Walt Disney World has made two major changes to Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, both of which could or will cause ripple effects for crowds and other guests. This post details the changes along with our commentary about their significance.
The first is that Extended Evening Hours will return to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in September 2024. The perk will likely shift from Magic Kingdom to Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Wednesdays, starting with Wednesday, September 25, 2024. The move has not yet been officially announced by Walt Disney World, but you can see the change via the My Disney Experience app. (It’s not yet reflected on the web-based calendar, which doesn’t go as far out for some reason.)
This is not even remotely surprising. Only a couple of days ago, we updated our our Strategy Guide Guide for Extended Evening Hours at Walt Disney World with the “warning” that you can only expect Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom to run through late September 2024, before they switch over to other parks until 2025.
This was to be expected because of Party Season, which begins in early August but doesn’t really kick into high gear with a full schedule until late September. Last year, the exact same thing happened–Disney’s Hollywood Studios began hosting ExEH in late September. Then Animal Kingdom hosted ExEH throughout the Christmas season as the alternative because both Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios had holiday parties.
While only one date is official for 2024, our expectation is that the exact same thing will occur this year. Walt Disney World has announced that the Jollywood Nights Christmas Party is returning to Hollywood Studios in November and December, meaning that it’s likely DHS will host ExEH from late September through October (and maybe a bit of early November), and Animal Kingdom will offer it from November through December 2024.
There will undoubtedly be Deluxe Resort guests who grouse about this, but on balance, this is good news for most guests. We did Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom a couple of times at the start of Party Season last year, and it was bonkers busy. Understandably so, as there are fewer nights to experience Magic Kingdom at night without paying extra.
Moving it over to Hollywood Studios and/or Animal Kingdom during those busy stretches is the right move from crowds perspective. (Also, both of those are underrated parks at night.) It gives regular guests more opportunities to enjoy Magic Kingdom without working around a special event, and gives ExEH guests an actual opportunity to experience lower crowd levels.
Most importantly, this also should open the door for more later park closings at Magic Kingdom from late September through December. In my view, Magic Kingdom should never have a regular closing time before 11 pm once late September rolls around and should be open until midnight on most nights between October and late December. The earlier closings caused by Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party push most people to those event off-nights, thereby necessitating longer regular hours to help better absorb crowds.
The other major change is that Walt Disney World has finally added Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to the Extended Evening Hours ride roster at Magic Kingdom. This comes nearly 3 weeks after the attraction opened.
Prior to this, there had been radio silence from Disney about TBA during ExEH, which was odd given that Splash Mountain was open during the perk and all other new/reimagined attractions have immediately joined the lineup, even ones using virtual queues.
Here’s the update from DisneyWorld.com’s Extended Evening Hours page:
An Extra Opportunity to Join the Virtual Queue
Guests staying at a Disney Deluxe Resort, Disney Deluxe Villa Resort or other select hotels will have additional opportunities to join virtual queues.
At 6:00 PM on nights with extended evening theme park hours at EPCOT, these Guests can request to join the virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.
At 6:00 PM on nights with extended evening theme park hours at Magic Kingdom park, these Guests can request to join the virtual queue for:
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- TRON Lightcycle / Run
Guests do not need to be in EPCOT or Magic Kingdom park when they request to join the virtual queue.
Turning to commentary, there are a few things worth discussing. The first is that the official Walt Disney World page for Extended Evening Hours has been updated with this information, and in two spots. This comes in the same week as Country Bear Musical Jamboree was added, at which time Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was not. This strongly suggests, to me, that the addition of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at this time was purposeful and not made by mistake. (It does happen.)
This is the first point because Tiana’s Bayou Adventure joining the Extended Evening Hours lineup has not been added to the page describing how virtual queues work. More importantly, today is Wednesday (July 17, 2024) meaning that Magic Kingdom is hosting Extended Evening Hours. Despite that, and the fact that the virtual queue entry time is approaching in 30 minutes at the time of press, there’s no option to join for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure–only TRON Lightcycle Run.
