Disney Posted Hours for The Magic of Disney Animation, and From September 28 It Opens an Hour After the Park and Closes at 6

The Magic of Disney Animation opens at Disney's Hollywood Studios on Monday, and Disney has now posted what time it will actually be open. The answer changes on September 28, and the new window is shorter at both ends of the park day.

The quick facts: the new animation complex runs roughly park open to park close for its first two weeks. From September 28 onward, the posted schedule is 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Olaf Draws!, the drawing class inside, carries the same hours and will use a virtual queue that cannot be joined in the My Disney Experience app. Guests have to go to the venue and sign up in person.

The posted hours

WDW News Today pulled the schedule off the Walt Disney World website on Thursday and reported that the attraction "will have a fluctuating schedule for the next few weeks." The posted hours are:

• September 14 to 17: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• September 18 to 19: 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• September 20 to 27: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• September 28 and onward: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Two weeks of long days, in other words, and then a much shorter daily window from September 28 onward. The 8:30 a.m. start on September 18 and 19 is not special treatment for the attraction. Hollywood Studios itself opens at 8:30 a.m. on both of those dates, so the attraction is simply matching park opening, which is what WDWMagic notes as well.

What 10 to 6 costs you

Hollywood Studios is posting 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on most days, with Early Entry from 8:30 a.m. for eligible guests. WDWMagic, which reported the same schedule, notes that the park "continues to open at 9am with Early Entry from 8:30am on most days, meaning the attraction won't be accessible for the first hour of the park day." Inside the Magic made the same comparison and pointed out that a 6 p.m. close puts the attraction to bed well before the park's nighttime entertainment.

Both outlets add the same context: it is normal for walk-throughs and show venues at Walt Disney World to run fewer hours than the park around them once the opening rush settles. Inside the Magic names Walt Disney Presents and the EPCOT character spots as examples. It still means that from September 28 the building is shut for the first hour of the park day, and Inside the Magic tells guests entering at opening to use that hour on the headliners in Galaxy's Edge, Toy Story Land and Sunset Boulevard instead, then head for Animation Courtyard when the doors open at 10 a.m.

One caveat worth carrying, and Inside the Magic put it well: Disney can change attraction hours at any time, so the September 28 listing "should be understood as the currently posted schedule rather than a formally announced permanent operating policy." Calendars this far out move. This is what Disney has published today, not a promise.

Olaf Draws! is walk up only

The second piece of news is the queue, and it breaks with how Walt Disney World has trained everyone to think about virtual queues. WDW News Today reports that "while most virtual queues allow guests to join via the My Disney Experience app at select times of day, guests will have to physically go to Olaf Draws! to join its waitlist."

No timed drop in the app, no refreshing from the bus. You walk to the room and put your name down. WDWNT draws the obvious conclusion: get into the park early and into that queue early, and your chances of seeing the presentation go up.

Stack that against the 10 a.m. start from September 28 and the shape of the day gets narrow. The attraction opens at 10, the waitlist is only joinable in person, and the whole thing closes at 6. That is an eight-hour operating window, and no source has said how late into it the waitlist stays open.

Olaf Draws! is hosted by an all-new Audio-Animatronics figure of Olaf and runs on pre-recorded segments with Disney animators, and there are multiple versions of the show teaching different characters. One of them, the Genie class taught by animator Eric Goldberg, plays clips from Back to Neverland, the short that starred Robin Williams and Walter Cronkite, which WDWNT says the class uses as a nod to the original Magic of Disney Animation.

What else is in there

The Disney Parks Blog lists three things alongside Olaf Draws!: Off the Page!, Drawn to Wonderland, and the Once Upon a Studio Theater. It adds an enchanted art gallery, which Disney's own map labels the Galleries, and says "for the first time at Walt Disney World, all 64 animated feature films are represented throughout this imaginative, fan-first setting." The building is the former Star Wars Launch Bay, and the surrounding Animation Courtyard has been reimagined as The Walt Disney Studios lot, though Disney still calls the area the reimagined Animation Courtyard in that same Parks Blog post.

Sources

• WDW News Today, "Operating Hours Revealed for The Magic of Disney Animation at Disney's Hollywood Studios"
• WDW News Today, "Olaf Draws at Disney's Hollywood Studios Will Use Virtual Queue, Must Sign Up in Person"
• WDW News Today, on the full Olaf Draws! show and the Back to Neverland clips in the Genie class
• WDWMagic, "Magic of Disney Animation Operating Hours Released, Opening Weeks Run to Park Close, Then Hours Shorten"
• Inside the Magic, on the posted hours and the park hours comparison
• Walt Disney World, The Magic of Disney Animation attraction page
• Disney Parks Blog, on what is inside the complex

Image credits: Olaf Draws! entrance, courtyard exterior and sign detail photographed by WDW News Today. Attraction map by Disney.