Why Disney? Why?

[amcnj]

I know I try to see what hours have typically been in past years, but of course “past performance does not guarantee future results”.

It can be difficult to plan dining and fast passes when you don’t know the hours, which may affect what park you will visit on a given day.

I just make my various plans as those options become available for booking and hope for the best.

 

[WDW Queen]

I don't find it terribly annoying because I pick which parks which days and stick to it regardless of if the hours change.
If it happens to work in my favor great but otherwise I roll with the punches and don't allow it to create chaos.
Not to mention I know when to expect hours to be extended like around the holidays etc so I'm not caught off guard.

 

[Rach3975]

It bothers me that they change hours 2-3 weeks in advance when we're already committed to FPs that can't be changed easily. For example, when we planned our MK day the 2 options we were choosing between were both 9-9. We chose wrong, since our day stayed a 9 pm close and the other day has an 11 pm close. Exact same ticket cost, but we lost out on 2 hours of park time. If they'd finalized hours before the 60 day mark I would have made different FP choices. If I tried to change now, at 3 weeks out, I wouldn't be able to get FoP or 7DMT for the switched days and would get less desirable times for the ones I was able to switch.

 

[Paul Francis]

The hours don't really effect planning. However, along the same lines of that is having to book dining and FP+ sometimes long before they release dates for after hours, EMM, and desert parties if you're interested in that sort of thing. If you're going to have people plan so early roll out all of their options.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

I'm a big fan of added hours

 

[Gehrig1B]

The busy (most crowded) time in the parks is 11:00-2:00. We always use our fastpasses then. It makes no difference to us what time the park opens when scheduling fast passes. We generally make multiple ADRs for dinner to cover multiple venues as we are APs so we can hop. Opening and closing times do not affect us. I will add we don't do pre-park opening breakfasts.

 

[Delirium]

I would have been thrilled if they had extended hours last year during Thanksgiving week. They didn't.

Don't see how it would impact FPs. Lines will be short in the early morning hours, so you leave your FPs alone and do standby before the crowds build. Your FPs will work the same whether the park opens at 6 or 9 or whether the park closes at 9 or 11.

Pre=park opening ADRs are a bad idea in the first place if your primary goal is to to do rides. There is always the risk that you're not done with your meal in time.

Extra hours at night are a treasure any way you look at it. Can't see a negative impact there at all.

 

[FCDub]

How are none of the reasons “valid”?

It’s their business. They can run it however they want.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I would have been thrilled if they had extended hours last year during Thanksgiving week. They didn't.

Don't see how it would impact FPs. Lines will be short in the early morning hours, so you leave your FPs alone and do standby before the crowds build. Your FPs will work the same whether the park opens at 6 or 9 or whether the park closes at 9 or 11.

Pre=park opening ADRs are a bad idea in the first place if your primary goal is to to do rides. There is always the risk that you're not done with your meal in time.

Extra hours at night are a treasure any way you look at it. Can't see a negative impact there at all.

Just a quick example of how it affects FPs:

I could only get Slinky at 5:50 until park hours updated to open at 8am. I then moved it up, which gives me the chance at another tier 1 that day.

Now I am happy that the hours got extended, but it does throw a curve ball into my plans for HS. It would be nice to have a little more notice. I knew they would be extended due to the holiday, so I was prepared. Not everyone plans like people on here, though.

 

[AngiTN]

Nope, not annoyed. Glad actually.
We often plan our trips at less than 60 days
ADR are totally unnecessary so don't bother with those, at least until day or two before. So hours changing have no impact
They do add FP to the mix, when I may have not gotten something due to when I book. So I'm happy when they change hours, I get FP

 

[bumbershoot]

Some people get upset if they’ve booked a pre park opening breakfast and park hours change to open earlier. I get that.

