This week at Walt Disney World, hours are extended to cope with increasing crowd levels at the theme parks, the EPCOT Monorail reopens, plus new previews for the 50th anniversary of the resort are released! 

Outside Walt Disney World, SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa officially return to full capacity and new houses are announced for this year's Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando Resort. 

1. EPCOT Monorail reopens after 16 month closure

The EPCOT  Monorail officially reopened this week after being closed since March 2020 when the parks initially closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this reopening, the bus service from Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney’s Contemporary Resort and eventually Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort will be discontinued since the monorail will be available.

2. Hours extended at all Walt Disney World theme parks 

Due to high crowd levels Disney has increased hours at all of their theme parks, making the following changes:

• Disney's Hollywood Studios will close an hour later in September at 9:00 PM
• Disney's Animal Kingdom: The park will have an 8:00 PM close in July, and then a 7:00 PM close from the original 6:00 PM
• EPCOT will now have a 10:00 PM closing on the weekend, an hour later than previously scheduled.  
• Magic Kingdom, will close an hour later the first week of August before going back to an earlier close due to the start of the After Hours Boo Bash 

You can check out the full calendar with updated hours here. 

3. PhillharMagic behind the scenes video released

Disney has released a new behind-the-scenes video showing off the creative process that went into adding a new scene inspired by Coco to PhilharMagic. You can check out the video featuring Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald above.