The Parks Walt Disney World tipped fully into holiday mode, and the data backs up what anyone standing in an EPCOT crowd already felt in their knees. The park ran three levels hot on November 12, landing around a 7 out of 10 on the busyness scale, busier than two-thirds of its own past year for a plain Thursday. The cause is obvious: Food & Wine still has its hooks in World Showcase, and a pre-Veterans-Day crowd needed somewhere to be. Meanwhile Magic Kingdom hollowed out as the Christmas Party pulled guests toward Main Street and away from the rest of the park, a pattern regulars know well by now. Planning your Disney trip? Download Lightning Brain from the App Store or visit lightningbrain.app to optimize every minute of your park day. EPCOT itself is mid-transformation. Decorations are already up from the front entrance to the trees in World Showcase, lit after dark and ready for the Festival of the Holidays to take over once Food & Wine closes out. Disney has also confirmed pricing for one of the festival’s most popular add-on experiences, giving planners a number to budget around instead of a guess. Animal Kingdom got its share of the spotlight too, with Mickey and Minnie debuting their holiday outfits for meet and greets, decor spreading through the park, and attention finally shifting away from the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios parties that have dominated the conversation. Over at Disneyland, the Festival of Holidays soft-opened at California Adventure to the kind of crowd that makes an hour disappear before you’ve ordered a single festive snack. Disneyland’s full 2026 holiday season runs November 13 through January 6, and the broader guide covering food, entertainment, and merch is already out for anyone building a plan. The bigger structural news for Magic Kingdom: Bryan Cranston, appearing at an EPCOT tequila tasting of all places, let slip that the reimagined Carousel of Progress will reopen in May 2027. That’s the first real date attached to the long-rumored refresh, and it gives fans something firmer than concept art to plan a future trip around. The Shows Lucasfilm and Disney used the lead-up to Star Wars’ 50th anniversary to drop a genuinely surprising move: the original 1977 film is shedding its “Episode IV: A New Hope” subtitle for a theatrical rerelease under its original, unadorned title, Star Wars. That’s a reach back past decades of franchise branding to the film as Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford first delivered it, subtitle-free. The rerelease anchors a year-long global celebration throughout 2027 that also includes new comics, collectible figures, LEGO sets, concerts, exhibitions, a documentary on the making of the original film, the second season of Ahsoka, and the debut of Star Wars: Starfighter. Disney’s own announcement frames it as a landmark slate, and with Star Wars Celebration Los Angeles also on the 2027 calendar, this is shaping up to be the franchise’s biggest self-commemoration yet. Elsewhere in Disney storytelling, D23 offered a first look at the characters of Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 3, adapting The Titan’s Curse. Percy and Annabeth’s dynamic from the first two seasons gets tested immediately: Annabeth is captured by Kronos’s forces, and Percy has to go after her. For a show that’s built its audience on faithful book adaptation, the character reveal is a signal that casting and tone are locking into place for the next arc. The Business Disney’s conservation arm quietly hit a milestone worth pausing on. Cast members at Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, a Disney Vacation Club property, have helped more than 2 million sea turtle hatchlings emerge from nests on the resort’s beaches over more than 20 years of work. This represents two decades of cast members doing unglamorous fieldwork on a beach, and Disney Parks Blog’s profile of the people behind it is worth the read for anyone who thinks park operations stops at ride queues. On the licensing side, Attractions Magazine sat down with costume designer Alyson Hancey about Hallmark’s Disney World Christmas movie, Holiday Ever After, which turns out to be stuffed with hidden Disney references, including Princess nods and Jungle Cruise-inspired looks. It’s a small but telling example of how deep the cross-promotion goes when Disney lends its parks to outside productions: even the wardrobe gets Easter eggs. The Details Merchandise season is in full swing. Walt Disney World added two new holiday popcorn buckets to its lineup, including one built around a character popular enough that it’s expected to sell out fast. Three new Disney Loungefly mini backpacks landed on Amazon, and the weekly Barely Necessities merchandise roundup is tracking the flood of new product that always arrives alongside the holiday push. None of it is urgent, but if you’re the type who plans a park day around a popcorn bucket drop, now’s the window. Keep exploring Catch more Disney Deets coverage or get the Lightning Brain app for real-time wait times and routing. Sources Disney Dining Disney Fanatic MickeyBlog Attractions Magazine Disney Food Blog Lightning Brain Chip and Co Disney Tourist Blog Laughing Place AllEars Mickey Visit Disney Parks Blog D23 Walt Disney Company MiceChat Inside the Magic Designed, trained, and directed by humans. Produced by Lightning Brain’s AI. Learn how we make this: https://lightningbrain.app/how-we-make-this Post navigation Jollywood Sells Out Again as Fantastic Four Storm Avengers Campus Rain, Walls, and Record Streams: The Week in Disney