Guide to Early Entry at Disney World Theme Parks
Guests of on-site Walt Disney World resorts and other hotels have access to Early Entry. This strategy guide covers everything you need to know: eligibility, ride rosters, how the perk works, and tips for best using the extra morning time in Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. (Updated February 26, 2025.)
In terms of basics, Early Theme Park Entry replaces morning Extra Magic Hours. With that said, there are some key differences between the on-site guest benefits, and pros & cons of each. Whereas morning Extra Magic Hours were offered on select days and at select parks, Early Entry is offered at all 4 theme parks every single day. That is a definite plus for Early Entry, as it means the crowds are diluted.
Another difference is that Extra Magic Hours lasted for an hour on each morning it was held. By contrast, Early Entry is daily 30-minute (or so) access to Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. At Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, this is a definite negative. It’s more complicated at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, for reasons relating to park hours that we’ll explain in the strategy section…
Speaking of park hours, those can vary depending upon the season and attendance projections. Walt Disney World continues to extend park hours, with opening times moved forward. Typically, Animal Kingdom opens at 8 am, with Hollywood Studios and EPCOT following at 8:30 am or 9 am (both are almost always 9 am except on the busiest days of the year). This is significant, as these earlier official opening times move forward Early Entry, and make that even less busy.
Magic Kingdom’s opening time varies due to Party Season–or August through December when the park is hosting Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party followed by Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. On days when the park closes early for those events, Magic Kingdom often opens at 8 am. However, it still opens at 9 am on these days during the off-season.
Even outside of Party Season, Magic Kingdom opens at 8 am on certain dates. Most frequently, this occurs during the peak season or on days of Magic Kingdom After Hours. As we’ll discuss, there is a huge difference between Early Entry on 8 am vs. 9 am opening days at Magic Kingdom.
Let’s starting by taking a look at the eligible hotels for Early Theme Park Entry at Walt Disney World:
Early Entry Eligible Disney Hotels
- Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort
- Disney’s All-Star Music Resort
- Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort
- Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
- Disney’s Pop Century Resort
- Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort
- Campsites at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort
- Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort
- Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort & Gran Destino Tower
- Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – French Quarter
- Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – Riverside
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
- Disney’s Beach Club Resort
- Disney’s BoardWalk Inn
- Disney’s Contemporary Resort
- Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
- Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
- Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
- Disney’s Yacht Club Resort
Early Entry Eligible Disney Vacation Club Resorts
- Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
- Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
- Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort
- Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
- Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas – Jambo House
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas – Kidani Village
- Disney’s Beach Club Villas
- Disney’s BoardWalk Villas
- Disney’s Old Key West Resort
- Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
- Disney’s Riviera Resort
- Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa
- Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
Early Entry Eligible Third Party Hotels
- Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel
- Walt Disney World Swan Hotel
- Walt Disney World Swan Reserve
- DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Orlando
- Drury Plaza Hotel Orlando Lake Buena Vista
- Four Seasons Resort Orlando
- Hilton Orlando Buena Vista Palace
- Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista
- Holiday Inn Orlando
- Renaissance Orlando Resort and Spa
- Shades of Green on Walt Disney World Resort
- Signia by Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek
- Waldorf Astoria Orlando
- Wyndham Garden Lake Buena Vista
- Wyndham Lake Buena Vista
To participate in Early Entry, on-site third party hotels must reach agreements with Walt Disney World that, presumably, involves the hotel paying Disney a large sum of money for access to the perk.
Just keep in mind this is how the Early Entry arrangement works, so if you’re looking ahead to 2026, some of the hotels on that list may not end up participating. By contrast, all Disney-owned hotels will offer Early Entry on an indefinite basis–presumably, as long as the perk continues to exist.
Next, the attractions lineup for Early Theme Park Entry at each of the 4 theme parks…
Early Theme Park Entry Rides – Magic Kingdom
- “it’s a small world”
- Astro Orbiter (closed through mid-2025)
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- Mad Tea Party
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Space Mountain
- The Barnstormer
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress
Early Theme Park Entry Rides – EPCOT
- Frozen Ever After
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
- Mission: SPACE
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Soarin’ Around the World
- Spaceship Earth
- Test Track (closed through late Summer 2025)
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends
Early Theme Park Entry Rides – Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
- Slinky Dog Dash
- Star Tours — The Adventures Continue
- Star Wars – Rise of the Resistance
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
- Toy Story Mania!
