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Walt Disney World has formally introduced a tender opening for Starlight: Dream the Night Away, the brand new nighttime parade debuting in Magic Kingdom this weekend! This shares the newest official particulars, when Starlight can be carried out, park hours extensions for Magic Kingdom, together with our commentary and expectations for different unknowns.
Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away is the brand new nighttime parade coming to Walt Disney World in just a few brief days. Floats are dropped at life via the ability of the Blue Fairy’s magic, you’ll watch favourite traditional and modern characters from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disney Pixar movies, some for the very first time in a Disney nighttime parade.
Starlight was first introduced finally yr’s D23 Expo, and is debuting lower than a yr later. It’s the continuation of Walt Disney World’s legacy of nighttime parades, with bits of nostalgia for Main Street Electrical Parade and SpectroMagic sprinkled all through a blinding procession that raises the bar for the longer term. Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away debuts on July 20, 2025.
Thanks to Walt Disney World’s newest replace, we now know for certain that Starlight will tender open forward of schedule! Here’s the official announcement:
As we put together for the official debut of Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away on July 20, Magic Kingdom is planning a shock and delight second for visitors within the park as we speak with a tender open efficiency at 9 p.m.
This additionally offers Magic Kingdom Cast Members a real costume rehearsal with an viewers.
No phrase but on tender opening of Starlight on July 19, 2025 or whether or not there can be an 11 p.m. efficiency tonight.
It would usually be the case that tender openings would happen each nights and in each time slots. However, it’s solely doable that Walt Disney World needs to take issues slowly and simply do one single efficiency on one night time.
Having an 11 p.m. showtime would imply that the park will take longer to clear than in any other case, which might improve staffing prices and throw off somebody’s spreadsheet someplace by .0001% or one thing.
As for the potential of no tender opening tomorrow, that could possibly be a matter of logistics. We’re posting this at 7 p.m. Eastern, which permits lower than 2 hours for locals to get to the parks and safe a spot. For all however essentially the most devoted and close by Annual Passholders, that’s a tall process. So the turnout will mainly be whoever is already within the park, plus plugged-in locals.
Tomorrow could be a completely completely different story. Once the tender opening occurs, the cat is out of the bag, and many locals will plan round Starlight tender openings, whether or not they’re taking place or not. This will create an enormous burden on PAC Cast Members, and it’s doable Walt Disney World management isn’t ready for that till July 20, 2025.
With all of that mentioned, I nonetheless suppose there’s a greater than 50/50 probability of sentimental openings on July 19, 2025. Selfishly, I actually hope so, as I can’t make tonight’s tender opening, however I can do tomorrow night time! I’ll hold you posted both means, and can replace this accordingly after I hear extra.
Once Disney Starlight formally debuts on July 20, 2025, the brand new nighttime parade may have nightly showtimes beginning at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The parade will start on Main Street U.S.A. and journey alongside the parade route in the direction of Frontierland to permit for higher visitor circulation on the finish of the night time, in accordance with Walt Disney World.
Disney has additionally confirmed that Starlight is not going to be introduced on evenings Magic Kingdom hosts Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Although unspoken within the announcement, it’s protected to anticipate the identical for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party evenings. And bear in mind, that is an out of doors parade and is topic to cancellation attributable to inclement climate.
What follows is as we speak’s earlier replace on Starlight, and solutions to frequent reader questions in regards to the new night time parade…
As beforehand introduced, Annual Passholders visiting Magic Kingdom at any time of day (together with after 2:00 PM) will need to have a theme park reservation beginning July 20, 2025. Passholders will proceed to have the ability to enter EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park after 2:00 PM with out a theme park reservation.
This doesn’t apply for the July 18, 2025 tender opening of Starlight. Instead, the conventional coverage that Annual Passholders might go to the theme parks after 2:00 PM with out a theme park reservation, besides on Saturdays and Sundays at Magic Kingdom. This is the present coverage till the brand new one takes impact on July 20.
Walt Disney World is making this variation attributable to anticipated excessive demand, for a restricted time upon the opening of this new parade on July 20, 2025. Cast Members are additionally blocked out of Magic Kingdom from now via October 31, 2025–besides on occasion days between now and October 3, 2025. Those are all dates when Starlight shouldn’t be proven as a result of the park closes at 6 pm, that means that CMs in all probability received’t have an opportunity to see Starlight till subsequent yr.
There’s no phrase but on when the brand new AP rule ends, nevertheless it wouldn’t shock us within the least if it continues all through Party Season (similar to the CM blockouts). Even as soon as the ‘new parade smell’ wears off amongst locals in a few weeks, Magic Kingdom will begin closing early a number of nights per week–and Starlight will exacerbate the pre-existing demand disparity for the park on 6 pm versus 11 pm closing nights.
As we reported earlier as we speak, Annual Passholder reservations are actually bought out for Magic Kingdom on July 20-22, 2025. These three days are inside the launch window of the brand new nighttime parade, and likewise two of the busiest days of the week at Magic Kingdom (Monday and Tuesday).
