MouseCal

Service outages

2011-12-29T08:47:00.001-06:00

The service is periodically reaching the daily request threshold of the hosting provider. Once the threshold is reached, no more requests will be processed until the next day when the quota is reset.

June and July 2012 Updates

2011-12-29T08:44:00.002-06:00

Operating hours have been updated through July 31, 2012.

May 2012 Updates

2011-10-19T12:43:00.000-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through May 31, 2012.

April 2012 Updates

2011-09-21T09:12:00.002-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through April 30, 2012.

March 2012 Updates

2011-08-18T10:18:00.002-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through March 31, 2012.

February 2012 Updates

2011-07-21T09:30:00.001-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through February 28, 2012. (Note that February 2012 is a leap year, so there is a February 29, 2012!)

October, November, and December 2011 and January 2012 Updates

2011-06-22T22:02:00.003-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through January 31, 2012. January 31, 2012 is how far out the data goes.

I would like to apologize for not updating the park hours for so many months. Walt Disney World park hours for the rest of the summer have been updated as well. It seems that Disney has been increasing park hours. They must be expecting more guests.

September 2011 Updates

2011-02-16T20:59:00.001-06:00

Operating hours have been updated through September 29, 2011. September 29, 2011 is how far out the data goes.

August 2011 Updates

2011-01-20T07:27:00.001-06:00

Operating hours have been updated through August 30, 2011. August 30, 2011 is how far out the data goes. (And July 2011 is available too. But I forgot to post when those hours were released.)

June 2011 Updates

2010-12-06T23:03:00.000-06:00

Operating hours have been updated through June 29, 2011. June 29, 2011 is how far out the data goes.

May 2011 Updates

2010-10-22T13:24:00.001-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through May 30, 2011. May 30, 2011 is how far out the data goes.

April 2011 Updates

2010-10-19T11:33:00.001-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through April 29, 2011. April 29, 2011 is how far out the data goes. (I have fallen a bit behind on the March 2011 updates, but we are up-to-date now.)

Operating Hours Discrepancy: August 15, 2010

2010-08-08T12:53:00.004-05:00

From time to time I have found data discrepancies in the official Disney World operating hour data. Today I spent some time to figure out an error that I was experiencing in synchronizing the data. I discovered that on August 15, 2010, the operating hours for the Magic Kingdom are designated as 9:00 AM to 11:00 PM with evening extra magic hours of 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM. (My synchronization process marks this data invalid because evening extra magic hours have a duration of up to 3 hours, but 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM is a duration of 4 hours.) Looking at data that I extracted earlier for August 15, 2010, the Magic Kingdom's operating hours were listed as 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM with evening extra magic hours of 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM. I wonder if Disney has determined that they need to extend the Magic Kingdom park hours an extra hour due to crowd levels, from 9-10 to 9-11, but the software that reports the park hours on the Disney World web site has the old extra magic hours start time of 10:00 PM instead of the new start time of 11:00 PM.

February 2011 Updates

2010-08-08T12:52:00.002-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through February 27, 2011. February 27, 2011 is how far out the data goes; no February 28, 2011.

January 2011 Updates

2010-06-29T13:16:00.002-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through January 30, 2011. January 30, 2011 is how far out the data goes; no January 31, 2011.

December 2010 Updates

2010-05-24T22:04:00.002-05:00

Operating hours have been updated through December 30, 2010. December 30, 2010 is how far out the data goes; no December 31, 2010.

May 2010 Updates

2009-11-21T00:31:00.001-06:00

Operating hours have been updated from November 1, 2009 through May 30, 2010. May 30, 2010 is how far out the data goes; no May 31, 2010.

Daylight savings time in the Magic Kingdom on March 14, 2010

2009-11-20T13:27:00.004-06:00

I noticed an interesting situation for the operating hours of the Magic Kingdom on March 14, 2010. This day is the second Sunday in March is the day in the United States when daylight time begins. The operating hours are listed for the Magic Kindom on March 14, 2010 as:

Normal hours: 9:00 AM - 11:00 PM
Extra Magic evening hours: 11:00 PM - 2:00 AM

Due to the algorithm employed during parsing the dates, I have to determine that the 2:00 AM time listed for March 14, 2010 really means 2:00 AM early the next morning on March 15, 2010. But the date logic that I use knows that March 14, 2010 is the beginning of daylight time, which happens on March 14, 2010 AT 2:00 AM! So the date logic pushes the time component out to 3:00 AM. But then when I push the date over to the next morning on March 15, 2010, the duration of the extra magic hours is wrong because they are 11:00 PM - 3:00 AM, 4 hours. I will need to fix my logic to handle conversions during the date when daylight time starts. Once that is done, I will publish operating hours out past the beginning of March 2010.

