After Hours Events - Ask Questions and Share Experiences Here

[francie57]

We actually arrived just before park close at 9 since it was so cold out, so I'm not sure about an 8:00 Fantasmic. They did have special characters. We saw Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket, and the White rabbit and they had no lines when we met with them so we got a lot of time with each one.

Did they have an 8 pm showing of Fantasmic! or just the one at 9:30? Dod you happen to see special characters?

Thumper and Bo Peep were also there beside the other characters mentioned

 

[Tink9721]

Thumper and Bo Peep were also there beside the other characters mentioned

This is what I've been wanting to hear. I'm doing After Hours on my birthday and Thumper is one of my favorites. I was hoping he'd be back this year. Thanks for the confirmation!

 

[kristenabelle]

Did DAH at MK after marathon weekend. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and I’ve had great experiences every DAH.

I still had fun and wait times were low, but they absolutely sold more tickets to this event. I used to be able to walk onto pirates and have a full boat to myself. Still a walk on, but my boat was full. Same with Space Mountain.

Generally, the park seemed more crowded than former DAH events. I saw the hub exodus after Enchantment up above from the people mover, and remember thinking “holy ****, that’s a ton of people.”

To be fair, it probably didn’t help that BTMRR is closed and they’re not including TBA with DAH for some reason.

I had a great time, barely any waits, and don’t have any regrets. But I do think they’re increasing capacity for sure.

 

[Sydnerella]

We are staying at Gran Destino post cruise and going to HS AH 2/12, no park tickets that day. Are all/hotel guests able to buy the LL multipass or individual LLs 7 days prior if desired for use 7-park close?

The first post of this thread is from Genie + era. It says this is possible but want to confirm. Has this policy changed or can we still purchase LLs with only an AH ticket for use 7-930 when party starts?

 

[scrappinginontario]

We are staying at Gran Destino post cruise and going to HS AH 2/12, no park tickets that day. Are all/hotel guests able to buy the LL multipass or individual LLs 7 days prior if desired for use 7-park close?

The first post of this thread is from Genie + era. It says this is possible but want to confirm. Has this policy changed or can we still purchase LLs with only an AH ticket for use 7-930 when party starts?

It is inconsistent at best. First it was allowed, then stopped in Jan 2024 but then in the summer and fall, guests with tickets to MNSSHP or MVMCP were allowed again.

I don’t believe we’ve had anyone share their experience this month to say if they could purchase LLMP or LLSP with only an AH ticket.

If you try, we would appreciate you sharing your experience here and letting us know if it was allowed or not. Thanks.

 

[Sydnerella]

It is inconsistent at best. First it was allowed, then stopped in Jan 2024 but then in the summer and fall, guests with tickets to MNSSHP or MVMCP were allowed again.

I don’t believe we’ve had anyone share their experience this month to say if they could purchase LLMP or LLSP with only an AH ticket.

If you try, we would appreciate you sharing your experience here and letting us know if it was allowed or not. Thanks.

Thanks. I may not buy but could see if the system says we are eligible. Maybe we get Rise ILL but that might be all since that’s the main reason we paid for AH - getting on rides without much wait.

 

[aalan]

These events are popular which leads to many questions and guests wanting to share their experiences. Rather than a number of After Hours threads being opened daily, let’s consolidate questions and answers for quick answers to questions.

After Hour events are 3 hours of fun for guests with purchased tickets to these events. Crowds are traditionally capped at a very low level and much can be experienced in a short amount of time!

Guests with AH tickets will be able to enter the park at 7PM.

An AH ticket will allow you to purchase Genie+. You do not need a regular pack ticket in order to purchase Genie+ for an After Hours event. You can begin stacking LL reservations at 7AM for attraction return times between 7PM and close. Please read the linked post for additional information about stacking.

We will try to keep links to helpful information updated here.

Disney After Hours

Links to individual park events including dates, location to purchase tickets plus event information.

DAH Magic Kingdom

DAH Epcot

DAH Hollywood Studios

DAH Typhoon Lagoon

There was a time the MK was open until 2:00 am in the summer. And it I didn’t cost you an extra $125 or whatever. All they care about is taking your $$$.

 

[VAtink]

I realized I never posted the full review from the after hours we went to at HS on 1/22, oops! Here's the full review of the event.