Early Theme Park Entry Rides – Disney’s Animal Kingdom
- Avatar Flight of Passage
- DINOSAUR (closes permanently in early 2026)
- Expedition Everest — Legend of the Forbidden Mountain
- It’s Tough to be a Bug! (closes permanently in March 2025)
- Na’vi River Journey
As you can see, not all Walt Disney World attractions are available during Early Theme Park Entry. With minor exceptions, these lists are identical to morning Extra Magic Hours with only certain lands in each park being open to start the morning.
Moreover, the Early Theme Park Entry schedule and available attractions are subject to change without notice. Applicable theme park, days and times of operation, attraction and service availability may vary and are subject to change without notice. Subject to capacity and cancellation. [Insert other boring boilerplate caveats.]
Valid theme park admission and MagicBand, Key to the World Card, or Disney MagicMobile pass is required. Guests without the Park Hopper Option or Park Hopper Plus Option must spend the day at the same park where they’d like to enjoy the Early Theme Park Entry benefit.
This too works the same way as morning Extra Magic Hours, with eligible guests having their MagicBands or park ticket media scanned to gain access either at the turnstiles themselves, or at a certain ‘checkpoint’ within the park to deeper areas while off-site guests await traditional rope drop.
Early Theme Park Entry Strategy
Our recommendation is arriving at least 30 minutes before Early Theme Park Entry starts. In other words, an hour before official park opening time. This is nothing new–we offer this same advice for normal days and will continue to advise off-site guests to get to the parks at least 30 minutes early. In reality, you should err on the side of arriving earlier, especially if you’re at the mercy of Walt Disney World’s highly-variable transportation.
Thirty minutes flies by, and you’ll want to be as close to the front of the pack as possible when Early Theme Park Entry begins so that you can (hopefully) experience more than one attraction. It’s also pretty common for parks–especially Disney’s Hollywood Studios–to quietly start Early Entry before its official time.
Note that some of our recommendations depend upon whether you’ll be purchasing Lightning Lane Multi-Pass or Single Pass for each park. See our Guide to Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World for everything you need to know.
In general, we recommend Lightning Lane Multi-Pass (LLMP) for Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios for most people, most days. There are a lot of “big” rides in both parks that command long lines and high wait times, so you’ll get more mileage out of LLMP. On average, we’re able to get 4-6 worthwhile attractions with LLMP in Disney’s Hollywood Studios and 6-8 in Magic Kingdom. However, that’s crowd-dependent and we have a strong refresh game.
Usually, we do not recommend buying Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at EPCOT or Animal Kingdom. Personally, we’re against paying extra for Lightning Lane Single Pass (LLSP), with the perspective that savvy strategy can beat long wait times at those attractions. As such, you’ll notice an emphasis on doing LLSP rides during Early Entry.
Let’s start with Magic Kingdom strategy, where Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and TRON Lightcycle Run offer paid Lightning Lane Single Pass access. As you might’ve noticed from the ride roster above, TRON Lightcycle Run is not yet open for Early Entry. Still.
This is despite TRON Lightcycle Run ditching its virtual queue and switching to standby several months ago. Despite this, TRON has become the #1 destination for Early Entry, meaning that on-site guests are taking their 30-minute head start and using that to pre-queue up for TRON Lightcycle Run. Hurry up and wait.
As explained in Why You Should Skip Magic Kingdom’s Biggest Ride During Early Entry & Rope Drop, we strongly recommend not doing this. Starting at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, or elsewhere in Tomorrowland are all better options. The opportunity cost of using that 30 minutes to wait for a non-operational ride is too high, as is the time cost. You’re better off waiting until later to do TRON Lightcycle Run, especially given that evening is the best time for the attraction from a subjective perspective.
Speaking of switching to standby, it’s worth noting that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has ditched its virtual queue, but it also is not participating in Early Entry. This is to be expected, as Frontierland opens with regular rope drop. However, because Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is down until 2026, we do not recommend prioritizing this corner of the park until next year.
There are more strategy options for Magic Kingdom than any other park participating in Early Entry and at regular rope drop. See our step-by-step Magic Kingdom Morning Tips & Tricks in 2025: Rides to Do & Avoid at Rope Drop & Early Entry for multiple options not just for the first 30 minutes, but the first couple hours of the day.
Next up, Disney’s Hollywood Studios. At this park, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is the Lightning Lane Single Pass attraction. Rise of the Resistance is also the most popular ride at Walt Disney World and now has standby access. It is the obvious choice for Early Theme Park Entry at DHS.
