Walt Disney World has formally introduced a mushy opening for Starlight: Dream the Night time 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 time Away is the brand new nighttime parade coming to Walt Disney World in just a few quick days. Floats are delivered to 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 Important Road Electrical Parade and SpectroMagic sprinkled all through a blinding procession that raises the bar for the long run. Disney Starlight: Dream the Night time Away debuts on July 20, 2025.
Because of Walt Disney World’s newest replace, we now know for positive that Starlight will mushy open forward of schedule! Right here’s the official announcement:
As we put together for the official debut of Disney Starlight: Dream the Night time Away on July 20, Magic Kingdom is planning a shock and delight second for friends within the park immediately with a mushy open efficiency at 9 p.m.
This additionally provides Magic Kingdom Solid Members a real costume rehearsal with an viewers.
No phrase but on mushy opening of Starlight on July 19, 2025 or whether or not there can be an 11 p.m. efficiency tonight.
It will usually be the case that mushy openings would happen each nights and in each time slots. Nonetheless, it’s completely attainable that Walt Disney World desires to take issues slowly and simply do one single efficiency on one evening.
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 mushy opening tomorrow, that could possibly be a matter of logistics. We’re posting this at 7 p.m. Japanese, which permits lower than 2 hours for locals to get to the parks and safe a spot. For all however probably the most devoted and close by Annual Passholders, that’s a tall activity. So the turnout will mainly be whoever is already within the park, plus plugged-in locals.
Tomorrow could be a very totally different story. As soon as the mushy opening occurs, the cat is out of the bag, and many locals will plan round Starlight mushy openings, whether or not they’re taking place or not. This may create an enormous burden on PAC Solid Members, and it’s attainable 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 mushy opening, however I can do tomorrow evening! I’ll preserve you posted both means, and can replace this accordingly once I hear extra.
As soon as Disney Starlight formally debuts on July 20, 2025, the brand new nighttime parade could have nightly showtimes beginning at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The parade will start on Important Road U.S.A. and journey alongside the parade route in direction of Frontierland to permit for higher visitor circulation on the finish of the evening, based on Walt Disney World.
Disney has additionally confirmed that Starlight won’t be introduced on evenings Magic Kingdom hosts Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Get together. Though unspoken within the announcement, it’s secure to count on the identical for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Get together evenings. And keep in mind, that is an outside parade and is topic to cancellation attributable to inclement climate.
What follows is immediately’s earlier replace on Starlight, and solutions to widespread reader questions concerning the new evening 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 and not using a theme park reservation.
This doesn’t apply for the July 18, 2025 mushy opening of Starlight. As an alternative, the conventional coverage that Annual Passholders might go to the theme parks after 2:00 PM and not using a theme park reservation, besides on Saturdays and Sundays at Magic Kingdom. That 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. Solid Members are additionally blocked out of Magic Kingdom from now via October 31, 2025–besides on celebration days between now and October 3, 2025. These are all dates when Starlight just isn’t proven as a result of the park closes at 6 pm, which 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, but it surely wouldn’t shock us within the least if it continues all through Get together Season (similar to the CM blockouts). Even as soon as the ‘new parade odor’ 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 immediately, 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 in addition two of the busiest days of the week at Magic Kingdom (Monday and Tuesday).
Notice that this solely applies to the AP bucket of park reservations. Different theme park ticket holders and Disney Resort resort friends can nonetheless make reservations for these dates, and most ticket sorts don’t even require reservations within the first place. Reservations stay accessible 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, which means that APs with a reservation for the opposite 3 parks will nonetheless be capable to 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 ‘promoting 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. Beforehand, they solely prolonged these hours from July 20 via August 2, 2025. This has led to some feedback from involved readers, fearful 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 seemingly know, Walt Disney World’s normal working process is to put up boilerplate park hours for extra distant dates, after which lengthen them based mostly on inner attendance projections as soon as these dates draw nearer.
Nonetheless, the precise attraction web page for Disney Starlight: Dream the Away says “no efficiency immediately” should you change the date to August 3, 2025 or past. This additionally has some readers fearful. Don’t let it. This virtually definitely simply hasn’t been up to date–we’ve each purpose to imagine 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 Get together and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Get together dates. It will 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 numerous causes. The probably rationalization is probably the most logical one–that the calendar is flawed 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 opposite factor to notice right here is that these are the summer season showtimes, as dictated by sundown instances. Sometimes, Fortunately Ever After begins transferring ahead within the fall, with the large soar being as soon as Daylight Saving Time ends in early November. At that time, it’d be attainable for 2 performances of Starlight and Fortunately 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-Fortunately Ever After-Starlight because of ~6 pm sunsets.
The most important purpose why they wouldn’t change to 10 pm closings in November and December is that the vacation season is likely one of the busiest instances of the yr at Walt Disney World, apart from a few weeks. Even when they don’t “want” 11 pm closings of Magic Kingdom these couple of months for the sake of the leisure schedule, they nonetheless could be wanted as a launch valve on crowds. That’s doubly true because it’s additionally the guts of Get together Season–even throughout slower weeks, Magic Kingdom is busy on non-party dates.
To that time, we additionally count on 2 nightly performances of Starlight on each non-party evening via a minimum of Spring 2026. Most likely past that. As soon as mid-August arrives, there’s virtually 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 “solely” 3. This causes huge 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 celebration 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. Perhaps 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 to cut back performances of Starlight throughout Get together Season. It merely can not 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 count on 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 believe the demand can be there to help that for the lengthy haul. Important Road Electrical Parade nonetheless had two nightly performances on the finish of its run, and that was ~6 years later with a ~45 yr outdated parade. Regardless, we’ll preserve you posted–and could have extra protection of Starlight subsequent week as soon as the parade has debuted.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Ideas on Starlight’s debut weekend? Will you be catching the mushy opening on July 18 at 9 pm? Will you be in Magic Kingdom on July 20, 2025 for opening evening of Disney Starlight: Dream the Night time Away Parade? What concerning the evenings forward of that or after? Wanting ahead to Walt Disney World’s first brand-new evening parade in a long time? Agree or disagree with our assessments? Another questions or remark? Listening to suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!