Originally we had planned to arrive at HS between 7 and 8, however this was the week of super cold temps and rain, so we made a last minute decision to arrive closer to 9 to avoid being out in the cold longer than needed (it was about 40 degrees this evening).

We took the boat over from the Boardwalk and were thrilled when the captain announced that the boats were scheduled to run until 1:30AM, so we could take the boat home! The last time I did DAH at HS the boats weren't running at the end of the night, so this was a great change!

We ended up arriving around 8:50 and had no wait to check-in and get our wristbands. We noticed they did have signs up saying there were still tickets available for this evening, which we took as a good sign it would be super empty.

I was a bit worried getting there about 10 minutes before park close we'd be fighting against day guests leaving the park to get in, but the park wasn't too crowded at that point. Although to be fair, the parks this day all seemed to have super light crowds due to the icky weather.

This evening the park closed at 9, and the after hours started at 9:30. When we entered I did make a DAS for Slinky, but when we arrived at the ride it was clear that wasn't needed, there was hardly any line at that point of the night (was about 8:55). By the time we got off Slinky it was just after 9, so the park was officially closed to day guests. We hopped over to TSM where we had to show our wrist bands to get in. I was expecting there to be a bit of a line since the park had just closed and day guests could still be there, so I was shocked that it was a complete walk-on!

After TSM my mom wanted to ride Slinky again, so we headed back there only to find that now it had a fairly long line! Yeah, the line was longer during the DAH than during normal operating hours, but my mom really wanted to ride it again so we waited. It ended up being a 20 minute wait. Fortunately since the party didn't start until 9:30, this wait didn't eat into our party time too much, only like 5 or so minutes.

After Slinky I checked the wait times, and they were all higher than I would have expected at that point, so we decided to go see if we could find some characters to meet with. We made our way to the front of the Chinese Theater where we found Geppetto and Jiminy Cricket. We did pass Bo Peep in TSL, but that land was packed with people at that point so skipped her meet. Unlike TSL, the area in front of the Chinese Theater was empty, and there was no line for the characters there. This was great since we got to have long interactions with each of them.

The lines for a lot of the rides we wanted to do were still a bit longer than we wanted to wait at this point, so we joined the walk-up list for Oga's and got the text call back immediately. We ended up getting a drink there and had intended to only stay for like 15 minutes, but a couple joined our table and we were having a fun conversation with them so stayed longer than planned.

Eventually we did make our way back out and decided to grab some of the free treats. They had a lot more snack carts set up this time than the last time I did this event which was another great improvement. We grabbed food at the carts in TSL and found a table at Woody's Lunch Box to sit at. TSL was still packed at this point and almost all the tables were taken. The crowds definitely seemed much higher this time than last, almost everywhere we went there were a lot of people around, but as the night went on the wait times did finally drop to mostly walk-ons. Rise was also down for I believe the entire event, which probably made an impact on how the crowds felt throughout the night.

After our treats we went back to the rides! We did MF:SR and MMRR, both had lines, but they constantly moved so the waits were minimal. This was another big change from previous DAH events, in the past we'd be the only people in many of the queues, but this evening there was a steady stream of people at all the rides we did.

We also saw the White Rabbit so met with him, and we walked by Mary Poppins, but she had a line so we skipped her meet.

Finally we headed back to Slinky, which at this point a bit after midnight was walk-on. We ended up riding it three times in a row! By the third ride it was just after 12:20 and we wanted more snacks, so grabbed more popcorn and soda to enjoy.

At the end of the event we caught the boat back, which was so nice! Probably my favorite change from the previous time we had done this event.

Overall it was a fun event, although it did seem a lot more crowded than past DAH we've been to and this night wasn't sold out. I'm curious to see how crowded it would feel on a sold out night. But then again, I suspect Rise being closed did impact how crowded the park felt!

 

[Araminta18]

Did DAH at MK after marathon weekend. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and I’ve had great experiences every DAH.

I still had fun and wait times were low, but they absolutely sold more tickets to this event. I used to be able to walk onto pirates and have a full boat to myself. Still a walk on, but my boat was full. Same with Space Mountain.

Generally, the park seemed more crowded than former DAH events. I saw the hub exodus after Enchantment up above from the people mover, and remember thinking “holy ****, that’s a ton of people.”

To be fair, it probably didn’t help that BTMRR is closed and they’re not including TBA with DAH for some reason.

