ParkMagic Podcast: Insider Tips To Plan Your Disneyland Adventure

What You Need To Know About the 40+ Days Disneyland Will Close Early Between Now and Halloween!

• Robyn from ParkMagic

Share episode

The summer and fall calendars are brimming with events like Grad Nite, Pride Nites, and Oogie Boogie Bash. With our constantly updated list of early closure dates, you'll learn to stay one step ahead and turn a potential schedule hiccup into an opportunity for even more fun in the park.

If you have already planned a trip for a day when the parks might be closing early, we will give you tips for working around those parties to make sure you get the most out of your days at Disneyland or California Adventure. 

Right now, our tools are just for Disneyland, but we hope to expand to other parks soon. Disney changes policies, prices, and shows often. Be sure to visit our website at Parkmagic.com or Disneyland's Website for more information.

Park Magic is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or Disney Enterprises, Inc. Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Mickey Mouse are all registered trademarks of Disney Enterprises, Inc. Any use of third-party names or trademarks is for identification purposes only and does not imply, nor is it intended to imply, any affiliation with, endorsement from, or business relationship with any third party, including with Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Park Magic Podcast, your place for insider tips for your next Disneyland adventure. Whether you're a first-timer or first-time-in-a-while visitor, we're here to unwrap the secrets to creating and simplifying your dream Disneyland vacation.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the show, and today we're talking about the 40 plus days that Disneyland or California Adventure is going to be closing early between now and Halloween. So if you're booking a summer or early fall trip, it's important for you to listen to this episode to make sure you don't get caught by surprise, because the days that those park closes early even if there are fireworks for the event that they're showing that they're closing early for you might not have access to that. So let's go ahead and get into a little bit about these 40 plus days. So between now and Halloween is some of the busiest times in the park, but it's also the days that one or the other of the parks could close early. So if you're planning a trip, it's really important that you know these days. So if you go to parkmagiccom, forward slash early.

Speaker 2:

I have a list that we update on basically a weekly basis to make sure that we have all of the dates that we know that the park is closing early for a party or special event. Now, if you're not a Disney adult, you might not know that there are several events that people who are Disney adults get really excited about. These are things that can range from Christmas nights to grad night, pride nights, oogie boogie, bash night, star Wars night, so they have all of these different events, and the way that these special ticketed evening events work is that they, on a specific day, they'll release the dates and then a couple of days later or a couple of weeks later, they will announce the sale of these tickets. Now, these tickets can sell incredibly fast, like sometimes these events sell out within hours of the tickets going on sale, and they let people who have like annual passes which are called magic keys they're able to purchase those first. So it can be, you know, very quick that these tickets go from available to completely out of stock. So let's talk a little bit about the ones that are specifically happening between now and Halloween, because I know so many people plan on doing their Disney trip during the summer.

Speaker 2:

I want to make sure you know about these ahead of time Now. The first one is grad night and this is, for you know, specifically high school graduation schools. So these are already sold out and they've been sold out for a while. But if you're planning on going on one of these grad nights, and most of these grad night dates are going to be between May and mid-June. So they kind of run, for example, like in the next couple weeks we have May 19th, may 17th, may 22nd, 23rd, 31st, the 28th, so there are a grouping of dates and so on these dates the park that normally would be open till midnight during these busy periods will close just to people with those grad.

Speaker 2:

Unless you have a grad night badge and wristband, then they will have you leave the park and you might might say, well, how are they going to get everybody? They're not going to. I can sneak away and kind of not be and stay later in that park. What will happen is they will let those grad night students come in, usually around six, depending on the different parties. Sometimes they let those people with those special tickets come in closer to three, but most of the time it's around six and at eight or nine, depending on how the event is structured, they will close the park to regular guests and if you don't have this badge and wristband, they won't let you get in line to ride any rides. They won't even let you go into a restaurant to order. They usher everybody out of the park. So it's just people with these special credentials that are allowed to stay. Now that means that if you came during that day you might have been planning on. You know we can get there at 10. We can stay there till midnight, but if the park is closing to you by 9, you probably are not going to be able to see the fireworks if the event is at Disneyland and then if it's an event that it's a California adventure, you wouldn't be able to see World of Color. So the good thing about these special events is they only have one in a park at any given point in time, so it's never going to be that both parks close. It's either going to be California Adventure or it's going to be Disneyland, and for Grad Night it's California Adventure, and for pride night they close Disneyland. So we also have a Disneyland after dark. And those are just two dates right now. So we just have the 18th and the 20th of June, but then there are 27 nights that are closed for Oogie Boogie Bash and this is the one that is going to be going on sale shortly. They will sell out very quickly, more than likely, and Oogie Boogie Bash is a special Halloween event.

