Declining Park Hours

[TAGG]

I was just reading on another forum about how busy MK was on the first weekend in February and despite record profits and huge visitor figures, Disney are cutting the operating hours consistently every year:

2016 - 17 hours
2017 - 14 hours
2018 - 16 hours
2019 - 14 hours
2020 - 13 hours

The above hours are based on each first Saturday in February.
No wonder if seems more crowded every year, more visitors crammed into shorter hours.

[Simba2014]

Disney love their profit that's for sure.

For fun I compared Epcot hours from 2015-2020, and its remained at a static 9am-9pm 12 hours for 6 years.

I think what's happening at Magic Kingdom is paid extras such as extra morning hours, evening hours, villains parties and whatever else they can throw up and generate more profit is causing the general hours to decline.

Add to that that there is less standby queues as most use fastpass, therefore more people in the park spending on food, drink and merchandise make the park feel busier too. Not such a great atmosphere for me anymore, which is why I'm only doing an evening at MK this next trip.

[NewtoOrlando]

Yep. When we went in 2016, magic kingdom was open till 11/12pm and one night 1am, we had a great time. 2018 it was only open till 10 at the latest. Last October it was open till 9, except for the Halloween parties. Irritated me! The time we were there till 1am, we were offsite and it was open late to all guests. Such a shame.

[thingy003]

Magic Kingdom is probably my least favourite of the parks now but we usually go to it multiple times as the kids still love it. There is now such a focus from The Mouse on increasing profits through extra paid events that it seems you are not welcome if you are just a standard punter.

Last year there seemed to be a huge amount of tour guides about which again is extra revenue but for me spoiled the feel of the park. it should be about exploring by yourself and finding the magic (IMO)

[DonnyDuck]

It is sad. I remember when we last went to MK and we were there easily after midnight after watching the electric parade.

Such a shame.

[CaliforniaKid]

It's a shame if they are scaling back park hours.

One of our best park memories was in Easter 2018 when MK closed at midnight. We got there for 7pm at which point an hour-long deluge led to many thousands leaving.

Thankfully, the rain stopped at 8pm and we had the complete run of the park until it closed. Practically every top ride was walk-on or 5 min wait.

[lizzie145]

I think they have just amended some of the hours and they are now open later

[Fraser789]

It feels like they only care about profits instead of guest satisfaction.

[toonarmani]

Originally Posted by Simba2014

Disney love their profit that's for sure.

See more...

As ‘magical’ as Disney may be regarded, at the end of the day they are a business and have shareholders etc.

If they don’t make profits they wouldn’t update rides, introduce new rides, improve infrastructure etc.

[Guest]

I looked back at our trip plans starting in 1998 through to this year's trip, all in August. Doesn't seem to be a huge difference I opening hours to me, Epcot and Disney Studios essentially unchanged (although this year Studios is open longer, I guess because of ROTR and Galaxy's Edge).

Over the years Animal Kingdom reduced their hours from their initial schedule because they stopped opening early, 7am which was great for animal watching, to a standard 9am like the other parks but relatively short hours because they closed earlier. In recent years AK's hours have extended again as the stayed open later for the evening offerings. So they're back to what it was in the early days, albeit shifted to later in the day.

The Magic Kingdom does seem to have reduced, but only by an hour, maybe two, by closing earlier closing. Not a problem for us as it's our least favourite Orlando park, so typically one visit per trip and happy to leave after the fireworks.