Beginning next month, Disney’s Animal Kingdom will stop closing at its current time of 11pm and will begin closing earlier, at 9pm. This trend continues into October and November with closing moving as early as 6pm in November.

Tree of life at night at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Now while it is possible for Disney to be altering the times based on seasonality and when the sun goes down, the sun is barely down at 6/7pm in these months so it is unlikely that nighttime events will continue into the fall.

This in combination with Jungle Book: Alive with Magic closing on September 5th seems to  suggest that crowds are not flocking to the park in the evenings, at least not as Disney had hoped.

While I think Animal Kingdom late nights will return when Avatar opens next year, it did seem strange to me that Disney would want to introduce Rivers of Light during the winter months, something not looking likely if these park hours have anything to go by!

Of course all of this could just be temporary while Disney plan the introduction of Rivers of Light show and we could see all of this change again soon, all of this is just speculation at this stage.

Let us know what you think of the change in hours in the comments below!