Automated updates have arrived

2009-05-27T20:16:00.003-05:00

The latest update was performed automatically. I have completed the automatic synchronization program that I alluded to earlier. The program uses the data available from the Park Hours page on the Walt Disney World web site. This synchronization program will hopefully keep MouseCal's data more accurate as Disney publishes new information.

August 2009 (almost) Updates

2009-05-27T20:13:00.001-05:00

I have updated May through August 2009 (except for August 31--for some reason it wasn't published by Disney) in MouseCal.

Automated updates, coming soon

2009-05-18T23:38:00.002-05:00

I haven't updated the park hours for a couple months now. In my last update at the beginning of January I mentioned that Disney was rolling out a new web site with a new "park hours" calendar. In the past few weeks I have been developing a program to extract the operating hour information from the HTML. Tonight, I have verified that my algorithm is able to successfully extract the operating hour data. Next on my list is to modify the site so that I can automatically synchronize the extracted data into MouseCal. The hope is that an automated process can be used to keep the MouseCal data as up to date as possible.

January 2009 Updates

2009-01-04T20:53:00.002-06:00

I have updated the January 2009 calendar. It looks like they are rolling out a new web site for the parks that includes a new calendar. (Though at the time of this writing, their calendar is empty.) They also now have a "park hours" calendar that shows the park operating hours for all of the parks for the next 10 days. This pretty handy for park planning.

November through April 2009 Updates

2008-11-22T19:46:00.004-06:00

I have updated all of the calendars from November though April 2009. Most parks had a decrease in hours on a couple of days each month. I suppose this is a response to the economy and maybe related to the number of advanced hotel bookings.

April 2009 water park operating hours

2008-10-11T18:04:00.002-05:00

Disney has released the April 2009 water park operating hours... and Mousecal has been updated accordingly. (You get some Extra Magic Hours at both water parks for Easter/spring break.)

April 2009 "Extra Magic Hours" available

2008-10-07T20:31:00.001-05:00

Disney has published the breakdown of the February 2009 Extra Magic Hours. I have update MouseCal accordingly. (Still no calendar yet for the water parks.)

April 2009 dates available

2008-10-04T15:31:00.001-05:00

March 2009 date available

2008-09-12T13:14:00.003-05:00

The operating hours for March 2009 for all of the parks are now available in MouseCal. Disney has also updated the extra magic hours page for March 2009 too.

There appears to be an anomaly with the extra magic hours page and the calendar for Disney's Animal Kingdom Park for March 2009. It appears that the extra magic evening hours are different between the page and the calendar. I updated the MouseCal based on the calendar. I suspect that there was a cut and paste error in the extra magic evening hours page for Animal Kingdom, as they the same as the Hollywood Studios extra magic evening hours in the line above. I will keep my eye out to see if this changes though.

Another interesting thing is that Typhoon Lagoon is scheduled to open back up on March 22, 2009, completing the refurbishment that is scheduled to start on October 26, 2008. That is almost a 5 month refurbishment!

February 2009 "Extra Magic Hours" available

2008-09-06T15:57:00.002-05:00

Disney has published the breakdown of the February 2009 Extra Magic Hours. I have update MouseCal accordingly.

Magic Kingdom: Updates again to October 3 and 4

2008-08-26T11:04:00.002-05:00

The Magic Kingdom calendar for October 3 and 4, 2008, has been updated again. This time, October 3 went from 9-7 to 9-9 and October 4 went from 9-9 to 9-7. October 4 is now a night for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

How to: Google Calendar

2008-08-23T20:43:00.007-05:00

I have just added a "How to" for Google Calendar and MouseCal. In this article, I describe how I used MouseCal and Google Calendar to generate a custom calendar for a recent trip that I took to Disney World. This calendar came in very handy for planning our daily visits. With the calendar, we were able to seen which park had morning and evening Extra Magic Hours. This allowed us to try a strategy that I had heard recently on a Disney-related podcast. The strategy is to go to the park that had evening Extra Magic Hours the night before. The thinking is that many of the resort guests would make use of the extra hours the night before and therefore not visit this same park the next morning. I don't know how well this strategy worked, but I don't feel that it was a bad strategy at least.

