Disneyland Evening Strategy 2025- Best Tips for Staying Until Park Close

You've probably heard of the common advice to rope drop Disneyland and arrive early each day to enjoy low waits for popular rides. While this is great advice, this isn't the only two hours of the day you can take advantage of low wait times!

For those of us that aren't early birds, staying late at the parks is also a great strategy for getting on rides with low wait times. If you commit to staying in the parks until closing, which can be as late as midnight, you will experience the same low wait times you do in the morning.

This strategy is perfect for teens and adults that can handle staying at the parks to closing. Once my son got older and hit that teenage age, we switched out Disneyland touring from early mornings to closing the park and I've found we experience crowds that are even lower than the mornings! Since teenagers don't often like to wake up early, planning to sleep in and stay at the parks all night is a great method to do instead of morning rope drop.

This article has been checked for accuracy for 2025 and updated with all currently available information.

How Late is Disneyland Open?

Disneyland follows patterns in terms of closing hours throughout the year which we discuss at length in our guide to Disneyland's opening and closing schedules.

During most times of the year, Disneyland will be open until midnight and Disney California Adventure until 10PM. During slower times of the year, like January through May, it's not uncommon to see Disneyland close earlier but often never before 10PM.

This is a big advantage that Disneyland has over Walt Disney World which rarely keeps their parks open late except for ticketed events. In fact, this is one of my favorite things about Disneyland! If you are visiting during a time when Disneyland is open until midnight, which does end up being most of the year, then you can really take advantage of these late hours.

Skip Disneyland Lightning Lane for Night Strategy

If you plan on closing the parks, this is one time you do not need to purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass unless you plan on using it during the day before the evening. Disneyland Lightning Lane Multi Pass starts at $32 per person and allows guests to access the shorter line (called the Lightning Lane) for the top attractions in the parks.

We have a thorough guide to Disney Lightning Lane Multi Pass  based on a couple of days testing out the service that is a MUST READ as you get ready for your Disneyland trip.

Lightning Lane Multi Pass is not worth it by the end of the end of the day as most return times will be unavailable. If you plan on focusing on just the last few hours of the night, then you can easily skip purchasing Lightning Lane Multi Pass. But if you plan on arriving earlier, then it may be worth it as long as you verify how many rides are available. Ride reservations are limited even if you purchase the service, they can run out by the end of the day!

Most Popular Disneyland Rides

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The Disneyland night strategy is a lot more flexible than our Disneyland morning strategy mainly because the parks really empty out with only a few attractions keeping their long wait times.

Let's start first with the Disneyland rides that tend to hold on to longer wait times throughout the day listed in order of highest average wait time to least:

• Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
• Space Mountain
• Indiana Jones Adventure
• Peter Pan's Flight
• Matterhorn Bobsleds
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

There is a trick to rope dropping Peter Pan's Flight after the fireworks (more on this next!) but as for the rest, you will see the longest wait times for these out of the rest of the rides at Disneyland.

Two of the rides on this list are not available the entire evening which is crucial to know when strategizing for an evening at Disneyland. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance closes at 10PM each night so in order to ride this attraction you need to be in line before it closes. Peter Pan's Flight, along with many of the other Fantasyland attractions, will close for the Disneyland fireworks which usually take place at 9:30PM.

For the purpose of my Disneyland night strategy, I will focus on the most popular rides on this list. Everything else in the parks, even popular options like Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, will have low wait times consistently once the fireworks end making it easy to fit these into your evening depending on what your priority is.

How to Rope Drop Fantasyland After Fireworks

Peter Pan's Flight is one of the most popular rides in the park with long, consistent lines throughout the day. This is also a ride that does not offer Lightning Lane which just further creates the need to consider strategies to experience the ride with lower wait times.

Disneyland closes Fantasyland before the fireworks show, which typically takes place at 9:30PM, each night. Fantasyland will open about 15 minutes after the show ends and you will see guests lining up to get on Peter Pan's Flight long before this.

Cast members will actually start forming a line for Peter Pan's Flight that starts near Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and will only allow about 50 or so people in line before the close it off. When Fantasyland opens, cast members will escort that line to Peter Pan and start loading this group first. Once that line has been led over the queue, they will drop the rope for everyone else to access the land!

Disneyland Evening Strategy

So now that we've talked about how to get into Fantasyland at night after the fireworks end, let's focus on our Disneyland evening strategy which prioritizes the most popular rides in Disneyland park.

