Park hopping at Disney World opens up a ton of possibilities, but it could soon get a little trickier — especially at one popular park!
It’s no secret that Magic Kingdom is the MOST visited theme park in the world. While folks may park hop around the other Disney Parks, chances are they plan to wind up at this popular park at some point. However, that could get a bit trickier this summer thanks to some BIG things happening at “The Most Magical Place on Earth.”
“Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away” is a new nighttime parade debuting at Magic Kingdom on July 20th, 2025, and Disney World is making some reservation adjustments in preparation for larger crowds.
According to Disney, starting July 20th (the day the parade debuts), Disney World Annual Passholders can only visit Magic Kingdom with a theme park reservation due to anticipated high foot traffic at the park.
With that said, this new rule DOES NOT APPLY TO PARK HOPPING, so as long as you have a reservation to one of the other three parks and scan in first there, you can still hop over to Magic Kingdom WITHOUT a park reservation after 2 PM.
While it seems like there truly is no effect on park hopping, the fine print does note that park hopping is subject to availability. Disney World could be anticipating Magic Kingdom reaching capacity during the opening days of “Disney Starlight”, which in turn would mean passholders can’t get into Magic Kingdom without a park reservation.
We don’t know how long this rule will last, but it will likely be temporary.
Until July 20th, Disney World is operating normally. Passholders can still visit all four theme parks without a reservation on good-to-go days or after 2 PM on weekdays. Magic Kingdom requires reservations on Saturdays and Sundays all day.
While the new parade is sure to be popular, time will tell if this new rule is overly cautious or preparing for an inevitable problem.
The new “Disney Starlight” parade will utilize the latest tech to bring beloved Disney characters and stories to life. Get ready to hear twists on fan-favorite songs, joyous characters, and brilliant lights adorning some creative floats.
If you’re looking for a travel agent to help with your vacation, we recommend our friends at Mouse Fan Travel. They’re experts in the field with over 20 years of vacation planning experience, and they can help take a bunch of the stress out of the entire booking process for you!
We’ll be covering “Disney Starlight” as well as all things Disney World all summer long, so stay tuned right here at AllEars for all the latest updates!
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How will the new park reservation rules affect your Disney World summer plans? Let us know in the comments!
It’s nice to know Disney knows no loyalty. People pay A LOT of money for an annual pass and now can’t even guarantee they will get into the park. Just more proof the house of mouse has fallen out of appreciation for their loyal guests and its just greed greed greed.
We’re going to WDW in early August. Since it will be hot, our plan is to rope drop, take a break in the afternoon at the resort, then head back to the park in the evening. We have standard one park a day tickets. (Not APs) If the park is at capacity in the evening would we be turned away when we come back?
This is not good. We have a six year old, that loves the Magic Kingdom. We usually go out early in the morning, then head back during the heat of the day, return to the park about 4 o’clock and leave around 8 o’clock. Now we have to explain to him because of a parade that we will not even be there to watch, we can’t return to the park for the second half of the day. This after spending over $1600 per person for passes!!!!!!!!!!! How about limiting the people that have the cheaper annual passes from admission until the fall when the excitement dies down. They are Florida residents passes cost less than half of the cost of the pass out of state guests have to purchase. They do not have the expense of air fare, hotel, etc. Also, should not have promoted the $60 per day passes to Florida residents during the summer would have down on the attendance they are expecting. Too bad Disney didn’t put much planning and thought of the problem they caused.