Disney World News: Cookie Construction, 35% Capacity, Magic Kingdom Fireworks Test
We’re back for another Walt Disney World news & rumor round-up! This one covers a testing of the Project Nugget fireworks at Magic Kingdom, extended park hours for November & December 2020, debut of Gideon’s Bakehouse, implications of the increase in park capacity to 35%, and more.
In our Disney Park Pass Update for the 2020 Holiday Season earlier this week, we shared that a large refill to all three buckets in the theme park reservation had occurred during the quieter stretch between the peak Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks.
As a heads up, there’s still a lot of availability from that even several days later, so check it out if you want to make or modify your Disney Park Pass reservations. As discussed in the strategy section of the above article, we recommend ‘stockpiling’ reservations for Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Let’s start with another park hours update. Walt Disney World has extended weekend hours for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom for the next several weekends, up until December 19, 2020. It’s a pretty simply and straightforward change–each of these parks now closes an hour later on those weekends in late November through mid-December 2020.
These extensions do coincide with the Disney Park Pass refills dates…but only the weekends. Past large scale replenishments to the Disney Park Pass system were followed by across-the-board expansions of operating hours, which we are not seeing here. Weekday extensions are still possible, though. Walt Disney World has been pretty last minute about recent park hours changes, and they’ll undoubtedly add hours if it allows them to justify replenishing Park Pass reservations again.
Additionally, more hours were recently posted to the calendar on DisneyWorld.com for January 24-30, 2021. Added hours are the same for all dates that week through January 30, 2021:
- Magic Kingdom: 9 am to 6 pm
- EPCOT: 11 am to 7 pm
- Hollywood Studios: 10 am to 7 pm
- Animal Kingdom: 9 am to 5 pm
Once again, Walt Disney World has returned to its normal, pre-closure practice of releasing boilerplate hours in advance. Those hours are then later extended based on Disney Park Pass bookings and hotel occupancy projections closer to the dates.
In short, these initial “lorem ipsum” Walt Disney World park hours are a placeholder to give false satisfaction to guests who like to plan. They’re ultimately somewhat meaningless, serving as a minimum baseline for what the hours will end up being, with hours only extended and not reduced.
January 2021 hours will likely end up being longer–especially the long holiday weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day–but definitely not as long as during the Christmas season. Unlike the last several years, January 2021 should end up being actual off-season due to no runDisney races, youth sporting events at ESPN Wide World of Sports, conventions, and other events.
Speaking of attendance and capacity, we want to revisit something covered in Disney’s Fourth Quarter Financial Results. During the Q&A, CEO Bob Chapek expressed optimism about efficiency gains at Walt Disney World, noting that the operators have been able to increase capacity while staying within CDC guidelines.
Specifically, Chapek said that Walt Disney World was previously at 25% capacity, but has been able to increase that to 35% capacity while still adhering to local health guidance and physical distancing requirements.
Having experienced Walt Disney World theme parks multiple times per week since July, this came as little surprise to us. However, judging by reader comments, it did surprise and worry some of you–especially those with trips planned for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
To allay some of those fears, it’s highly unlikely capacity is going to jump from 35% to 50% between now and then. For one thing, the move from 25% to 35% has been gradual. It was not like Magic Kingdom getting decked out for Christmas, happening magically overnight.
To the contrary, Walt Disney World has been slowly making changes to the parks to increase capacity while maintaining physical distancing, based upon Disney’s industrial engineering estimates. This has meant more physical dividers on popular attractions like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Frozen Ever After, and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. It has also resulted in more dining options returning, stores returning, and more queue space being added.
Walt Disney World has surprised us with some of the ways they’ve gotten creative in extending queues, so we hesitate to say that there isn’t much more they can do to further increase capacity. But, the efficiency gains are smaller and more incremental at this point, as the most obvious solutions (and even less obvious ones) have already been implemented over the course of the last 2-3 months.
Stated differently, it’s highly unlikely that Walt Disney World is going to implement any significant changes to park capacity between now and Christmas. We’ve already seen the “fruits” of the increase to 35% capacity, and while attendance will undoubtedly increase, it’s not going to be a colossal jump relative to October or November.
It should also be noted that these efficiency enhancements come with some benefits to guests. Thanks to the newly-added dividers, hourly throughput on several headliner attractions has effectively doubled, which more than offsets the increased attendance limits. Now, this is not at all attractions, but it is at some of the more popular ones.
