Parks close early * What to do?

Walt Disney World Other
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With Parks closing early … what are you doing in the evenings?

We’ve started a list:

  1. Disney Springs (more food options as well)
  2. Take a dining reservation as late as possible in the park, and extend that time a little bit, and walk out experiencing an empty park.
  3. Go to Caribbean beach, Poly, or GF and chill out on a lounge chair on their white sandy beaches.
  4. Fantasia mini-golf at Swan/Dolpin.
  5. Pool hop at the resorts
  6. Resort bar hop
  7. Uber to the Orlando ICON park and ride the wheel
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  1. order room service (take out) and watch a Disney movie in your room
  2. grab a table near the pool or in the food court and play cards (bring cards from home… Disney ones are horribly expensive $14 and they’re paper not even wax coated). My DH and I sat and ppl watched a few early evenings while playing tan-tum solitaire.
  3. rent a bike or curry
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This is timely. I am going back to WDW in October with one of my friends who is not a Disney fanatic. It’s a short trip. Originally booked October 21-23 and we wouldn’t get there until evening on the 21st. Now we’re considering adding on a night and going from 20-23. We are planning two park days. I would love to visit some other resorts, but also want to spend time at AKL to see the animals before it gets dark each day. Is it crazy that I’m considering the first full day be resort hopping instead of a park? Then MK on the 22nd and a short day at AK on the 23rd before we go home. I didn’t know we could take advantage of loungers on the “beach” at GF and Poly and CBR. Is that really a thing? It looks like the Enchanted Rose at GF is open. I’m bummed that most things at the Poly are closed.

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I would think if you grabbed the Skyliner to CBR you could just walk and hang out on their beaches w/ hammocks etc. Usually they are unused. I’m not sure about the other places since I’ve never stayed there. I did have a CM tell me to walk to the end of the dock/pier after TS-dinner at GF to watch the evening fireworks. I don’t think TS is open at GF but walking paths are…

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Another idea I had is to walk to GF after our MK day and check out the Enchanted Rose. We can always catch a Lyft or Uber to get back. So many options!

I don’t have a very good sense of what is walkable at WDW. For instance, which resorts you can walk to or mono rail to or take a boat to from each other or a park. I need to study up!

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I know they’re creating a path from the magic kingdom to the grand Floridian but I don’t know if it’s finished yet. You can definitely walk from the magic kingdom to the contemporary. And from the boardwalk you can get to Epcot, Hollywood studios, yacht club, Beach club

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I’m curious, how late can you stay like this / how long are some of the restaurants currently open?

As for other ideas, I personally like touring the resorts. All MK hotels are interesting to see, you can walk to CR (and in the future to GF) and then monorail to the others. Same for Epcot area resorts, you can walk from both Epcot and HS (or a boat from the latter) and see all 3 easily. The boardwalk area is very nice, especially in the evening.

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As near as i can tell, they stop reservations in parks 30 minutes before park closing.

If you are using Disney transportation, you need to be mindful that many forms of transportation end 1 hour after park posted closing. So meandering in an empty park for a while is very do-able.

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Yep. We regularly get a drink at GF and watch fireworks from the GF beach. With Poly they built those bungalows, so the view is mostly obstructed. But still open

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We have a 5:35 reservation on our MK day. Park closes at 6:00. Tried to get a little later but that was the latest I found.

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So here’s my plan … If we add on a night in front of our existing reservation, it will probably be at a different resort. Old Key West is cheapest option and somewhere I want to check out for possible future DVC resale purchase. Our flight lands at 5:30 PM, so probably to the resort by 7:30 at latest? We’ll have time to try out the pool and/or bar. In the morning, if we can pry ourselves out of bed (time change from west coast is brutal in the AM), we might enjoy the pool ambience a little more, then head to Kona Cafe at Poly for breakfast (10:55 reservation). We might need to take a Lyft for time. Then we can take a boat to MK? Then another boat to check out WL? Then back to MK and get on the monorail and go to the GF and hit up the Enchanted Rose? Then back to MK on the monorail to catch a bus for AKL. Is that realistic? We’d like to get over to AKL in enough time to enjoy the animals before the sun goes down. And then we can hit the lounge at Sanaa!

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I’ll wait to hear what others think but it seems like too much for one day. JMHI.

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This is quite alot. Have u written in down in a timed list? How long it takes for transport, time visited, etc. I find that helps, giving a 20 min “break” for hic ups every few hours?

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If this is ALSO a MK park day …thats too ambitious for my taste, eats up too much park time on very short days. If it is a NO-Park day, that sounds much more leisurely and do-able.

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Yes it’s a no park day.

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Can you get take out from the disney resort resturants?

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I believe so. We’ve done it with quick service all the time.

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what do you use for takeout? I tried to use the door dash app when I was there and it kept saying there was nothing in the area.

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Quick serve at resort food court will happily box up anything for you to go. And it’s probably easier now with everything being mobile order.

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I saw this article a few weeks back. I haven’t heard if anyone has tried late reservations at the locations mentioned:

I did play with getting a reservation at Sci-Fi at 7pm, which is right at closing, and was able to book it.