Note that this solely applies to the AP bucket of park reservations. Other theme park ticket holders and Disney Resort resort visitors can nonetheless make reservations for these dates, and most ticket varieties don’t even require reservations within the first place. Reservations stay out there for Annual Passholders at EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom on these dates.
This rule change has no influence on Park Hopping, that means that APs with a reservation for the opposite 3 parks will nonetheless be capable of park hop to Magic Kingdom after visiting their first park, topic to regular park capability limits. It’ll be attention-grabbing to see whether or not two extra days ‘selling out’ of Park Passes results in a run on reservations for Annual Passholders on different dates (maybe subsequent Friday and Saturday?), or if that is the extent of demand.
Walt Disney World has formally confirmed the Starlight performances at 9 pm and 11 pm, however they haven’t dedicated to them for the lengthy haul. Previously, they solely prolonged these hours from July 20 via August 2, 2025. This has led to some feedback from involved readers, apprehensive that Starlight wouldn’t be carried out throughout their upcoming journeys–or wouldn’t be proven twice nightly.
The excellent news is that Walt Disney World has now prolonged 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 shock there.
As longtime followers possible know, Walt Disney World’s commonplace working process is to submit boilerplate park hours for extra distant dates, after which lengthen them primarily based on inside attendance projections as soon as these dates draw nearer.
However, the precise attraction web page for Disney Starlight: Dream the Away says “no performance today” should you change the date to August 3, 2025 or past. This additionally has some readers apprehensive. Don’t let it. This nearly definitely simply hasn’t been up to date–now we have each motive to consider that Starlight can be carried out twice nightly for the rest of the yr.
Walt Disney World has already confirmed that Starlight will solely be introduced on non-party nights throughout Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party dates. It could be very odd to announce that, however then not have the parade scheduled in any respect after August 3, 2025. It’s not simply that, both.
Starlight stopping after solely a few weeks doesn’t make any sense for a variety of causes. The probably rationalization is essentially the most logical one–that the calendar is improper and simply hasn’t been up to date. We’ve seen time and time once more that the official calendar is an unreliable useful resource.
The different factor to notice right here is that these are the summer time showtimes, as dictated by sundown occasions. Typically, Happily Ever After begins transferring ahead within the fall, with the large leap being as soon as Daylight Saving Time ends in early November. At that time, it’d be doable for 2 performances of Starlight and Happily Ever After with a a lot earlier closing time. Magic Kingdom might shut at 10 pm in winter with the identical hourly cadence for Starlight-Happily Ever After-Starlight due to ~6 pm sunsets.
The greatest motive why they wouldn’t change to 10 pm closings in November and December is that the vacation season is among the busiest occasions of the yr at Walt Disney World, other than a few weeks. Even if they don’t “need” 11 pm closings of Magic Kingdom these couple of months for the sake of the leisure schedule, they nonetheless is perhaps wanted as a launch valve on crowds. That’s doubly true because it’s additionally the guts of Party Season–even throughout slower weeks, Magic Kingdom is busy on non-party dates.
To that time, we additionally anticipate 2 nightly performances of Starlight on each non-party night time via a minimum of Spring 2026. Probably past that. Once mid-August arrives, there’s nearly 5 months of Magic Kingdom closing early a number of nights per week. There are a number of weeks when there are 4 events, not “only” 3. This causes large disruptions to attendance patterns, which is a dynamic we’ve mentioned on this weblog for over a decade.
In all probability, Starlight goes to exacerbate the daytime attendance disparity between occasion dates and non-party dates in August and past. It’ll be attention-grabbing if Disney makes an attempt to mitigate any of this–they tried final yr by providing free Park Hopper upgrades, however that didn’t work. Maybe there can be one other 3-park ticket deal quickly, or different try at pushing folks away from MK.
Suffice to say, there is no such thing as a means that Walt Disney World will be capable of cut back performances of Starlight throughout Party Season. It merely can’t occur. There can be sufficient demand for 3 performances lots of these nights, and whereas I don’t suppose there’s any chance of that (not even in November and December when 3 showings might occur with out extensions past 11 pm), I additionally don’t suppose there’s any probability Walt Disney World drops to at least one nightly Starlight efficiency throughout that point.
With winter additionally being busier than ever and spring break beginning proper after that, I’d anticipate 2 nightly performances of Starlight via a minimum of mid-April 2026. My hope is that Starlight all the time will get two nightly performances–I feel the demand can be there to assist that for the lengthy haul. Main Street Electrical Parade nonetheless had two nightly performances on the finish of its run, and that was ~6 years later with a ~45 yr previous parade. Regardless, we’ll hold you posted–and may have extra protection of Starlight subsequent week as soon as the parade has debuted.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Starlight’s debut weekend? Will you be catching the tender opening on July 18 at 9 pm? Will you be in Magic Kingdom on July 20, 2025 for opening night time of Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade? What in regards to the evenings forward of that or after? Looking ahead to Walt Disney World’s first brand-new night time parade in a long time? Agree or disagree with our assessments? Any different questions or remark? Hearing suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!