Starlight Schedule Fixed & Magic Kingdom Party Season Hours Extended!

Walt Disney World has extended park hours at Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom for the start of Party Season. They’ve also revealed showtimes for Starlight through October 2025, which are probably wrong. This shares dates & details, plus predictions of actual parade performance times for Halloween & Christmas, and why the new schedule is likely incorrect. (Updated August 23, 2025.)

Walt Disney World already extended park hours across the board at Magic Kingdom through August 30, 2025. The park will now be open from 9 am to 11 pm on non-party nights. This is not a new development–this calendar change occurred back on July 11. Prior to that, Magic Kingdom park hours were extended for the beginning on Starlight’s run. These hours are certainly correct and final.

As longtime fans likely know, Walt Disney World’s standard operating procedure is to post boilerplate park hours for more distant dates, and then extend them based on internal attendance projections once those dates draw nearer (hours get longer or stay unchanged, but not shortened). However, we do have hours extensions through mid-September and an update on Starlight, as the schedule has finally been “fixed” so that it doesn’t conflict with Happily Ever After.

As of right now, Walt Disney World has only made targeted park hours extensions through September 13, 2025. Here’s a look at those:

Magic Kingdom Park Hours Extensions

• August 29, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
• September 12, 2025: 8 am to 6 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)

Magic Kingdom closing time has also been extended to 11 pm for all non-party dates from now through September 13, 2025.

Again, this is the last date to be extended thus far; any date starting Sept. 14 is simply boilerplate hours at this point. Further extensions will follow, so don’t fret if you’re traveling in the second half of September and beyond. This is how it always works.

The reason for these extensions is Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. As we’ve discussed countless times, Party Season operating hours cause chaos with crowds, pushing attendance much higher on the dates it’s not occurring and lower on the dates it is occurring. On event nights, Magic Kingdom closes to day guests at 6 pm. It is also opens at 8 am on busier days, but there will be exceptions to that throughout the first few weeks of September.

If at all possible, we recommend being mindful of this schedule and doing Magic Kingdom on days when Early Entry starts at 7:30 am. That is, if you can get out the door in time to do Early Entry at that hour. If not, do MK on the other party dates. I’ll be doing field testing at Magic Kingdom on another 7:30 am Early Entry day very soon, but suffice to say, it (hopefully) won’t go anything like our recent post, Magic Kingdom’s New Early Entry Process & Pitfalls of Dreaded Delayed Openings.

Additionally, we strongly recommend visiting Magic Kingdom during the day on MNSSHP or MVMCP nights. This is something we’ve covered at length, again and again. See Best & Worst Days to Do Magic Kingdom in 2025 for a rundown of when crowds will be especially good or bad, including a handful of ‘red flag’ dates to avoid at all costs this month through December.

Animal Kingdom Park Hours Extensions

• August 23, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
• August 31, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
• September 7, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)
• September 13, 2025: 8 am to 7 pm (previously 9 am to 6 pm)

Hollywood Studios Park Hours Extensions

• August 23, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• August 24, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• August 26, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• August 29, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• September 2, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• September 5, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• September 7, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• September 9, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)
• September 12, 2025: 9 am to 9:30 pm (previously 9 am to 9 pm)

There are also several days in the next week or so when both water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, have their closing times extended until 7 pm or 8 pm. This is mostly on Friday through Monday nights, but we don’t expect it to continue for much longer as water park ‘season’ winds down.

As for why park hours at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are being extended, it’s also a result of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, albeit an indirect one.

When it comes to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, I tend to favor taking the extra hours assuming you’re going to be there all day. Or even if you’re doing a midday break but will return to the same park. More time is better. However, if you plan on leaving early, the best practice is avoiding these parks when the closing is later. There’s a reason these dates get extended hours and others don’t, and it’s because WDW’s internal attendance projections are higher.

Anecdotally, my experience is that this is (usually) fairly marginal–especially this time of year. I’ll take the longer hours with the view that more time outweighs higher average wait times. If you’re Park Hopping to those parks, the later closings are gravy–especially with the afternoon exodus and Animal Kingdom and early evening departures at DHS.