We’d still take the summer crowds over the current ones, but we’re just pointing out that it’s not all downside. (And if we’re looking for silver linings, the weather is also significantly nicer now and there’s much more and better entertainment. On balance, we’d rather visit in November than July.)
On a totally different–yet equally important–note, Walt Disney World released its Holiday Foodie Highlights for Disney Springs yesterday. Buried at the bottom of that was an update on Gideon’s Bakehouse, which serves the world’s greatest cookies.
That post revealed two limited-time cookies that will be available at Gideon’s Bakehouse through December 31, 2020:
- Santa’s White Christmas Cookie — White Chocolate Chip Cookie filled with notes of Coconut, Sweet Caramel, Vanilla, and Nutty Flavors with freshly ground locally roasted coffee beans throughout. The cookie elves have also added the crunch of coarse sugar, the Gideon’s signature sea salt, and a pinch of Christmas glitter.
- Cookie Vom Krampus Cookie — Deep, dark Triple Chocolate Velvet textured cookie filled with Andes Mint and available in its own special packaging.
The significant thing here isn’t the seasonal cookies for December, great as they sound, it’s the morsel of info that Gideon’s Bakehouse will “open soon” at Disney Springs.
This shouldn’t be a huge surprise given that Walt Disney World announced this Gideon’s Bakehouse location would open this year and the construction walls say Coming 2020, but it looks like there’s still a decent amount of work to do. We’ll continue loitering around the location, bringing you an update as soon as Gideon’s Bakehouse opens and bestows its greatness upon Walt Disney World!
Finally, you might recall a few Walt Disney World has filed a flurry of new construction permits for “Project Nugget” fireworks at Magic Kingdom. These pertained to launch point work, with the specific details being unclear and nothing officially announced by Disney.
There’s still some “debate” among insiders as to the scale and scope of Project Nugget. It could be an oblique reference to something for the golden milestone of Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary, or simply opportunistic infrastructure upgrades occurring while there are not nightly pyro launches.
The latest development is that fireworks testing is scheduled for Magic Kingdom on November 16, 2020 after the park closes, per wdwmagic. (If you’re staying at one of the monorail loop resorts, you should be able to see it.) This could be for the filming of a new show’s promotional footage…or simply mundane testing of new equipment.
As with Project Nugget in general, this is “don’t get prematurely excited” news. This absolutely does not mean Walt Disney World is going to surprise holiday season guests with the return of Minnie’s Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks, that Happily Ever After is returning early in 2021, or that a new show is coming soon.
When cancelling entertainment or seasonal offerings, Walt Disney World has repeatedly pointed to physical distancing requirements and health safety as the rationale. Given what we’ve seen with crowds around the Christmas cavalcades and Cinderella Castle projections, this “health safety” claim doesn’t hold water.
However, physical distancing still does…but not in the way Disney is suggesting. As noted above, park capacity is capped due to physical distancing. That means lower attendance levels and, by extension, fewer ticket sales. That is the reason Walt Disney World isn’t going to bring back most of its costly entertainment until physical distancing and, with it, attendance limits, go away. (As we covered previously, Universal already brought back its nighttime spectacular and EPCOT could probably do the same.)
Ultimately, we remain hopeful that fireworks return to Walt Disney World in Spring 2021 or shortly thereafter. We still think there’s a good chance Harmonious debuts at EPCOT next year, and Magic Kingdom also adds new entertainment by October 2021 for the 50th Anniversary. With that said, we’re skeptical that a new Magic Kingdom fireworks show will be one of those offerings.
Happily Ever After is still a relatively recent addition by Walt Disney World standards, it remains immensely popular, and after a roughly one-year hiatus, guests will be ecstatic just to see it. Suffice to say, Walt Disney World doesn’t need new fireworks to draw guests to Magic Kingdom. It could be a nice treat for the 50th Anniversary to have a special show paying homage to Magic Kingdom like “Celebrate Tokyo Disneyland,” and a lot of that show could even be recycled since it was designed for Cinderella Castle and the parks share many of the same attractions. It could also end up like “World of Color — Celebrate! The Wonderful World of Walt Disney,” which demonstrated why sometimes you don’t mess with a good thing.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on any of this Walt Disney World news? Does the increase to 35% capacity worry you, or do you think the efficiency gains sufficiently offset it? Excited for the debut of Gideon’s Bakehouse at Disney Springs? Looking forward to extended holiday hours? Think Project Nugget will be a new 50th Anniversary fireworks show for Magic Kingdom, or just an infrastructure update? Do you agree or disagree with our advice and commentary? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I was very disappointed about the tightly crammed crowds and lack of social distancing in areas like the hub, Main Street and in stores. They felt just as busy as the Halloween Party last year. The CMs were even demanding people squish into each other to get out of the way for the cavalcades.