• By 9PM, get in line for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. At this time of the day, the line is often the shortest and the time might be inflated on the app. You may end up waiting 30 minutes but this will be the best time of the day to do it.
• After Rise of the Resistance, line up to rope drop Fantasyland after the fireworks. If you arrive early enough, you might even be led to the attraction by cast members to avoid the general stampede and placed first in the line. Your wait time for Peter Pan's Flight should be less than 30 minutes or even better, depending on your position.
• After Peter Pan's Flight, check the app to see what the longest line in the parks is. Save that attraction (likely Space Mountain) for right before park closing.
• Ride Matterhorn Bobsleds which should have a wait of less than 30 minutes by this point in the day.
• Head to the side of the parks with Frontierland, Adventureland, and New Orleans Square. This side of the park clears out the fastest at night. This is when you can enjoy the lowest wait times for Big Thunder Mountain, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion which are all classic Disney favorites.
• Eyeball the queue for Indiana Jones Adventure to see if you can see anyone in line outside. If you can't, that means using a Lightning Lane for this attraction is useless as the entire line is inside the temple. This attraction is often like this for the last hour of the park being open.
• Save Space Mountain for right before park closing, get in line just five minutes before park closes to end the night with this attraction which stays popular in the evenings since it's such a draw for teens and adults.

Of course, you can swap out any of these rides with any others you want to prioritize. One of the best parts of a Disneyland evening strategy is how flexible it is. Most of the rides will be at their lowest wait times of the day or at least close to what they are in the mornings before crowds arrive.

Low Wait Disneyland Rides at Night

As for the rest of the attractions in the park, I recommend taking advantage of any low wait times that you see for ones that are a priority for your group. Some rides that tend to have longer waits during the day we see drop to under 20 minutes in the last hour before park closes include:

• Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
• Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway
• Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run
• Jungle Cruise
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Haunted Mansion
• Snow White’s Enchanted Wish
• Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin
• Alice in Wonderland

Some of these might even be walk ons! We see this often with Star Tours, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Manson, and Jungle Cruise.

Staying Late During Holidays at Disneyland

During the Halloween and holiday seasons, we see the largest crowds of the year at Disneyland. Our crowd calendar identifies the best days to visit based on crowd trends, weather patterns, and our personal weekly park experiences.

I have the experience of being in the park for every major holiday at least once over the years. What I have discovered that even on days like Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day that the parks are far more manageable in the few hours before park closing.

One memorable Thanksgiving trip, morning rope drop wasn't even a possibility due to crowds even before we entered the park, so my teenager and I planned on staying until the park closed. Once the fireworks ended at 10PM, the park noticeably emptied to the point that even Haunted Mansion Holiday was a walk on! Haunted Mansion Holiday is the holiday transformation of Haunted Mansion to a Nightmare Before Christmas theme for Halloween and the holiday season. As you can imagine, this draws a lot of interest in the ride and creates the high demands which translate into long lines. During this Thanksgiving, we ended up riding the attraction three times in a row because there was barely anyone in the queue.

Another factor that plays into your favor with late evening strategies at Disneyland during the holiday season is the change in temperature. The parks will be noticeably colder in the evenings which is another factor in pushing guests to leave before Disneyland officially closes.

Disney California Adventure Closes Earlier

So what about Disney California Adventure? Unfortunately, this park doesn't stay open until midnight like Disneyland commonly does. The latest we usually see is 10PM which doesn't have the same impact on crowd levels that we see at Disneyland.

However, you will still see lower wait times for rides with just a few exceptions like Radiator Springs Racers and Guardians of the Galaxy- Mission: BREAKOUT! Those two rides often hold long wait times even up until park closing.

But the rides that you can easily tackle in that last two hours before the park closes are ones that often have long waits through the day like Soarin' Around the World, Incredicoaster, Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters, Goofy's Sky School and WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure.

One of my favorite times to ride Goofy's Sky School and Incredicoaster is during World of Color, the nightly water projection show that takes place by Pixar Pier.

Mobile Order Food for After Park Close

Jolly Holiday Cafe is my favorite place to grab food at the end of the night after closing out the parks. This is one of the few quick service restaurants that stays open until midnight but you can place a mobile order with an arrival time of 12AM to 12:15AM.

We usually plan on eating at Jolly Holiday Cafe on the way out of the parks after we finish riding the attractions. There's not many food options past 10PM in Disneyland and this is a good tip to keep in mind if your group gets hungry at the end of the night.

Stay in Disneyland After It Closes

You can stay in Disneyland until 1AM on nights that the parks close at midnight. This is because the stores on Main Street, U.S.A. stay open one hour after park closing. The rest of the park will officially close at midnight but this part of Disneyland remains open.

This is also nice if you do mobile order from Jolly Holiday for right at park close because you can enjoy your food in the park before you leave.

This is my favorite way to enjoy Disneyland with a teenager and it's the perfect way to do the parks if you have teens, adults, or a family that just likes to stay up late.

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