For the most part, theme park hours are straightforward. There’s an open time—when guests are let in the park—and a closing time—when the last guests are allowed to line up for rides. But as with all things, Disney makes things a little more complicated, with changing hours and a variety of ways to get early and late access to the parks. In this post we discuss the typical hours at Hollywood Studios and how to access early and late hours at the park.
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Typical Hours at Hollywood Studios
The current typical hours for Hollywood Studios are 8:30AM or 9AM to 9PM or 9:30PM, but hours can and do vary beyond that. You can view the official Disney hours for Hollywood Studios by clicking this link.
Additionally, guests of Disney hotels (and select partner hotels) have access to Early Theme Park Entry, which grants them access to the select attractions 30 minutes before other guests every day. We discuss this perk more below.
Guests of deluxe Disney hotels (and a more select group of partner hotels) have access to Extended Evening Hours, which grants them a few extra hours in the park at night on select evenings. We discuss this perk more below.
Finally, there are ticketed events that grant access to Hollywood Studios on select nights, too. We’ll discuss these more below.
Specific Ride Hours
Note that not all the attractions open and close with the park. For example, Muppet*Vision 3D often opens late and closes early.
There’s no way to predict ride opening times in advance other than to look at the ride hours in the days before your visit and assume they’ll stay the same. You can either check the My Disney Experience app yourself (clicking into an attraction will tell you its hours for today), or you can visit Thrill Data and see when a ride stopped posting wait times.
It is really important that you check the closing times of anything you’re thinking about visiting late. You can check the closing times in the My Disney Experience app. You don’t want to plan to visit a ride in the last hour of the day only to get there and find it closed two hours early.
What time does Hollywood Studios Open?
As we’ve said, you should confirm hours for specific days directly with Disney, but you shouldn’t just plan to arrive at the scheduled opening time.
We cover when to arrive at Hollywood Studios in our Hollywood Studios Rope Drop Strategy post. Because the arrival times are highly contingent on what rides you’re starting with, we recommend you read that post in full.
Staying Late at Hollywood Studios
Like all of Disney’s parks, just because Hollywood Studios closes at some time doesn’t mean you have to be out of the park by that time.
The closing time is the when guests will stop being allowed to line up for rides. In most cases, you will be able to get in line for a ride right up until closing time. Because there can be exceptions to this—due to capacity issues or ride breakdowns—we don’t recommend you rely heavily on this. Rather, this is a good time for a “bonus ride” you would otherwise skip or a re-ride on something big.
While the last people are allowed into line for the rides at closing time, some stores will remain open and anyone still in the queue for a ride will get to ride and then leave. The stores at the front of the park will be open latest.
Depending on the precise schedules for the day, the nighttime shows, like Fantasmic! and Wonderful World of Animation may begin or end right around park close. There are also days when restaurants—particularly Oga’s Cantina—take reservations after close.
While Disney buses will run until the last guest leaves the park, they’ll do so on a significantly more limited schedule as it gets later, and the later exits almost always have to share buses.
Extra Hours Access to Hollywood Studios
There are several options for getting early or late access to Hollywood Studios.
Early Theme Park Entry
Early Theme Park Entry is a perk offered to guests of Walt Disney World Resort hotels (and select partner hotels) that allows guests access to the park 30 minutes before its scheduled open, every day.
The major rides at Hollywood Studios are all included in Early Entry. Early Theme Park Entry is covered as part of our Hollywood Studios Rope Drop and Early Entry strategy.
Remember, you must be a guest of a hotel with Early Entry access to take advantage of this perk. You also must have a parks pass reservation for the day to use Early Entry.
Extended Evening Hours
Guests of deluxe Disney resorts and select partner resorts have access to Extended Evening Hours. On select nights (currently about 1-2 nights a week), these guests have access to one of the four Disney World parks for extended hours at night—usually about two hours.
Hollywood Studios After Hours
For the evening hours, there is Hollywood Studios After Hours. Unlike Early Theme Park Entry, this is not a perk offered to certain guests, but is instead a ticketed event held on select evenings. We reviewed Hollywood Studios After Hours here.
When it occurs, After Hours allows ticketed guests access to the park from 7PM to 3 hours after park close. You do not need regular park admission to access After Hours, you just won’t be allowed into the park until 7PM. Tickets cost around $130 per person and are available for purchase on the Disney World website.
The event includes all the rides, though you can see in our review it isn’t a cake walk to fit them all in.
Hollywood Studios Jollywood Nights
In addition to its usual holiday offerings, Disney debuted a new ticketed nighttime event “Jollywood Nights” at Hollywood Studios in 2023. The event was held on 10 select nights in November and December. You can read all about Jollywood Nights over on WDW Prep School.
WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE EXTRA HOURS ACCESS?
One question some people fail to consider is what to do if they don’t have extra hours access on a given day? Let’s go through the different extra hours events and how they impact ordinary guests.
If you don’t have Early Entry, the biggest challenge is that when you arrive there will be long lines at Slinky Dog Dash and Rise of the Resistance. You can pay to avoid these—Slinky Dog Dash is a part of Genie+ and Rise of the Resistance is a paid individual Lightning Lane.
Alternatively, you can plan to wait in these lines later in the day and take advantage of what your morning does have to offer. Starting with any of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, or Millennium Falcon is usually a good bet, but you should keep an eye on wait times leading up to opening time (wait times during Early Entry will be posted in the Disney World app).
You mostly don’t have to plan “around” After Hours, Extended Evening Hours, or Jollywood Nights. The only thing to do is to make sure the park isn’t closing early to you in order to accommodate these events.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
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Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
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