Doesn’t bother my family at all. Everyone is an adult and can make a decision for themselves. You should stop listening to your left leaning government and media bias. If a person is in anyway afraid of the virus they definitely should not go. Distancing is impossible and most dont care. Disney is enforcing masks but there are always times to get around it. The crowds at Disney, lack of distancing, and lax mask use prove that most people just dont care about it and want things back to normal. We go at least weekly. Open it up!
You are clearly ignorant of what’s going on in the world. This has nothing to do with a “left-leaning government.” In fact, the U.S. government right now is not “left-leaning”; not sure where you got the idea it is. It doesn’t matter if you and others are afraid of the virus or not; the fact is that it has killed more than 246,000 people in the U.S. — people just like you who kept spreading it around. If you don’t care about yourself and your family, care about those around you; you or someone in your family could be spreading it to others without having any symptoms or realizing it. This has nothing to do with the U.S. government, the virus has killed more than 1.3 million globally. It doesn’t care if you are ignorant or not. These numbers are from Johns Hopkins Univ., not the U.S. government. Many of the people who have died were just like you; they kept squeezing into tight spaces with others until they found themselves in a hospital bed — a rude awakening.
Carol/Sam: Since no one really agrees on the efficacy of masking, maybe we should just stick to MK and cookies. It would be nice to have posters on this site talk about things they can agree with, rather than what they disagree with. Unless you are talking about shopping at Disney. I avoid that.
Great article. We just booked Jan 16-23 (park days 17-22). Do you recommend certain days at certain parks? A little concerned for Sunday/Monday as it’s a Holiday. But the rest of the week should be good. Want to reserve park dates tomorrow.
Any plans for a Universal Studios Christmas update?
Universal Studios, what’s that?
Going for New Year’s and park hours still pretty short. Was wondering as it gets closer if park hours will extend. Was also hoping that with the testing of fireworks, maybe a New Year’s surprise like a special ticketed event, but your explanation of no nightly entertainment put that idea out to pasture. Lol
At Disney from November 9th leaving tomorrow the 15th. Very crowded today in Magic Kingdom. I have been to all parks and feel most people are keeping masks on their face. Some cast members have asked visitors to keep their mask on and over their nose. I do wish cast members insisted if people are eating or drinking they should remain stationary.
I decided to stay away from resort pools and hot tubs as masks are definitely not being worn while swimming:).
For the most part Disney is doing a good job.
How have the estimated vs actual wait times been playing out the last few weeks since the capacity increase? I remember seeing earlier that in most cases they were pretty inflated, but is that still true?
Hollywood Studios is the park that is most likely to be booked to capacity over the next few months and easily has the longest wait times for its attractions. On top of that, shows like Indiana Jones, Beauty and the Beast, Voyage of the little Mermaid, star wars launch bay (RIP animation academy) , and others are gone. They also have shuttered several of their quick service locations. Somehow Disney still thinks it’s a great idea to only keep the studios open until 7 pm, even on weekends. It should be open to 10 pm at minimum. Then again, as long as they are selling out, what do they care if the park’s hours are too short for their guests?
I agree with you in theory, especially when it comes to giving Rise of the Resistance more operating hours to accommodate more guests.
The practical problem with DHS is the concentration of crowds early in the day and end of night drop off. We went to DHS this week on Veterans Day and it still wasn’t bad at night. I think that’ll start changing with the modified virtual queue, but it hasn’t to a significant degree yet.
I saw something on Farcebook that they were taking guests straight into the stormtrooper hangar on RoTR and skipping the portions before that to shorten cycle times and increase throughput. Anyone else heard that?
Would you recommend not going to Epcot on MLK day in January? We have planned most of our park days during the week the week after MLK day.
It’s too early to recommend/not recommend anything for January 2021, but I’d be inclined to do DHS on the holiday as opposed to EPCOT based upon current trends.
