Welcome to our post about Magic Kingdom Extended Evening Hours a perk available to certain guests at Walt Disney World resort that allows late-night access to select rides at Magic Kingdom on select nights. In this post we cover the basics—when, how long, what rides—of this perk, but we also discuss strategy for getting the most out of your experience and include an example of a successful night we spent at the park. Read on to learn all about Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom.
Update: TROn Virtual Queue Added to Extended Evening Hours
Per Disney:
At 6:00 PM on nights with Extended Evening Theme Park Hours at Magic Kingdom park, these Guests can request to join the virtual queue for TRON Lightcycle / Run presented by Enterprise.
This is separate from the 7AM and 1PM virtual queue drops, meaning guests with Extended Evening Hours could ride twice by virtual queue in one day. As with the earlier drops, you should assume Disney will be strict with the return window.
Since there’s no “strategy” around the return window—you get whatever time you get and you go ride during that time—the below strategies etc. aren’t impacted by this change.
Basics of Magic Kingdom Extended Evening Hours
We’ll start with the basics of the Magic Kingdom version of this perk. This post will focus mostly on Magic Kingdom-specific information. If you want a more general look at the Extended Evening Hours perk, we have a separate post here.
If you’d like to skip the basics and get to the strategy, click here.
What is Extended Evening Hours?
Extended Evening Hours is a new perk available to guests of Disney Deluxe Hotels, including DVC hotels and a very select group of partner hotels. It grants these guests access to a select park, on select nights, for extra time after the park has closed to other guests. Select attractions are available, and the perk typically lasts two hours.
When is Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom?
The typical schedule is once a week, usually either a Tuesday or a Wednesday. It has varied a bit, so we recommend checking the official calendar here.
What rides are included in Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom?
The Magic Kingdom list is pretty long and you can just check it out on the Disney page. The most notable exclusions are Jungle Cruise, which has been one of the five most popular rides at the park recently.
Is Extended Evening Hours worth the cost of a deluxe hotel?
Definitely not. It’s a factor in favor of staying at a deluxe hotel, but if you had other plans you won’t want to upgrade to a deluxe hotel just for this perk. A family of four could get Genie+ at Magic Kingdom—which would get them on most of the rides without long waits—for about $80, way less than the cost of upgrading any multi-night stay to a deluxe hotel from any non-deluxe hotel.
As of this post, Extended Evening Hours aren’t yet available at all the parks. Even if they were, spending $80 per day on Genie+ is going to be better value than upgrading to a deluxe hotel to stay up extra late every night.
Is this the same as After Hours?
No. After Hours events at Magic Kingdom are different in two key ways. First, they’re ticketed—meaning people pay extra specifically to access the park during the event. Second, they include a free selection of snacks.
Magic Kingdom After Hours returned in 2023, allowing guests who aren’t staying at a deluxe hotel the option for their own late night visit, at a price.
General Magic Kingdom Extended Evening Hours Strategy
There’s no sense going over the entire attraction list because (1) it would take too long and (2) you can’t do everything in a single 2-hour visit anyway. Instead, I want to talk about eight rides, bolding the three I’m considering '“must-do”:
Space Mountain
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Pirates of the Caribbean
Haunted Mansion
Peter Pan’s Flight
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
This list is grouped geographically—the first two are in Tomorrowland, three and four across the park in Frontierland/Adventureland, and five through eight in the heart of the park.
Now, when we get to my actual night below, you’ll see I wind up riding ten rides during the event plus three shortly before the event, but these eight are the where you’re going to get the most value for your time. Here’s how to think about them in terms of your two-hour strategy.
Space Mountain is a paid Lightning Lane during the regular park day, so I consider it a must-do if you have Extended Evening Hours so you can avoid spending even more money. I like to prioritize it early because its wait won’t start as high as our other two must-dos, and it’s essential to get one of these done in the first half of the night. Pair it with a ride on nearby Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin or maybe Tomorrowland Speedway. I don’t like Astro Orbiter during these events unless you ride it very last (too time-consuming for me).
