New MK, Epcot, DHS, & DAK Park Hours!

While I hope you are right and Disney could just be going ultra conservative on the calendar with the intent to nudge things later as we ease into reopening and they know just what they need to do, I would personally mentally prepare for those hours to legitimately be actual hours. For us, this is one of the larger components of if we decide to make a trip this summer or not.
It's a wait-and-see, but you're right, prepare those to be hours. That's a summer strategy for many, rope drop and leave, come back in the evening, until close or late hours, or just skip daytime altogether and go in the evening. Curious to see how reservations play into all this. FP booking is coming up soon for us, will see how that looks and when the last FPs of the day will be for choices on MDE.
 
I’m not sure how to plan our trip now. I don’t even think the park tickets we bought are even worth what we paid. They should give a partial refund of the cost of the tickets. With early closing times, no fireworks, parades, no dessert parties and maybe some restaurants closed. I’m not sure it’s worth the cost.
Can imagine how crowded the resort pools will be at night along with Disney Springs.
 
I’m not sure how to plan our trip now. I don’t even think the park tickets we bought are even worth what we paid. They should give a partial refund of the cost of the tickets. With early closing times, no fireworks, parades, no dessert parties and maybe some restaurants closed. I’m not sure it’s worth the cost.
Can imagine how crowded the resort pools will be at night along with Disney Springs.

And those are decisions everybody is going to have to make and decide if it is worth it for them or not. I have a free dinin bounceback for September and on the fence but I'll wait till my 30 day mark to decide.
 


With each post, the decision gets more clear but I don't want to cancel. I will have points that I can't bank. I will have to plan yet another COVID trip (3rd) to use up the points I can't bank. BOOOOOO Cranky, tired and aggravated. Stupid Virus.
 
With each post, the decision gets more clear but I don't want to cancel. I will have points that I can't bank. I will have to plan yet another COVID trip (3rd) to use up the points I can't bank. BOOOOOO Cranky, tired and aggravated. Stupid Virus.
I don’t want to cancel either. I agree stupid virus!
 


HS opening at 10am, Epcot at 11. I mean, I love a good sleep in, but 😱 ! That’s almost more shocking than MK and AK closing early. I’m sure it has a lot to do with reduced buses, dispatch a bunch in the morning for 2 parks, then focus them on the other parks. Then at night focus on just the two closing early to then have focus on the two closing later.
 
Chapek on reopening : “We want to make sure that what we present to our guests when we open up is going to be a quintessential Disney experience,”

Hate to tell him, they failed. I understand cut backs for safety, but this was a cost cutting gutting of the park experience.
 
I won’t be able to see pandora after dark :worried:

I wonder if they will add any after hours hard ticket. That alone might make me cancel, I want to get that experience.

My opinion/speculation is that after hours type events are probably all off the table for the foreseeable future. I expect them to pull that cash register lever hard eventually, but not this year.

Just a guess though.
 
HS opening at 10am, Epcot at 11. I mean, I love a good sleep in, but 😱 ! That’s almost more shocking than MK and AK closing early. I’m sure it has a lot to do with reduced buses, dispatch a bunch in the morning for 2 parks, then focus them on the other parks. Then at night focus on just the two closing early to then have focus on the two closing later.
Do you think that this is to avoid any sort of RD at HS or to make sure that the new(er) rides are up and running before allowing people in?
 
Do you think that this is to avoid any sort of RD at HS or to make sure that the new(er) rides are up and running before allowing people in?
I personally think it’s transportation. If they decide to put fewer people on buses (no standing and packed buses) they’ll need more buses. By staggering buses they can focus on just those two parks, it’s a better use of resources. Also, without CP CMs they do have fewer workers, and by doing it this way you can essentially work just one group of workers a day without a lot of shift change, makes it a lot easier to run on fewer CM when you don’t have to have two+ shifts worth to run a park from open to close.
 
So starting in October MK has listed from 7-midnight a special ticketed event which I'm guessing is the Halloween party. They also have some EMH hours for MK in the evening and morning. I'm hoping maybe October is a month they're hoping to loosen some restrictions?! We're going mid-November so I am keeping tabs on what's going on.
 
We have end of July trip booked. I was on the fence about it after yesterdays announcement. The reduced hours were the nail on the coffin- especially for the heat of July and these hours go against all this scheduled Disney planner plans! Like others.... stupid virus. 2 trip cancelled... will try again in November.
 
With each post, the decision gets more clear but I don't want to cancel. I will have points that I can't bank. I will have to plan yet another COVID trip (3rd) to use up the points I can't bank. BOOOOOO Cranky, tired and aggravated. Stupid Virus.

By chance, did you get the email DVC sent about extending points? I hope your points fall into that category. 🙂
 
My opinion/speculation is that after hours type events are probably all off the table for the foreseeable future. I expect them to pull that cash register lever hard eventually, but not this year.

Just a guess though.

yes I imagine you’re right... just grasping at straws to be able to see pandora at night
 
We have a trip booked in October and am so disappointed that they again reduced the park hours to 7pm close every day in MK. We like the evening hours and have 5 pm dining booked and usually head to MK after for the evening. Yes, I know we could buy Halloween tickets for evening hours and maybe we will but if they aren’t having parades, fireworks or stage show for the Halloween party, I don’t think the tickets will be worth it.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out over upcoming months. Undecided on if we should just cancel all together or take a chance that things will work out ok.
 

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