Thanks Tom-we are scheduled for Thanksgiving. Like you we are nervous about eating indoors. But, this being our first visit we aren’t sure how to tell which restaurants have outdoor seating options. Any advice?
This list covers the bulk of the outdoor table service options: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/best-restaurants-outdoor-seating-disney-world/
Thank you!!
You made a comment about creative que extensions, when we were there just before Halloween while we were waiting to get on Rise of The Resistance the line took us outside of the show building and ran through an alleyway between the show building and the Muppet Theater and the show building before we re entered the show building
We are bringing our kids and grandkids at Christmas. Unfortunately all character dining is booked. Any other suggestions?
Tootie,
Don’t be to upset. We went to Hollywood Dine with Minnie on Monday. It was awful! Not worth the money! Yes the characters came around briefly for social distance pictures, but we saw characters around the parks just as good for free in their mini shows. The restaurant rushed every part of our meal. I would not recommend!! Hope others have had better experiences!
Tootie,
I would recommend against a character dining experience right now. Simply not worth it for the little, distanced character interaction. Have fun, enjoy your trip and your time with your grandkids!
Hi Tootie
Check the WDW app near dinner time to see if you can put your name on Walk-Up List. When I went to WDW around Halloween, i noticed Garden Grill at Epcot had reasonable wait times when there we no reservations available.
Similar to Erin and KevinG, I wouldnt get discouraged if you cannot score a character dining reservation. As a childless couple, we enjoy the 2020 character dining for photography and we had low expectation but it is still expensive and we felt rushed. We had better social distanced interactions at the parks such as Mickey & Gang at Railroad Station balcony, Pooh & Gang/Peter Pan at Crystal Palace front porch, Chip & Dale/Country Bears at Country Bear Jamboree balcony, and Pooh/Joy/Mary Poppins at Epcot
Mousedining.com allows you to select up
To 6 dining choices (for free ) with date/time and notifies you if it opens. You have to move fast if it does open up though!
HI Guys,
Thank you for your advice. I think we will just skip the Character dining this year. Thanks for the heads up.
I’m getting nervous about our Christmas week trip. I don’t have a problem with the normal Christmas crowds, but I do have an issue with now increased capacity in the middle of a pandemic that is now raging worse now than any point since it’s start. 25% to 35% may not seem like a lot, but that means more people that don’t know how to social distance or trying to get around mask wearing. More chinstraps and peak-a-nose’rs. Longer lines, and higher capacity with an already strained dining option situation. I’m hearing stories of waiting 35 to 40 minutes in line at a cart just to get a soda and a snack.
Sadly it is looking more and more likely we are going to cancel and I’m going to have to eat a $1500 rental trailer for Fort Wilderness.
Whoops, replied on the wrong line.
You mentioned January as an off-season, but the Festival of the Arts starts at Epcot on Jan 8…do you not think that will be an attendance driver?
On weekends it’ll drive locals to EPCOT. It’s not going to result in a surge of vacation bookings.
We might just have to drive over towards the MK on Monday evening to see if we can see any fireworks.
You mentioned January as an off-season, but the Festival of the Arts starts at Epcot on Jan 8…do you not think that will be an attendance driver?
Tom…how do you think the crowds will be next week like wednesday thru sunday? you think that is bearing some of thanksgiving week craziness or lots of others have same idea??
Thanksgiving crowds will likely start arriving on that Sunday. I would expect it to be slightly less busy than this week was.
Please put me on email list.
“On balance, we’d rather visit in November than July.”
That’s what I keep telling myself. While it’s not looking like it will be a ghost town when we visit, hopefully it’s not slammed. I’ll take good weather and crowds you can manage with some planning/strategy over an empty park in the Florida summer any day.
Hopefully weekdays are when you can still enjoy lower crowds + lessons learned from operating in the environment leads to a decent experience
I am wondering if something is going to give with this current spike in cases…
“I am wondering if something is going to give with this current spike in cases…”
With past spikes over the summer, people self-regulated behavior. There was data from one of the restaurant booking sites showing decreased reservation activity as areas became hotspots–even with more restaurants reopening.
However, I wonder to what extent that’ll play out again as there is definitely a greater sense of fatigue this go-round. I think there will be some cancellations and renewed travel trepidation, but not nearly to the extent as before.
Our family just cancelled our Thanksgiving week trip due to rising COVID cases. We are super bummed.