If it’s the obvious choice, you will not be alone in heading that direction. Popularity coupled with a long attraction duration casts some doubt on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance as being the optimal pick. Additionally, it often has downtime first thing in the morning–or opens late–making it a bit of a gamble.
On multiple occasions doing Early Entry at DHS, we’ve managed to accomplish both Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Slinky Dog Dash. Knocking out some or all of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and/or Toy Story Land is huge, and a much better way to start the day than Sunset Boulevard or Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.
For comprehensive DHS advice, see Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Strategy & Park Opening Plan. In fact, if you only read one standalone step-by-step strategy guide, make it that one. There are a lot of quirks for doing Early Entry and rope drop at DHS, and that will help you immensely. You can literally save 4+ hours by following the plan there!
EPCOT is home to two of the three newest rides at Walt Disney World–Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. As of late February 2025, both are now open during Early Theme Park Entry.
Where you should start depends upon whether you’re entering via the front or back of the park. If you’re coming from the Crescent Lake or Skyliner Resorts and thus entering through International Gateway, you should absolutely start with Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. (As with DHS, arrive more than 30 minutes before the start of Early Entry.) See our EPCOT Early Entry Itinerary: International Gateway with Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure for a full run-through of a morning starting from the back of the park.
If you’re entering through the front, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is the optimal starting place now that it’s switched to standby and is open during Early Entry. We’ll be testing strategy throughout Spring 2025 to determine the optimal approaches, but the rule of thumb for now is to knock out Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After first if entering via World Showcase.
Do Cosmic Rewind and other former Future World rides if you’re entering through the front. You might even be able to beat the rope drop crowd and do Cosmic Rewind twice! This will change as crowds increase, and later in Summer 2025 once Test Track reopens.
At Animal Kingdom, there’s only one good approach to Early Entry: starting with Avatar Flight of Passage. No matter what your plans are with Lightning Lanes, that’s the savviest strategy.
All Animal Kingdom attractions that are popular are either long in duration or spaced far apart from one another (or both!), meaning it’ll be virtually impossible to do 2 headliners during Early Theme Park Entry. Just race to Avatar Flight of Passage and follow up with Na’vi River Journey as the park opens to off-site guests if the posted wait time isn’t prohibitive.
With that said, our Early Entry & Park Opening at Animal Kingdom: Speed Running Ride Strategy covers how to knock out every single ride in Animal Kingdom before 10:30 am. This is great for those with Park Hopper tickets or simply want to enjoy a leisurely afternoon at Animal Kingdom.
Ultimately, that’s everything you need to know about Early Theme Park Entry at Walt Disney World. We will undoubtedly be updating this strategy guide several times in the coming months.
Expect another update after TRON Lightcycle Run switches to standby, or as crowd dynamics and park hours continue to change, impacting Early Entry strategy in the process. Stay tuned–we’ll continue to cover all of the important planning details and also share Early Entry photo reports from our experiences with this new on-site hotel benefit!
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 Early Theme Park Entry at Walt Disney World? Excited to take advantage of the new on-site guest perk or think it’s too short to be useful? Disappointed about the eligibility rules or attraction lineups? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? 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!
Just back WDW, stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort Wed – Sunday.
Thank you to Tom for all itineraries and trips. We got the kids up and to the parks early morning, saved so much time hitting the rides we wanted with minimal wait times. Genie+ ended up being a bust, used it on our MK day but made me have to look at my phone too much vs spending time with my wife and young kids. If you utilize the early hours and get to the park 30 min before the early hours opening, then you can prioritize and hit 4-5 attractions no problem before the park gets busy
Noticed someone mentioned that parking lots open 45-60 min before official park opening so I checked and confirmed on the Disney official site that that’s correct. Also saw that buses only begin running 60 min before park opening. If my plan is to arrive at DHS 45+ min before early entry as you suggest, what is the best way to actually get there? I’d prefer to drive as I will have my own car but don’t want to be kicking myself waiting in line to enter the parking lot while others are already inside the park. Will be staying at All Star Movies in Feb. Thank you!
If you are staying off site and have early entry access, how early can you arrive at the parking lots using Uber? I thought read parking lots do not open early which would prevent us from getting to the park to enter for early access? Was looking forward to our trip in December but more confused than ever at what time we can be dropped of to park? Thank you!
For some reason the email for new posts has not been coming through, could be an issue on my end so I have added a different email address – thanks
Where will you be able to enter in Epcot? Will it be limited to the main entrance or will you be able to enter through the international gateway?
