We’re in the home stretch for Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away, with the new nighttime parade’s official opening in only a few days! Magic Kingdom’s night parade drought will soon be over, ushering in a new era of bright lights and longer hours…well, an ‘era’ that lasts until Party Season kicks off in under a month.
There have been several updates on Starlight night parade in the last couple of days, as well as many reader questions and concerns about the schedule. This addresses all of those, with what is presumably our last pre-opening update on Starlight that covers potential soft openings, showtimes, park hours, and more.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, Starlight is the continuation of Walt Disney World’s legacy of nighttime parades, with bits of nostalgia for Main Street Electrical Parade and SpectroMagic sprinkled throughout a dazzling procession that raises the bar for the future. Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away debuts on July 20, 2025.
As previously announced, Annual Passholders visiting Magic Kingdom at any time of day (including after 2:00 PM) must have a theme park reservation starting July 20, 2025. Passholders will continue to be able to enter EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park after 2:00 PM without a theme park reservation.
Normally, Annual Passholders may visit the theme parks after 2:00 PM without a theme park reservation, except on Saturdays and Sundays at Magic Kingdom. This is separate from good-to-go days, which apply before 2:00 PM (and are unlikely to occur in the near-term post-Starlight).
Walt Disney World is making this change due to anticipated high demand, for a limited time upon the opening of this new parade on July 20, 2025. Cast Members are also blocked out of Magic Kingdom from now through October 31, 2025–except on non-party days between now and October 3, 2025.
There’s no word yet on when the new AP rule ends, but it wouldn’t surprise us in the least if it continues throughout Party Season (just like the CM blockouts). Even once the ‘new parade smell’ wears off among locals in a couple of weeks, Magic Kingdom will start closing early several nights per week–and Starlight will exacerbate the pre-existing demand disparity for the park on 6 pm versus 11 pm closing nights.
The new news for Annual Passholders is that Walt Disney World has started more aggressively notifying APs about this upcoming rule change. These alerts can be found on the reservations page, My Disney Experience app, and AP area of DisneyWorld.com. Passholders are being alerted of the restrictions via the new notification center within the app, and a pop-up is deployed for APs visiting the Annual Passholder section of the MDX app.
It’s difficult to miss the alerts if you visit the Annual Passholder portions of the app and website. Of course, not everyone does that. It’s still possible that plenty of Annual Passholders could plan an afternoon visit in the coming days or weeks, and never consult the app or website before doing so.
Accordingly, we wouldn’t be surprised to see an even more aggressive pop-up over the weekend. Disney doesn’t necessarily need to do anything more, but it still might be nice to avoid guests being turned away at the turnstiles. Avoid some frustrations for locals and potential headaches for Cast Members.
The more noteworthy development is that Annual Passholder reservations are now sold out for Magic Kingdom on July 20-22, 2025. These three days are within the launch window of the new nighttime parade, and also two of the busiest days of the week at Magic Kingdom (Monday and Tuesday).
For those keeping score at home, July 20 didn’t run out of AP reservations until June 25 (the rule change was announced almost a full month earlier), but July 21 and 22 hit capacity for APs today (July 18, 2025) per the official reservation calendar. Note that this only applies to the AP bucket of park reservations. Other theme park ticket holders and Disney Resort hotel guests can still make reservations for those dates, and most ticket types don’t even require reservations in the first place.
It’s also noteworthy that reservations remain available for Annual Passholders at EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom on those dates. This rule change has no impact on Park Hopping, meaning that APs with a reservation for the other 3 parks will still be able to park hop to Magic Kingdom after visiting their first park, subject to normal park capacity limits.
It’ll be interesting to see whether two more days ‘selling out’ of Park Passes leads to a run on reservations for Annual Passholders on other dates (perhaps next Friday and Saturday?), or if this is the extent of demand. I’m honestly a little surprised that reservations have lasted this long, and that they’re still available for the other parks. But then again, it’s been a slow summer so Walt Disney World can’t exactly throttle APs too much, as there aren’t enough tourists to pick up the slack. (Especially since Starlight was announced too late for most out of state plans to plan trips around.)
We previously shared that our best guess was that Starlight would debut a night or two earlier than announced, as a “surprise and delight” experience for guests. This most recently happened with Harmonious (rest in pieces), which had a 2-night soft opening prior to its official opening on October 1. Over at Disneyland, it just occurred in mid-May with Paint the Night.
We’re still hoping for something similar here. This would be good timing, as the popular Pixie Dust Pass is blocked out July 19-20, 2025–meaning Walt Disney World could quietly debut Starlight on Saturday with one tier of APs excluded entirely.
To be clear, I haven’t heard anything about this–it should NOT be construed as a rumor. It’s purely a mix of wishful thinking and past precedent. The only thing I do know is that there’s no official event of any sort–nothing for VIPs, Club 33 or Golden Oak residents, or even a media preview.
It’s my understanding that it has been a race against the clock to have Starlight ready in time, with that hard deadline of July 20 being set before there was certainty it could be hit. Whether there’s a soft opening over the weekend depends entirely on how the latest rehearsals have gone, and whether the team needs another night or two before performing for guests.
But a soft opening would be a great release valve, giving Parade Audience Control (PAC) Cast Members a chance to get a handle on crowd control before July 20, 2025 arrives. Even without knowing anything, I’m still hoping for the best and planning on being in Magic Kingdom on Saturday night.