With all of that said, you really don’t need that much time at Animal Kingdom. If you arrive for Early Entry or even regular rope drop, you can easily run the table on all of the rides before lunch. That leaves stage shows and animal exhibits for the afternoon, which still won’t require you stay after 6 pm, unless you plan on doing like a dozen countdowns to extinction on DINOSAUR. See Animal Kingdom Park Opening & Early Entry Ride Strategy (or, “How I Did Every Ride at DAK Before 10:30am.”)

Starlight Showtimes Shenanigans (UPDATE)

Here’s the current Magic Kingdom nighttime entertainment schedule for now through August 30, 2025:

• Starlight Parade: 9 pm
• Happily Ever After: 10 pm
• Starlight Parade: 11 pm
• Park Closing: 11 pm

The latest update is that Walt Disney World has finally adjusted hours for August 31, 2025 and beyond. Here’s the schedule starting on that date:

• Starlight Parade: 8:30 pm
• Happily Ever After: 9:30 pm
• Starlight Parade: 10:30 pm
• Park Closing: 11 pm

There are no more Starlight shenanigans. There’s every reason to believe that this official schedule is now fully (and finally!) accurate.

This schedule runs through September 13, 2025. Previously, Walt Disney World added Starlight times to the calendar (9 pm and 11 pm) through October 4, 2025. As we explained at great length, those hours were probably wrong since they conflicted with Happily Ever After. This has now been confirmed with the latest update.

The odd wrinkle here is that Starlight hours were removed for September 14, 2025 and beyond. This is probably because park hours have not yet been extended for those dates, so Walt Disney World is simply coordinating the (oddly separate) calendars for entertainment and park hours.

However, the Happily Ever After schedule still (also oddly) goes all the way until October 22, 2025. As previously discussed, Happily Ever After moves forward to 9 pm starting September 15, 2025. This is almost certainly accurate, as it’s consistent with past precedent.

Accordingly, we can make a highly educated guess that the schedule starting September 15, 2025 is as follows:

• Starlight Parade: 8 pm
• Happily Ever After: 9 pm
• Starlight Parade: 10 pm
• Park Closing: 10 or 11 pm

Those times aren’t official, but they’ve been what we’ve saying would happen for a while. And Walt Disney World’s official calendar had the wrong hours while we had the right ones, so there’s that. The biggest wildcard at this point is whether or not Magic Kingdom keeps up with 11 pm closings, or moves forward to 10 pm on some nights.

Magic Kingdom has been very busy on nights when Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is not being held thus far, and right now should be the slowest stretch of Party Season. Accordingly, we hope and expect the 11 pm closings to be maintained. But we’ll see.

Walt Disney World has already confirmed that Starlight will only be presented on non-party nights during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party dates. This means that, for example, Starlight will not be performed at all on October 19, 21, etc.

It’s absolutely zero surprise whatsoever that Starlight is going to continue being performed twice nightly through September on dates when the park closes at 10 pm or 11 pm. As we’ve said on countless occasions, it will continue to be added to the schedule for October, November, December, etc., so don’t panic when you see “no times available” on the calendar. That’s simply because it hasn’t been updated yet.

What follows is previous analysis about the Happily Ever After schedule and Starlight schedule predictions for Party Season…

Happily Ever After Showtimes

From now through August 30, Happily Ever After’s showtime is 10 pm, which is actually late by historical standards–it’s to accommodate an earlier performance of Starlight, which cannot occur before 9 pm due to sunset times. This is certainly accurate, meaning Starlight’s schedule is also accurate through then.

Beginning Sunday, August 31, 2025, the fireworks will begin at 9:30 pm. Only a couple of weeks later, starting September 15, 2025, Happily Ever After will be at 9 pm. For reference, the current sunset time is 8:17 pm, whereas it’ll be 7:30 pm on September 15, 2025.

All of this makes sense and is to be expected. Even in the absence of a night parade, Happily Ever After has its showtime move forward as the earlier sunset and dusk time allows. The reason for this is pretty simple and straightforward, as it allows more guests (younger families) with earlier bedtimes to experience the fireworks, and also is advantageous with staggering exit times (shifting the fireworks away from park closing).