Do you know if they are soft opening the extended evening hours as well?
Do we know if early entry is valid on the check-in day? I’m staying on-site on October 9th and I’m hoping to get into Epcot early on the morning I arrive.
I happened to look at the wait times last night before closing (I think around 8 pm ET?) and it indicated that RotR was only a 40 minute wait.
Sure, if they can process all those on-site guests well below the 1/2 hour time frame, especially if you happen to be one of the ones to camp out many hours earlier to get to the front of the line. However, if there’s still going to be a mob of onsite guests that will take more than a 1/2 hour or so to go through, then, when the park opens to off-site guests and they’re not even yet done with letting in on-site guests who have arrived an hour earlier and you (as an on-site guest) are still in the middle of the first pack of on-site guests?
We stay at the swan every trip, as we stay for free on points. We can always get our hotel reservations to link in the my Disney app, which allows us the perks each trip.
Ok, but you said not to RoR during early entry. Now I’m confused. Is there a better time to ride it without paying for Genie? Thanks
I noticed you mentioned Genie + going live in late October. Has their been a definite start date for that? My family has tried to get boarding passes for ROTR on two past trips, but have never been able to score one. We are going to HS on the 8th and were hoping to pay for the Individual Attraction Selection. I’m not excited about using the extra morning hours to stand in a huge standby line, but I guess I may have to.
Very excited to hear about the soft opening! Especially since our first day is the 26th at HS. Now I have to rethink all our strategies. Good problems to have. Thanks for the article!
Hey Tom,
Been reading for the past year, getting ready for our first trip in the second half of October.
We’ll be staying at the Swan hotel and are wondering how the early/late hours for the parks will work for the 3rd party hotels since there’s no way to link the stay to your Disney account.
Any insight or possibly a most likely scenario as to how to make use of these perks?
Thanks.
How can we find out if the 3rd party hotel we are staying out gets the 30 minute allowance?
We are staying at our time share at The Holiday Inn Resort in Orlando next to Disney, and I see the Holiday Inn is on the list for 3rd party hotels with this perk? Do we ask at the resort/hotel?
My strategy is to stay away from the parks till later in October – or November
Notably, your strategies assume people would like to avoid paying “Magic Carpet Access” fees — Which generally isn’t a bad assumption.
But, should also be noted — A guest willing to pay G+ and Magic Carpet fees, could really maximize that first hour in the park.
Assuming it’s a 9am opening park, like Magic Kingdom:
8:30 am — Peter Pan and then knocking out the rest of Fantasyland, minus Mine Train
9:00 am — Magic Carpet access to Mine Train
9:20 am — redeem first Genie+ for another e-ticket attraction (BTMRR, Haunted Mansion, POTC, etc)
As you said — zig while others zag. Nearly everyone will be zagging to the Magic Carpet attractions during Early Entry. So if you are willing to pay for Magic Carpet (or skip the attraction), you can zig towards a non-Magic Carpet attraction during rope drop.
Unless you’re in front of the pack, you’ll still have a long line at FOP or Mine Train, even during early entry. But even if you’re not front of the pack, you can probably walk right on to Peter Pan or TOT or Navi River during early entry, as everyone else zigs to the Magic Carpet rides.
(You’re really going to need a few different touring plans — Off-site, on-site with minimized add-on costs, and a plan for those willing to max out the upcharges)
RoR wasn’t listed as one of the rides open for Early Theme Park Entry. With its shift to a standby queue though, I’m guessing they’ll have to change that, right? Have you heard anything definitive about this?
Since you’ve done a previous anniversary, what ETA would you suggest for the MK Oct 1st? We’d like to have a good spot for the 50th Official program which I suspect will take place in front of the castle.
Assuming something happens in front of Cinderella Castle (probably a safe bet) in the morning hours, you’ll probably want to be to Magic Kingdom by 7 am, if not earlier.
I have no clue how they’re going to handle Early Entry that day, because people are going to start showing up at the park really early. It’ll be chaotic, that’s for sure!
Regarding Hollywood Studios, with everyone rushing and mobbing the gates to get on ROTR while VQ is on Pause, there doesn’t seem to be much point in only a 1/2 hour for early entry there.
I disagree.
If you’re trying to do Rise of the Resistance, it wouldn’t matter whether early entry is 10 minutes or an hour–that’s a significant start on off-site guests and you’d only have time for that one attraction during the early entry period, regardless.