Yep. First trip, 2010, and I’d missed that they sometimes change things. Walked into MK for our pre opening CP ADR to discover that the park was already fully open. No empty park pictures. And we watched the park fill up as we had breakfast. (Party of 8, new to traveling together, and no decisions could be made quickly even though they didn’t charge to cancel at that time)

My (perhaps naive) thought is that Disney takes all the information we give them about where we are going to be each day via ADRs and FastPasses and then adjusts the park hours accordingly. So they can balance or “optimize” (whatever that means to them) park attendance.

And irritate people at the same time.

Pre=park opening ADRs are a bad idea in the first place if your primary goal is to to do rides. There is always the risk that you're not done with your meal in time.

Disagree. Except for the one time we’ve had a great time with pre open ADRs, as long as we pay attention to changes.

ADR are totally unnecessary so don't bother with those, at least until day or two before.

You and I have had very different luck with last minute ADRs.

 

[indoshakespeare]

It's annoying if you have PPO Breakfast reservation thinking you can get a jump on 1 or 2 rides afterwards and then Disney move the opening one hour early.

 

[teachmedis]

I booked my first PPO breakfast yesterday for the week after Easter. I told myself if they change park hours, I'll have a nice breakfast and then hit the park. If this was my only day planned for MK I'd have to cancel the breakfast. We went the spring break before last, and I don't remember them adding much for hours, at least in the morning.

 

[ColonialMouse]

IMHO they shouldn’t be changing their hours once inside the 60-day FP window. And in particular they ought to be giving people with PPO ADRs an opportunity to change their ADRs before opening new times up to everyone.

I understand their need to match hours to actual demand, but DIsney has created this ridiculous world where we need to start planning our vacations 7 months out. The good thing is I nearly always assume we’re leaving a park in early afternoon, so generally the worst I need to do is re-plan a couple park mornings. But by the time you’ve made FP reservations, it’s really too late to change much and you’re stuck with the park or going without good FPs.

Bruce

 

[10CJ]

I was excited about the most recent changes. I was able to change our Toy Story FPs to Slinky Dog. In addition, two members of our group are arriving earlier than everyone else. I was able to get them Slinky Dog FPs for the afternoon of arrival day. I was able to move some things around in MK to more convenient times.

I understand being annoyed when your pre-park opening is no longer before opening. However I also know that is a possibility and know I need to be prepared accordingly. I typically know if I plan to keep it or drop it if hours change.

More hours means spreading out the crowds, so overall it is a good thing for everyone.

 

[TheBigErn]

Late hours I don't mind. It's changing a 9am opening to a 7am opening.

 

[TheBigErn]

How are none of the reasons “valid”?

It’s their business. They can run it however they want.

It's Thanksgiving. Did it sneak up on them? Didn't they know parks would be busy when the posted the park hours originally? That's why their reasons aren't valid.

 

[PSUGuy]

In 2017 I planned a vacation for a party of 11, wife and I at Board Walk the rest in a house rental off site. On the morning of our MK day I was having my usual cigar and coffee near Atlantic Dance and decided to review our plans for the day on MDE. I was shocked to see that MK was opening earlier than I had planned for, there was no way to get the off site folks up and out in time for rope drop so the park was pretty full by the time we got there. Our FastPasses helped but we didn't get our usual walk ons at SpMtn and Buzz. Yeah, opening time changes can have negative consequences.

Bill From PA

 

[sethschroeder]

Disney releases park hours. You make park by park plans including dinning reservations. You make fastpasses. Then about 45 days before your trip, Disney changes the park hours throwing things into chaos. Anyone else annoyed by this? I've heard all the reasons why they do this and they don't seem valid to me. Why can't they either come out with the hours and leave them alone or delay coming out with them. Just don't change them!

How did they change? I can't imagine it changed that much that it would throw off every FP and park.

 

[Mickey's Best Girl]

I'm a big fan of added hours

Ditto.

But we also have the luxury of zero plans outside making sure we hit AM EMH. Those are gold to us and the only thing I allow to dictate where we’ll be on a given day. And even then we hop elsewhere by 1030/11ish. The “elsewhere” is unknown until that morning.

While I do make some FPs at 60 days, we change and/or miss 75% of them. I despise having a schedule on vacation.