying at Disney hotels. Currently, they have pretty wide availability except:

Hollywood Studios and Epcot are full a few upcoming days
Hollywood Studios is full October 6 and 8-17
Hollywood Studios is full November 22 to November 27 (Thanksgiving week)

If you’re planning a trip that involves a stay at a Disney hotel, you have pretty good options, but it’s clear that some peak days are booking quickly, specifically at Hollywood Studios.

Annual Passholders. The AP calendar sees different patterns, reflecting the different planning behavior of APs. Weekends fill up, and they fill up earliest at Hollywood Studios. Passholders can’t visit Hollywood Studios on a weekend until after Thanksgiving, currently.

The next three Saturdays are completely booked at all four parks, as is this coming Sunday. October weekends altogether only have Epcot left available.

As we wrote at the time, this was the inevitable result of cutting park hours. Shorter evening hours means families can’t fit in park visits after work. I still think Magic Kingdom should shift its hours forward. Travelers will visit the flagship park regardless of the hours, and evening hours are great for APs to pop in, get on a few rides, and buy food and merchandise.

Everyone Else. Theme Park Ticket guests (not APs, not Disney hotel guests) see availability most similar to Resort Guests in the long run, but passholders in the immediate future. If you’re planning a trip more than a week in advance, your availability probably won’t be impacted much by picking or avoiding a Disney hotel.

Halloween + Christmas Cavalcade Updates

We’ve updated our Disney World Cavalcades post to include information on (including links to good videos) the new Halloween cavalcades (at Magic Kingdom through October 31), along with Disney’s announcement of the Christmas cavalcades coming to all four parks starting November 6.

More Christmas Details

Just as we took a break from following the news, Disney announced their holiday plans for this year. The full post from Disney is here, and we might have our own post later, but here’s a quick summary…

Throughout the resort, beginning November 6, you’ll find holiday treats, decorations, and merchandise. Notably, the lifesize gingerbread displays that typically are at several hotels will not be around this year.

At Magic Kingdom, beginning November 6, the park will see its typical holiday decorations, but without the Castle Dream Lights illuminating the castle. Instead the castle will be decorated via projection effects. Holiday cavalcades will also run in place of the standard cavalcades, as noted above. There will be no Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.

At Epcot, beginning November 27, a modified International Festival of the Holidays (presumably along the same lines as the Taste of Epcot modified Food & Wine) will occur. There will be no Candlelight Processional.

At Hollywood Studios, beginning November 6, Hollywood and Vine will host a holiday-themed character meal.

The big lingering questions for us are:

Will Hollywood Studios run the amazing projection show, Sunset Seasons Greetings?
Will Animal Kingdom get any notable holiday treatment?

Epcot Fireworks Returning? Debuting?

Epcot tested fireworks on September 23. As Epcot is the park open latest most days, it’s the best fit for a firework show. The park was running the temporary “Epcot Forever” show when it closed in March, but the new HarmonioUS show was expected to debut at some point in 2020.

Disney has not announced a return of fireworks to Epcot, but this is an interesting news item to discuss.

Epcot is an interesting case. The park has huge appeal for locals because of its (currently modified) festivals. It’s also a large park, with theoretically the largest capacity of the four Disney World events, so locals shouldn’t have to worry about being crowded out by vacationers while Disney World is under capacity restrictions.

The flipside of this is that vacationers who have to choose only one park each day will likely have Epcot on the bottom of their lists. Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom have the latest and greatest rides. Magic Kingdom is the flagship park. If you have to skip a park, it’s probably Epcot.

And if you’re looking at planning a three vs. four day trip when perhaps your purse strings are a little tighter than they were seven months ago, you might look at Epcot and say the three day trip seems fine.

I would never skip Epcot, but if you’re brand new to the parks and can only pick three parks, my professional advice would usually be to skip Epcot.

So…would fireworks bring more guests to Epcot? Are fireworks the best option?

I think fireworks would bring some more attendance to Epcot…but I think that increase would mostly be locals. I don’t think many families are sitting on the margin willing to spend an extra day if only there were a firework show.

As for whether fireworks are the best option…this one is curious to me. Epcot should have a nearly finished new ride—Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure—sitting in the France pavilion. The ride was scheduled to open summer 2020, which was rumored to mean May 2020, when the parks closed in March.

Whatever my feelings on the ride, most guests are just going to take notice that it’s a new ride. That’s the sort of thing that gets vacationers to book an extra night.

We haven’t heard anything about Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure since the parks closed. I assumed it would be sidelined for a while, but that was because I assumed Disney wasn’t much interested in big shifts to bring more guests to Epcot…maybe I was wrong?

It’s easy to be overly optimistic and read too much into things these days (like when I decided they should just find the money to upgrade the monorails now), but this firework rehearsal is at least a sign that Disney has some interest in making changes to bring guests into the parks. Maybe a long-awaited new ride could be a part of that.

Water Parks To Remain Closed Under March 2021

With Disney World’s water parks having skipped summer 2020, it’s no surprise to see them shut down until March 2021 (via Scott Gustin). In March, Disney anticipates reopening one of the water parks.

If you’re planning a trip after March, we have guides to Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. Disney has not specified which water park will reopen first.

Updates for Disney World Annual Passholders

There have been a few updates to the Disney World annual pass program. First, the Platinum Plus Pass is currently not available for renewal. This pass included access to the water parks, which will remain closed until March 2021, when one will reopen.

Relatedly, Disney will refund passholders with water park access some portion of their pass because of the closure.

Finally, Disney is extending Premier Passports (the combined annual pass for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World) on a month-by-month basis until a Disneyland reopening date is set and a final extension can be given.

Of all passholders, Premier Passport holders look set to get the best outcome. Since their passes are expected to be extended based on the Disneyland reopening date, they will essentially be getting an extra 3+ months of Disney World access. I’m one of these passholders, so I’ll be following this closely.

Odds, Ends, and Other Parks

Disney Wants Disneyland Open

Often lost in much of the news about the parks closing and then reopening is that Disneyland actually closed voluntarily back in March. The Governor exempted Disneyland from his first closure orders, but they went ahead and closed anyways.

Now, Disney officially wants Disneyland to reopen, but they don’t have permission yet. The Governor has indicated news is forthcoming on this front, but so far no date has been announced.

2021 Disney World Marathon and Princess Half Marathon Cancelled

RunDisney has cancelled the January and February races and replaced them with virtual races.

Hong Kong Disneyland Reopens Tomorrow

After closing, reopening, and closing again, Hong Kong Disneyland will re-reopen tomorrow, September 25. The park will be closed Tuesday and Thursdays. Reservations are required.

Notes on the Site

We’ve had some personal things (some good, some neutral, none bad) that have kept us from keeping the site fully updated. I apologize for not giving more notice of that—I errantly only shared our planned hiatus on instagram. Admittedly, we let ourselves be a little distracted right now since there still isn’t a ton of new information for planning a Disney World trip.

Despite falling behind lately, we remain fully committed to the site. It would have honestly been even more stressful if we felt like we needed to be providing frequent updates (as we do during normal times), so in some ways the timing has worked out for us.

As for specific content, I was running weekly wait time scorecards that I really enjoyed, but they required a lot of work that I didn’t have time for. I’m exploring bringing them back in a new format.

I hope to make one or two visits to the parks by the end of the year, but as I’ve stated multiple times my personal situation isn’t optimal for visiting a theme park during a pandemic and the amount of isolation I’d look to do thereafter. Hoping to make it work, though.

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