Disney just added three more Moonlight Magic nights for 2026!
Disney Vacation Club members, mark your calendars: three brand-new after-hours nights just got added to the 2026 calendar, and one of them lands three days before Christmas.
Just when it looked like the Moonlight Magic schedule for the year was locked in, Disney tacked on three more nights. If you’re a DVC member who missed out earlier this year, or you just can’t get enough of an empty theme park after dark, this is your second chance.
Disney Vacation Club has added a new Moonlight Magic date at EPCOT on October 15, plus two new dates at Disney’s Animal Kingdom on November 30 and December 22. Early registration opens September 24 for eligible members with qualifying Walt Disney World resort reservations, and those reservations needed to be booked or modified by September 20. General registration for everyone else opens October 1, though availability will be limited, as always.
Not sure if you qualify? Moonlight Magic is a Membership Extra reserved for DVC members with at least 150 vacation points purchased directly from Disney, not through a resale broker. If your points came from the secondary market, this perk isn’t available to you, unfortunately. For the early registration window specifically, you’ll need a qualifying Walt Disney World resort reservation booked (or modified) before that September 20 cutoff. No qualifying resort stay on the books yet? You’re not shut out, just bumped to general registration on October 1 alongside every other eligible member.
Here’s the part that’ll get some members excited: Disney is letting eligible DVC members register for one of these new dates even if they already attended a Moonlight Magic event earlier in 2026. Normally it’s one event per membership per year, so this is a genuine bonus round.
For anyone who hasn’t experienced it, Moonlight Magic is one of the best-kept perks of owning DVC points directly from Disney (rather than buying resale). The parks stay open late exclusively for members and their guests, with shorter waits, free snacks, rare character meet-and-greets, and a level of quiet you basically never get at Walt Disney World anymore.
It’s also older than a lot of members realize. The concept started back in the summer of 2015 as a handful of after-hours nights at Blizzard Beach, nicknamed “Beach Bash.” In 2016, Disney expanded it and renamed it Moonlight Magic to celebrate DVC’s 25th anniversary, adding Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, and Disneyland to the mix. It’s grown every year since, and 2026 alone spans EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Typhoon Lagoon, and Disney California Adventure.
The October EPCOT date lines up with the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, so members attending that night get a rare after-hours run at festival kiosks with none of the daytime crowds. The December 22 Animal Kingdom date is the standout of the three, since it falls right in the middle of the holiday season, a stretch when the parks are usually packed wall to wall.
Moonlight Magic is separate from Extended Evening Theme Park Hours, so don’t mix the two up. Extended Evening Hours are open to any qualifying resort guest on select nights. Moonlight Magic is strictly a DVC member perk, and you have to register ahead of time to get in.
If you’re an eligible member, put September 24 on your calendar for early registration, and October 1 if you’re going the general registration route. Spots for these events tend to go fast, so don’t wait around once your window opens.
We’ll keep tracking DVC news like this all year, so check back with Theme Park Scope for the next update, and don’t forget to follow us on social for real-time alerts when new dates or perks drop.
Which of these three new dates would YOU want to snag if you could only pick one?
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