I also plan to use this calendar technique for future trips. For instance, this can be helpful in planning dining ADRs. You can request an ADR at a park that you are planning to use Extra Magic Hours in, making the best use of your time by not wasting travel time from the restaurant to the park on that day.

February 2009 dates available

2008-08-21T19:51:00.002-05:00

The operating hours for all of the parks are now available in MouseCal. Disney has not updated the extra magic hours page yet to indicate the morning and evening extra magic hours. Once they do, the information will be added to MouseCal.

Currently, Typhoon Lagoon is still schedule to be "Closed for Refurbishment" through all of February now. Overall, the water park is currently schedule for refurbishment starting 10/26/2008 though 2/28/2009. That is over 4 months.

Disney World parks get extra hour for Fay

2008-08-18T21:51:00.003-05:00

The four Disney World parks will each open an hour early (8:00 am) tomorrow (8/19/2008) because of the approaching Tropical Storm Fay. The calendars for the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom have all been updated to reflect this.

Waterpark Update: More refurbishment for Typhoon Lagoon

2008-08-18T21:36:00.003-05:00

It looks like Typhoon Lagoon will get more refurbishment time. This has pushed the refurbishment for Blizzard Beach up a bit. I have updated the respective calendars to indicate that Blizzard Beach will now be closed for refurbishment from 9/28/2008 through 10/25/2008. Typhoon Lagoon is now scheduled to be closed for refurbishment from 10/26/2008 through the current end of the schedule which is the 1/31/2009.

January 2009 water park operating hours

2008-08-15T12:35:00.002-05:00

Disney has released the January 2009 water park operating hours... and Mousecal has been updated accordingly. Basically, Blizzard Beach will be open this January from 10-5 and Typhoon Lagoon will be "Closed for Refurbishment".

Magic Kingdom closing early October 3 and/or 4?

2008-08-10T14:53:00.003-05:00

There have been some anecdotal evidence that the Magic Kingdom may be closing early on October 3rd and/or 4th, 2008. The official calendar doesn't indicate an early closure yet though.

January 2009 Extra Magic Hours

2008-07-22T21:23:00.003-05:00

The January 2009 Extra Magic Hours for the four theme parks are now available, completing the operating hours for these parks. Still no update on the two water parks though.

For all those runners out there (me being one of them), you now have some information to start planning your 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. (The half marathon is Saturday, January 10, 2009 and the full marathon is Sunday, January 11, 2009.)

January 2009 dates available

2008-07-21T13:10:00.005-05:00

The operating hours for the four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom) are now available in MouseCal. Disney hasn't yet updated the extra magic hours page with details about which days are extra magic morning or evening. Once they do, this information will be added to MouseCal. The operating hours for January 2009 for the water parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon) has not yet been published. I assume this is because Typhoon Lagoon is coming out of its refurbishment, which started in November 2008, some time and Blizzard Beach will be going down for refurbishment once Typhoon Lagoon is operational; but those dates aren't yet known.

There has been some buzz in the Disney fan community this morning that Fantasmic! in the Hollywood Studios is only scheduled for Monday's and Thursday's starting January 4, 2009.

January 2009 dates available soon

2008-07-21T10:57:00.003-05:00

Disney has updated their online calendar of park operating hours for January 2009. MouseCal will be updated with this information soon; a post will announce when the data is available.

Initial operating hours

2008-07-18T22:16:00.003-05:00

The MouseCal application is officially launched. This initial launch includes the operating hours for the Walt Disney World resort, in Florida, for July through December 2008.

Watch this blog (which is easy if you subscribe to the feed) for updates as Disney makes future operating hours available.

Welcome

2008-07-17T16:33:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the MouseCal blog. This blog is used to communicate information related to the MouseCal application. I expect that there will be updates as the park schedules for Walt Disney World are released. Also, if there are any corrections or such, I plan to announce them here.

I hope the information provided by MouseCal is useful.