Extra Magic Hours
An Opportunity to Visit Missed Attractions

On the last of our Disney vacations, my family took advantage of Extra Magic Hours, quite by accident.

This benefit allows all guests staying at the Disney resorts to the opportunity to enter a designated park one hour early or stay up to three hours late.

I really had no intention of using this benefit. My children are young enough to still need plenty of sleep. So I figured the regular schedule would be all that they could handle.

But one day we happened to be in the Magic Kingdom at closing. Since it was the value season, the park closed relatively early.

We noticed several people getting wristbands at a little cart and went over to investigate.

Sure enough - it was a designated Extra Magic Hours night in this particular theme park. Since we still had a few rides to catch and a little shopping to do, we picked up our wristbands (we had to produce our Disney resort keycards and tickets as proof).

Slowly the Magic Kingdom began to empty out. Lines grew short. And as darkness fell - the lights came on and lit up the night.

We enjoyed this time more than any other highlight of our visit. And needless to say, we stayed much longer than we had intended.

Of course, there are some caveats when it comes to Extra Magic Hours:

• This perk is only for guests staying at the Disney Resorts or the Swan, Dolphin, or the Hilton on property.
• Every day a different park is slated for early opening or late closing. The most recent schedule is posted on the Disney website.
• If you have a Park Hopper type ticket, then you can enter whichever park is offering late hours. But if you have a regular one park per day pass then you must choose to spend the entire day at the park with the addtional hours if you want to take advantage of them.
• Not all attractions, restaurants, and shops are open early or late. A good strategy is to ask Disney staff before regular closing if a certain ride will be open after hours. Especially if you don't want to miss it.

Now I know not to blow this one off on our future Disney vacations!

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