I read somewhere that last year, Magic Kingdom would open at 7:30 AM for Early Entry on Mickey’s Halloween Party Days. I’m checking the calendar this year and so far, all I am seeing is 8:30 AM for Early Entry on the party days, just as with regular non-party days. Does anyone know if the calendar last year ever indicated 7:30 AM early days? That extra hour is kind of a big deal for planning and I’d love to know if it’s happening or not again this year.
Extra magic time in the morning has been just 30 minutes for a while. I don’t remember it being an hour last year. Searching the historical crowd from last year, it shows MK opened some mornings for EE at 7:30 and the park opened for everyone at 8:00 so just the 30 minutes extra. Other days MK opened at 9:00 with the 8:30 EE.
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Disney will likely make adjustments like that to their hours as they get a bit closer. Unfortunately, that’s the way WDW is. If you have a trip set up on your TP dashboard, you will get notified by TP when Disney does any changes to their hours for your dates. That’s about as soon as anyone finds out. Since the first party is Aug 11, just a month from tomorrow, they should be releasing any changes very soon!
I agree, looking at last year’s historical data, it looks like MK moved their Early Entry to an earlier time on party days, but it was still just 30 min long.
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Yeah sorry I knew that they only open early 30 minutes prior but I mixed it up with the fact that 7:30 is 1 hour before 8:30. I’m really hoping they do it again because I’m betting that fewer people will be willing to do 7:30 than 8:30. Here’s hoping!
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I arrived at 7:40 am on a party day last October. At that point, there was a very long line for 7DMT (we didn’t get in the line). We then went to SM and waited about 15 mins. After SM, we walked on to Buzz, and then waited about 10 mins for Speedway. Except for the 7DMT line, crowds seemed very light from 740-8:30 am and light from 8:30-9:30 am.
As I recall, the calendar originally showed a an 8:30 am EE that day, but it was changed to 7:30 am at some point closer to the date. I can’t remember how far in advance the opening time was changed.
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We went to MK on a Christmas party day last December, and the park opening time was moved forward to 7.30 around two weeks before our arrival (EE is still only 30 min as others have said). I noticed also for other dates that this seems to be a trend for MK party days, though I suppose you can never count on it. It’s certainly good news for RD enthusiasts (which we are) because fewer people are willing to get up that early - and crowds are already pretty low because of the party day. It was the most relaxed touring at MK we’ve ever done, we got in five good rides (PPF, WtP, BTMR, Splash and PotC) as walk ons or with short/5-10 min standby waits before we even had to use our first LL (for JC). 7DMT was still pretty packed for RD and since we were moving with young kids we decided to get an ILL for that instead of starting with a stressful/crowded experience. Good luck!
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I see that WDW has indeed moved the opening of MK an hour earlier for Aug. 11 (the first party day). It now shows Early Entry at 7:30 a.m., Official Park Opening at 8:00 a.m. So far, that seems to be the only date that has been changed. I think other dates will also be changed to open earlier as the weeks go along. I’ve tried to keep an eye on this, and since today is Friday and they seem to like to change hours on Fridays - sure enough! - the hours have changed.
ETA: This change was noticed 3 weeks before the party date.
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