Speaker 2:

It's one of the few events where adults can dress up in the park and you can wear a costume. There'll be special meet and greets. They usually have like a villains trail where you can meet all sorts of people. So last year they had everybody from Bruno and they'll have special shows. They have a treat trail where you can get candy. They even have allergy friendly options for those candies. It is a very well attended, well loved event and it can be very crazy and very busy. So if you wanted to attend that, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the event page so you can learn more about it.

Speaker 2:

But you might say well, I don't, you know, I'm already paying a lot of money. I don't want to pay more money for this special ticketed event, but we already have a trip planned for that specific day. So here are your options If you already had a trip planned or you're planning a trip for that time that there is a party, and again, if you wanted to see which dates they were specifically. Now your first option is to buy a ticket for the party which we kind of talked about. The lines tend to be a lot shorter at the parties, especially Oogie Boogie Bash, because there's all of this focus on these special treats that are available, these character meet and greets, special parades, special nighttime shows, the line for some of the busier rides can actually be better, but it is a pretty significant cost and that might not be something that your family is up for.

Speaker 2:

So let's talk about your other options. So let's say you were planning on going to California Adventure on one of the nights when Oogie Boogie Bash was going to happen. What you could do is you could, if you already had tickets, you could upgrade to a part copper ticket. Now we don't wanna do that last minute. We upgrade to a part copper ticket Now. We don't want to do that last minute, we want to do that ahead of time because there already you know, there can be only so many part copper tickets available each day. But even if you already purchased, you can contact Disneyland support and you can upgrade to a part copper option If you purchase through a company like Undercover Tourist. The nice thing about Undercover Tourist is that you can, you know, refund and exchange your tickets.

Speaker 2:

So that would be and you know you could also look to see if you wanted to get a different ticketing option Now with the Park Hopper. You can't just buy it for one day. If you have like a multiple day pass, then it's kind of like an all or nothing thing. So you would buy the park hopper for the entire length of your stay. We find that park hoppers are the best value if you're staying over three or more days. If it's usually if it's two days, then I usually recommend a single park ticket.

Speaker 2:

The exception would be is if you know you really need to or want to be at a park, at the park on the day of one of these events. So if you have a park hopper, the benefit to the big benefit to having that park hopper is I would start my day at the park where the party is happening. Now that's going to sound a little counterintuitive, but because all of the people without that park hopper option are likely going to pick the other park. So for for Oogie Boogie Bash, they're going to say, well, I don't want to only have you know, a half a day, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to Disneyland. So on the days of those parties the park without the party tends to be a lot busier.

Speaker 2:

So I would start if I was going on an Oogie Boogie Bash day, so one of those 27 days between now and Halloween, where they're having an Oogie Boogie evening event, then I would start my day at California Adventure and make sure that I'm there as close to park opening as possible, take advantage of rides as much as possible, kind of live my best California Adventure life, as George would say, and then even take my nap a little bit later and then come back to Disneyland after our nap and kind of hang out there. I would still be able to see the fireworks at Disneyland, and then the next day you could kind of do it the opposite direction. So if you were doing, if you have a park hopper ticket, that would be my recommendation. Now, if you don't want to do, you've already, you know you already kind of maxed out your budget. You don't want to buy a party ticket, you don't want to upgrade to a park hopper.

Speaker 2:

The other option is kind of what I alluded to early. If you know there's going to be an Oogie Boogie event on the day that you're going to visit, or a pride night or a grad night, then you could pick the other park. So let's say it was going to be a Grad Night, so maybe you're planning on coming on May 31st. Then what I would say is okay, if I don't want to have a park hopper, I don't want to go to the event, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to have my day, be at Disneyland and spend all day at Disneyland there.