Meaning that either Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was purposefully added to the official Extended Evening Hours page in two separate spots by accident, or the change wasn’t intended to roll out until tomorrow and take effect next Wednesday. Just based on stealth updates we’ve seen made before official announcements in the last couple of weeks (Jungle Cruise refurbishment being a prime example), my money is on the latter explanation.
Prior to this, we had been operating under the assumption that Walt Disney World was waiting until Tiana’s Bayou Adventure dropped the virtual queue before adding it to the Extended Evening Hours lineup. If you recall, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure would only be using a virtual queue for its initial opening period–Walt Disney World indicated that a standby queue would not be available during the “attraction’s initial opening days,” but that they expected to drop the virtual queue soon after the attraction’s opening.
Given that, our take was that Disney didn’t want to hassle with two virtual queues during Extended Evening Hours, and would wait a couple weeks for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to have a standby line to avoid confusion and complaints or whatever. That it would only be 1-2 ExEHs, so no big deal. I maintain that this perspective was/is probably correct.
That is, until it wasn’t. For that to have been correct before, it means something had to have changed. My guess is that it’s the status of the virtual queue for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure that has changed. Frankly, I think this is probably a given. It’s three weeks later and there are no signs of the virtual queue going away anytime soon–to the contrary, this would seem to cement that it’ll be around for at least another couple of weeks. At this point, I would argue that we’re already already outside of the “initial opening days” of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. So how long the virtual queue is intended to be used would be “what changed.”
Luckily for Walt Disney World, the attraction’s “initial opening days” is vague and open to interpretation. While I may contend that window has already passed, they could nevertheless argue that they always meant the virtual queue would last until September or, I dunno, mid-January 2025. That this was the plan all along! I wouldn’t buy that, but it’s certainly an argument they could make. There are plenty of uncritical fans who would believe it.
My view is that the “initial opening days” statement was made on the basis of anticipated demand rather than downtime. Meaning that Disney figured opening weekend would be very busy and they didn’t want an overwhelming line clogging up Frontierland or getting in the way of the parade route. After all, this was before previews or anything else started, so Disney was probably operating under the assumption that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure would be at least as reliable as Splash Mountain.
Obviously, it is not. While the downtime situation had seemingly been improving over the course of the last week, just yesterday, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure didn’t open for the day until after 1 pm. So something is still very wrong. It might be a two steps forward, one backwards kind of deal–but regardless, the ride is not consistently reliable.
At this point, the safe prediction is that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will use a virtual queue for as long at it’s plagued by downtime woes. Virtual queues offer a means of pulsing demand and are the imperfect solution to operational woes. That’s precisely why Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance debuted the ride VQ back in 2019.
It’s likely also the case that Walt Disney World adding Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to the Extended Evening Hours ride roster with a virtual queue is a tacit acknowledgment that the (daytime) virtual queue isn’t going away anytime soon. After all, if it still were getting standby soon–why not just hold off adding it to the lineup for another couple of weeks? Especially after just adding Country Bear Musical Jamboree!
Ultimately, I still have no clue how long the virtual queue will last for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. What I can say is that, up until yesterday, I was starting to lean towards “any day now” due to an improving uptime streak of about a week. Between the downtime yesterday and this development, I’m more inclined to say “hopefully by the late August or September off-season.”
Even that, though, is contingent upon the current problems plaguing the attraction being fixed. That could take days, weeks, or months. Walt Disney World’s delayed decision to add Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to the Extended Evening Hours lineup with a virtual queue says to me we can probably cross off “days” from that list.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What’s your plan of attack for minimizing problems with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure–will you buy trying for the virtual queue, buying Lightning Lane access, or both? Are you excited for the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure or worried about the daily downtime and other issues? Glad that it’ll have a limited time virtual queue for the initial opening period, or would you prefer a standby line? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? 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!