Here’s what nighttime in Magic Kingdom looks like starting July 20, 2025:
- Starlight Parade: 9 pm
- Happily Ever After: 10 pm
- Starlight Parade: 11 pm
- Park Closing: 11 pm
It’s actually worth noting that this is also the schedule for the next couple of nights minus the Starlight part. Magic Kingdom shifted Happily Ever After to 10 pm showings in anticipation of Starlight, and park hours were extended to an 11 pm closing time a few weeks ago. So the groundwork has already been laid for a soft opening, but that’s only if Starlight is ready to roll. And that’s still an if at this point!
Walt Disney World has officially confirmed the Starlight performances at 9 pm and 11 pm, but they haven’t committed to them for the long haul. Previously, they only extended these hours from July 20 through August 2, 2025. This has led to some comments from concerned readers, worried that Starlight wouldn’t be performed during their upcoming trips–or wouldn’t be shown twice nightly.
Previously, Magic Kingdom reverted to its 9 am to 10 pm schedule on non-party nights for the duration of August 2025. On Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party dates, Magic Kingdom is currently scheduled to be open from 9 am to 6 pm. (That latter part is set in stone.)
The good news is that Walt Disney World has now extended park hours at Magic Kingdom for August 3-30, 2025. The park will now be open from 9 am to 11 pm on non-party nights. No surprise there.
As longtime fans likely know, Walt Disney World’s standard operating procedure is to post boilerplate park hours for more distant dates, and then extend them based on internal attendance projections once those dates draw nearer.
However, the actual attraction page for Disney Starlight: Dream the Away says “no performance today” if you change the date to August 3, 2025 or beyond. This also has some readers worried. Don’t let it. This almost certainly just hasn’t been updated–we have every reason to believe that Starlight will be performed twice nightly for the remainder of the year.
Walt Disney World has already confirmed that Starlight will only be presented on non-party nights during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party dates. It would be very odd to announce that, but then not have the parade scheduled at all after August 3, 2025. It’s not just that, either.
Starlight stopping after only a couple of weeks doesn’t make any sense for a number of reasons. The most likely explanation is the most logical one–that the calendar is wrong and just hasn’t been updated. We’ve seen time and time (and time) again that the official calendar is an unreliable resource.
Honestly, the bigger question going forward is just how long those 11 pm closings continue. Because in my estimation, we’re more likely to see those cut back than we are reductions in Starlight showings.
If Disney doesn’t want to do 11 pm closings of Magic Kingdom (because money), it’s possible the park could close at 10:30 pm while still maintaining the 9/10/11 cadence for nighttime entertainment. Disney’s Hollywood Studios does this often with Fantasmic, closing attractions but keeping the park open–which is precisely why you can make ADRs that start after official closing time at DHS.
I do not expect even this to happen! My gut is that 11 pm is the earliest Magic Kingdom closes for the remainder of 2025. I’m optimistic that we’ll see more midnight closings than last year. I just don’t think they’re going to be able to “get away” with earlier closings. Honestly, I’m surprised that Magic Kingdom closes so early, as is. There’s demand for later hours and they could probably recoup the costs in food & beverage sales!
The other thing to note here is that these are the summer showtimes, as dictated by sunset times. Typically, Happily Ever After starts moving forward in the fall, with the big jump being once Daylight Saving Time ends in early November. At that point, it’d be possible for two performances of Starlight and Happily Ever After with a much earlier closing time. Magic Kingdom could close at 10 pm in winter with the same hourly cadence for Starlight-Happily Ever After-Starlight thanks to ~6 pm sunsets.
The biggest reason why they wouldn’t switch to 10 pm closings in November and December is that the holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year at Walt Disney World, aside from a couple of weeks. Even if they do not “need” 11 pm closings of Magic Kingdom those couple of months for the sake of the entertainment schedule, they still might be needed as a release valve on crowds. That’s doubly true since it’s also the heart of Party Season–even during slower weeks, Magic Kingdom is busy on non-party dates.
To that point, we also expect 2 nightly performances of Starlight on every non-party night through at least Spring 2026. Probably beyond that. Once mid-August arrives, there’s almost 5 months of Magic Kingdom closing early multiple nights per week. There are several weeks when there are 4 parties, not “only” 3. This causes massive disruptions to attendance patterns, which is a dynamic we’ve discussed on this blog for over a decade.
In all likelihood, Starlight is going to exacerbate the daytime attendance disparity between party dates and non-party dates in August and beyond. It’ll be interesting if Disney attempts to mitigate any of this–they attempted last year by offering free Park Hopper upgrades, but that didn’t work. Maybe there will be another 3-park ticket deal soon, or other attempt at pushing people away from MK.
Suffice to say, there is no way that Walt Disney World will be able to reduce performances of Starlight during Party Season. It simply cannot happen. There will be enough demand for 3 performances many of those nights, and while I don’t think there’s any possibility of that (not even in November and December when 3 showings could happen without extensions beyond 11 pm), I also don’t think there’s any chance Walt Disney World drops to one nightly Starlight performance during that time.
With winter also being busier than ever and spring break starting right after that, I’d expect 2 nightly performances of Starlight through at least mid-April 2026. My hope is that Starlight always gets two nightly performances–I think the demand will be there to support that for the long haul. Main Street Electrical Parade still had two nightly performances at the end of its run, and that was ~6 years later with a ~45 year old parade. Regardless, we’ll keep you posted–and will have more coverage of Starlight next week once the parade has debuted.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Starlight’s debut weekend? Looking forward to catching the new nighttime parade, or will you use the ‘extra’ hour in Magic Kingdom to ride attractions with shorter wait times? Will you be in Magic Kingdom on July 20, 2025 for opening night of Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade? What about the evenings ahead of that or after? Looking forward to Walt Disney World’s first brand-new night parade in decades? Agree or disagree with our assessments? Any other questions or comment? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!