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is far, all the way at the end of Frontierland, but is usually a walk-on most of the night at these types of events. I’ll typically pair it with a ride on Pirates of the Caribbean, which is about a ten-minute ride, so you might have to skip it if you’re pressed for time. You’ll probably head to these sometime in the first half of your night.
Peter Pan’s Flight and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train are the real bread and butter of this event. They continue to be the two most popular rides in the park (more or less, Jungle Cruise is sometimes more popular than Peter Pan’s Flight), and getting on these two rides (without paying for Genie+ / Lightning Lanes) is one of the big challenges of any trip.
You might save both for the second hour of the night hoping waits go down, but the longer you wait the most risk you run of a ride breaking down and not reopening (it happens, it’s out of your control), or putting yourself in a position where you only have time for one of them.
Haunted Mansion and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh are good rides, relatively popular, and nearby the other rides we focus on. They’re good if you have some extra time. Note the night I visited the Haunted Mansion pre-shows were playing, so it can take about 15 minutes to get in and out of there, even if the ride has no line.
Finally, Genie+ and Lightning Lanes are not available during Extended Evening Hours. If you have Genie+ at Magic Kingdom or you want to purchase an individual Lightning Lane, you’ll be using those before the hours of this event.
My Night at Magic Kingdom Extended Evening Hours
On my most recent visit to Magic Kingdom for Extended Evening Hours the park closed at 9PM, with Extended Evening Hours from 9PM to 11PM. Enchantment, the Magic Kingdom nighttime fireworks / projections show, was showing at 8PM.
The worst case scenario for scheduling is that Enchantment is scheduled for the first 20 minutes of your Extended Evening Hours (and you can’t just watch it another night). In this case, you’ll just be starting Extended Evening Hours 20 minutes late.
Since Enchantment was just an hour before Extended Hours, I decided to watch it with a tall Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew from the Main Street Starbucks (to get me energized for the rest of the night) and then ride a few rides that I knew would be quick to get onto, but which I didn’t want to spend Extended Evening Hours on.
I didn’t rush after Enchantment, but once the crowds became manageable I made my way back toward Storybook Circus. I’d aimed for riding Barnstormer, Dumbo, Under the Sea, and Mad Tea Party before park close. Besides the low waits and the fact that I wasn’t prioritizing them as part of extended time, I also picked these four because they’re close to each other, close to where I was going to start, and relatively far from where much of my time would be spent.
I walked right onto the first three:
8:38PM Barnstormer
8:46PM Dumbo
8:53PM Under the Sea
Then the Extended Hours began, and I scanned my Magic Band (no special wristband for this event, they just scan whatever band / card / device is linked to your account to show your hotel reservation), riding Mad Tea Party at 9:03PM. The scanning at each ride means you’ll sometimes see a line outside the attraction even though the wait inside will be relatively short.
Nearby Space Mountain was posted at a 20 minute wait, which I hoped was an overestimate but was still happy with to check off one of my three-must dos (at this point Peter Pan was at 30 minutes, Seven Dwarfs 40 minutes).
I was right about it being an overestimate, and it was actually a walk-on. I boarded at 9:14PM. I followed this up with a visit to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, where I basically knew the 15-minute posted wait would be wrong, and indeed I walked onto the ride at 9:24PM, earning myself a Galactic Hero sticker with a perfect score of 999,999.
On my way out, I glanced at Tomorrowland Speedway. It was definitely more than a walk-on, and since that experience can take some time, I decided I was done with Tomorrowland (leaving Astro Orbiter behind, too) and ready to make the long trek out west.
You maybe could just skip Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Pirates of the Caribbean during this event. I’ve had no trouble fitting these rides into my mornings recently, and if you have Genie+ they aren’t hard to get good return times for. You particularly might skip those and do the handful of Fantasyland rides I did earlier. Or you could simply get in line for the remaining must-dos a little earlier, accepting longer waits as the price for getting things done.
I don’t like to skip them, though. On my way, I noted that Sleepy Hollow was serving food. I believe Casey’s (on Main Street) and Starbucks (also Main Street) were open all night, too, but I’m not positive.