Party Season Starlight Performance Predictions

Once the final schedule for Starlight is set, we expect the night parade to continue its nightly cadence of two performances with Happily Ever After in between, spaced apart by an hour, but with earlier showtimes for everything. If we take a time machine back to September 17, 2015–10 years ago–we can see that the schedule was Main Street Electrical Parade at 8 pm and 10 pm, with Wishes in between at 9 pm.

There was a reason for this approach a decade ago. It’s desirable from Walt Disney World’s perspective because it will more evenly redistribute crowds if the Starlight showings as of September 15 are at 8 pm and 10 pm as opposed to 9 pm and 11 pm. Perhaps most importantly, it’s also my understanding that the schedule cannot be condensed any further, as 60 minutes is about the minimum possible buffer between the parade and fireworks showtimes.

The latter showtime is tough for families, resulting in a massive imbalance in demand for the two showtimes, and a mass exodus after Happily Ever After. That imbalance will still exist because 10 pm is still too late for many small children, and it means leaving the park around 10:30 pm and not being back at the resort and in bed closer to 11:30 pm. But it’s an improvement and should help!

What will also help is if Walt Disney World continues extending the closing time until 11 pm. Longer hours are good for obvious reasons, but having yet another point for staggered guest exits makes things more orderly in the evenings, allowing for less chaotic crowds outside the park, shorter lines for buses, boats, monorails, etc.

We expect this to occur throughout Party Season, but there’s no guarantee that it will. Once Starlight shifts forward (assuming that happens and HEA isn’t the one that has its schedule changed), the park won’t need to stay open until 11 pm. If the second Starlight is at 10 pm, the park could close then. We want to believe that won’t happen during Party Season due to higher crowds, but it might.

The other concern that we’ve mentioned previously is that Walt Disney World might try to “get away” with only one nightly performance of Starlight on select nights in September. In the above time machine scenario, we went back to September 17, 2015. Had we gone back one day earlier, we would’ve only had one MSEP performance–at 8 pm.

I don’t think Walt Disney World will do this. Starlight being scheduled for two performances (even if they are at the wrong times) through October 4, 2025 is a pretty strong sign that this isn’t the intention. Walt Disney World often adjusts park hours and entertainment times once they’re posted but before they’re deemed “final.” But one thing they rarely, if ever, do is take things away. The park hours updates are about giving–and it’s very rare to see cutbacks made to the boilerplate schedules. It’s almost always (over 99% of the time) additions.

If there were going to be a time when only one nightly performance of Starlight were to occur, it’d be weekdays in September. I would’ve said (and did say!) that was unlikely in the first place. With this schedule update, I’d say there’s virtually no chance of it happening in 2025. October through December is when crowds pick up, and Walt Disney World knows better than trying to cut costs then.

Looking forward a little further, if we went back in time to November 3, 2015, we’d see showtimes of 7 pm and 9 pm for Main Street Electrical Parade and 8 pm for Wishes. I would expect similar showtimes for Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away and Happily Ever After throughout November and December 2025.

Obviously, nothing is official yet that far into the future, but there’s good reason why that was the entertainment cadence a decade ago, and it makes even more sense in 2025 for Walt Disney World to revert to that schedule.

Accordingly, we’d expect Starlight to shift its schedule in accordance with those historical times and the current Happily Ever After schedule.

It’s frankly odd that Starlight received the more recent update and that’s what we’re saying is probably wrong (as opposed to Happily Ever After, which had its schedule updated a while ago). After all, why wait to add the Starlight showtimes until after everything else is already up…and then post the wrong showtimes?!

It makes no sense, but that’s par for the course–the Walt Disney World calendar is often wrong. Trying too hard to make sense of it is probably a fool’s errand…and I guess that makes me a fool, since we’ve just devoted a lot of words to it. If all of this leaves you confused, welcome to the club. Regardless, that’s what we expect–and we’ll keep you posted about future Party Season park hours extensions and entertainment schedule adjustments!

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YOUR THOUGHTS

What do you think about Walt Disney World’s calendar updates? Expect to see two nightly Starlight showtimes throughout 2025 and 2026? Think the parade will continue at 9 pm and 11 pm, or is that a schedule glitch by Disney? 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!