Can anyone confirm if the official closing time of the park is the last time you can enter a queue for a ride, or if you need to have started queuing earlier in order to finish the ride by that time (hope that makes sense). I know fantasyland closes early for Dreams prep just wondering things like Thunder Mountain, if it has a 40 min wait and I join it a few minutes before the park closing time of 8pm am I still able to ride?
In my experience it seemed to depend on the lines, if they're long they may stop people from going in sooner, but otherwise you can join them a few minutes before the park closes. And you'll find at that time most lines are very short!! Last time I was there I did BTM maybe at 7:40 with no wait at all, and then walked straight into Buzz - and came out just when Dreams was starting :D
I remember doing it's a small world at 10pm and being the last people off but there wasn't a queue. Might use the time everyone is finding a place for Dreams to see what we can go on. Thanks.
In general you can enter an attraction until park closing time (Fantasyland excepted). The rides will keep running until the queue is empty. Only in exceptional cases – extremely long queues; private events after park closing – a decision might be made to close earlier. In my experience this happens at most a few times a year.
When I was there one day there were signs saying Frontierland closes at 7pm due to private event. I thought it odd as the whole park closed at 7 but I guess it meant it needed to be clear by then. Big Thunder Mountain queues were 5 minutes or less in the evenings anyway so guess it would clear quickly.
I don't think the whole of Fantasyland closes early, it's just the area behind the Castle.
You can still get to Peter Pan (go via Adventureland), and IASW was open too. I think Dumbo may have been open as well but I'm not 100% sure...
I have definitely been on Small World last thing at night so agree that is still open :-)