I briefly hopped in the Haunted Mansion line, but when I didn’t make it to the door immediately, I turned around. I’m going to be spending more time back here anyways trying to get on Peter Pan’s Flight, so I don’t have to visit Haunted Mansion this instant.
I finally got to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, walking on at 9:43PM, and then Pirates of the Caribbean, walking on at 9:54PM.
Here’s a look at the 10PM waits:
I’ve got an hour left, and I can try to time things so I walk onto either Peter Pan’s Flight or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at the last minute, but this is still pretty tricky if these waits are accurate. As much as I fear a ride breaking down, I really don’t want to get into my last line 20 minutes before the event ends.
Tackling one of the two must-dos would have been prudent, but I decided to take a little risk and visit Haunted Mansion. It was a walk-on now, but it took me 6 minutes to get on the ride, boarding at 10:12PM, and getting back outside around 10:20PM.
At this point I wanted to be sure I took care of one of the two remaining must-dos. The 30 minute wait for Peter Pan’s Flight seemed high since the outdoor portion of the queue wasn’t in use (and it was 10:22PM on a ride that most appeals to people with small children), so I got in that line.
Indeed, I would have been on in about 8 minutes by the ride broke down. At 10:34PM a Cast Member gave the “we’re officially temporarily closed, you can stay if you want or you can go” speech, so I—like most of the people in line—decided to go.
I could have waited until 10:50PM—if the ride isn’t up by then, I just go straight to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. But I looked at it differently. The odds the ride is up by 11PM are higher than the odds it’ll be up by 10:50PM. Plus Seven Dwarfs Mine Train had been posted at 20 minutes all night and I was beginning to think that was too high. I had 26 minutes, so if I could get on and off Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and then back here (assuming the ride got fixed), I’d get both done.
The line to scan into Mine Train was long but moved pretty quickly, and I waited only seven minutes, boarding at 10:43PM. As I got off, I saw in the app that Peter Pan’s Flight had reopened.
I had time for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, so I boarded that at 10:49PM before hustling over to Peter Pan’s Flight. I briefly considered stopping at the Carrousel—which would have been…way beyond risky…but it was down. I walked right onto Peter Pan’s Flight, still posted at 30 minute wait, at 10:56PM.
Exiting right at 11PM the night was officially over. The Carrousel had seemingly just gotten working again, and I saw the Cast Members letting a few last riders on, so I gleefully got on one last ride of the evening, boarding at 11:01PM.
On my way out, I noted that at least one Photopass photographer was still shooting around 11:15, but the doors to Emporium had been shut.
Conclusions
Here’s how my final schedule wound up:
8PM Enchantment
8:38 Barnstormer
8:46 Dumbo
8:53 Under the Sea
9PM Park Close / Extended Hours Start
9:03 Mad Tea Party
9:14 Space Mountain (posted 20, walk on)
9:24 Buzz Lightyear (posted 15, walk on)
9:43 Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
9:54 Pirates of the Caribbean
10:12 Haunted Mansion
(Queue for Peter Pan, it breaks)
10:43 Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (posted 20, actual 7)
10:49 Winnie the Pooh
10:56 Peter Pan’s Flight (posted 30, walk on)
11PM Prince Charming Carrousel
11PM Extended Evening Hours End
Unlike the After Hours events, there’s no price tag that has to be met by this perk. I don’t think Extended Evening Hours does much to justify the cost of the deluxe resorts, which are very expensive. So my question for this perk is basically “is it worth the time and staying up late?”
I’ll say the answer is probably. Of course, if you’re at a deluxe resort for more than a night or two, adding Genie+ and Lightning Lanes so you can do all these things during the day with little effort will be a relatively small addition to your trip budget.
But if you don’t want to spend that money, then Extended Evening Hours is a great way to get on Space Mountain, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Peter Pan’s Flight. You might even be able to get these done in a single hour.
You can’t do everything offered during this event, but moving at a slower pace than me you’re still likely to free up much of your daytime in Magic Kingdom to relax, take in some rides with short waits, and not stress about how you’re going to get on the major rides (except Jungle Cruise, which you’ll easily have time for at rope drop if you don’t have to worry about the big three rides).
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