Speaker 2:

The nice thing about these parties is it's very rarely that they'll be on consecutive dates. It's usually several days between, so you can kind of alternate on a day that is not going to have that party where it has the early close. Like I said, early though, it can be busier in that park because so many more people will select that park, can be busier in that park because so many more people will select that park. So for that day, I would recommend getting there as close to rope drop as possible, taking a nap. And you know, in some of our Instagram videos and things along those lines, we've alluded to how amazing it can be to close out the park, for you to kind of wait and kind of plan your day to be available at the end of the day when the rides are a lot lower.

Speaker 2:

That will not happen on days with party event in the other park, because all the people with park hoppers or annual passes, magic key holders, will leave that that other park and come to Disneyland for Oogie Boogie, for example, or for Grad Night, it will be the opposite. So all of the people with annual keys or with park hopper tickets are going to move from the park that has the party to the park that doesn't have the party. So it will get busier in the evening instead of getting less busy. So on those days I would probably give an extra recommendation that you use Genie+, and we actually allow this kind of in our calculation of whether you use Genie+, we have a GeniePlus quiz. So if you go to parkmagiccom forward, slash GenieQuiz, we actually go through a couple of questions and we'll tell you how much we you know how strongly we recommend you use GeniePlus or not.

Speaker 2:

So if one of the things that we take into account is on those dates, if there's going to be a party on one of the days that you're there, so the last option, if you don't want to do any of those, if it seems overwhelming, you could also change your park dates. This is when having fully refundable park options can really help, and this is also why we really love undercover tourists to purchase those park tickets, because they are refundable with the exception of about 5%, whereas if you purchase them directly with Disney, you can use them for a future date. You can have that credit, you know, going forward, but you can't get that money back. If one of the tools that we have on Park Magic is a tool to help you find the best price and ticket, you can check that out as well and we have links so you can compare different reliable vendors that we have. If you're worried about those party events, you can still have an amazing day even if the park is closing early for an event.

Speaker 2:

You just want to make sure you plan for it. Maybe you adjust nap times, maybe you make some different plans, but usually with either some combination of either purchasing a park hopper ticket or starting and staying in the park that doesn't have the event, then you can really work around those party dates. The biggest thing is to make sure that you know when those party dates are happening. In our planning tool we actually will alert you if we see that you're planning a date with one of those early close dates. While selecting your dates is always a big deal when you're planning a trip to Disneyland, knowing what days the park will close early is even more important during the summer and fall when there's a big uptick in the total number of events between grad night and oogie boogie Halloween party nights. Then you can quickly plan around that by having a park hopper ticket, going to the event or reserving in another park or even just changing your dates to dates that are not going to be affected by those party nights.

Speaker 2:

One thing you also might want to consider is, especially around those party nights you might see that hotel prices increase.

Speaker 2:

So it can be a good thing to take a look at all of those factors, just like we talk about in our Park Magic University course, where you can kind of see make sure you've kind of looked at not only park tickets, the early closed dates, closed refurbishments which we have all of those listed in Park Magic for you so they're easy to find and then also looking at hotel and flight costs, then finalizing your date, making sure you get everything reserved as closely as possible, because, especially as we get closer to those nights or for example right now, the hotel nights might not be as expensive for oogie boogie park nights.

Speaker 2:

But once those tickets go on sale and people confirm that they're going to attend those nights the park, the hotel prices for the near the parks might go up significantly. So if you're planning an event, it's good to get those dates finalized quickly, before these park dates sell out, and get everything booked. And then I like to book my hotel, especially with a refundable option. This way, if we need to change our dates for any reason or cancel our trip, we're able to do that without a lot of stress. So I hope this quick episode has been helpful and you can find out the dates that the park closes early at parkmagiccom. Forward slash early. Thanks.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Park Magic Podcast. For more tips and planning tools designed to help simplify your Disneyland adventure, visit parkmagiccom. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to hear more tips, be sure to subscribe to the Park Magic Podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us spread the magic even further. Leaving a review could also help you. Each month, we will be selecting one reviewer to win a one-hour planning session with Robin. Winners will be announced at the end of the first episode of every month. Thanks for tuning in and remember that we are here to help you have a less stressful and more magical trip to Disneyland.