I had a great time, barely any waits, and don’t have any regrets. But I do think they’re increasing capacity for sure.

We did DAH at MK on Mon Jan 27th and your sentiments mirror mine exactly. Definitely more crowded. Most rides were still walkons but absolutely a lot more people. I think this will probably be the last DAH at MK we'll do - the price keeps going up and the crowds keep going up too.

 

[shm_helene]

I realized I never posted the full review from the after hours we went to at HS on 1/22, oops! Here's the full review of the event.

Originally we had planned to arrive at HS between 7 and 8, however this was the week of super cold temps and rain, so we made a last minute decision to arrive closer to 9 to avoid being out in the cold longer than needed (it was about 40 degrees this evening).

We took the boat over from the Boardwalk and were thrilled when the captain announced that the boats were scheduled to run until 1:30AM, so we could take the boat home! The last time I did DAH at HS the boats weren't running at the end of the night, so this was a great change!

We ended up arriving around 8:50 and had no wait to check-in and get our wristbands. We noticed they did have signs up saying there were still tickets available for this evening, which we took as a good sign it would be super empty.

I was a bit worried getting there about 10 minutes before park close we'd be fighting against day guests leaving the park to get in, but the park wasn't too crowded at that point. Although to be fair, the parks this day all seemed to have super light crowds due to the icky weather.

This evening the park closed at 9, and the after hours started at 9:30. When we entered I did make a DAS for Slinky, but when we arrived at the ride it was clear that wasn't needed, there was hardly any line at that point of the night (was about 8:55). By the time we got off Slinky it was just after 9, so the park was officially closed to day guests. We hopped over to TSM where we had to show our wrist bands to get in. I was expecting there to be a bit of a line since the park had just closed and day guests could still be there, so I was shocked that it was a complete walk-on!

After TSM my mom wanted to ride Slinky again, so we headed back there only to find that now it had a fairly long line! Yeah, the line was longer during the DAH than during normal operating hours, but my mom really wanted to ride it again so we waited. It ended up being a 20 minute wait. Fortunately since the party didn't start until 9:30, this wait didn't eat into our party time too much, only like 5 or so minutes.

After Slinky I checked the wait times, and they were all higher than I would have expected at that point, so we decided to go see if we could find some characters to meet with. We made our way to the front of the Chinese Theater where we found Geppetto and Jiminy Cricket. We did pass Bo Peep in TSL, but that land was packed with people at that point so skipped her meet. Unlike TSL, the area in front of the Chinese Theater was empty, and there was no line for the characters there. This was great since we got to have long interactions with each of them.

The lines for a lot of the rides we wanted to do were still a bit longer than we wanted to wait at this point, so we joined the walk-up list for Oga's and got the text call back immediately. We ended up getting a drink there and had intended to only stay for like 15 minutes, but a couple joined our table and we were having a fun conversation with them so stayed longer than planned.

Eventually we did make our way back out and decided to grab some of the free treats. They had a lot more snack carts set up this time than the last time I did this event which was another great improvement. We grabbed food at the carts in TSL and found a table at Woody's Lunch Box to sit at. TSL was still packed at this point and almost all the tables were taken. The crowds definitely seemed much higher this time than last, almost everywhere we went there were a lot of people around, but as the night went on the wait times did finally drop to mostly walk-ons. Rise was also down for I believe the entire event, which probably made an impact on how the crowds felt throughout the night.

After our treats we went back to the rides! We did MF:SR and MMRR, both had lines, but they constantly moved so the waits were minimal. This was another big change from previous DAH events, in the past we'd be the only people in many of the queues, but this evening there was a steady stream of people at all the rides we did.

We also saw the White Rabbit so met with him, and we walked by Mary Poppins, but she had a line so we skipped her meet.

Finally we headed back to Slinky, which at this point a bit after midnight was walk-on. We ended up riding it three times in a row! By the third ride it was just after 12:20 and we wanted more snacks, so grabbed more popcorn and soda to enjoy.

At the end of the event we caught the boat back, which was so nice! Probably my favorite change from the previous time we had done this event.

Overall it was a fun event, although it did seem a lot more crowded than past DAH we've been to and this night wasn't sold out. I'm curious to see how crowded it would feel on a sold out night. But then again, I suspect Rise being closed did impact how crowded the park felt!

Thank you so much! Did you not try for ToT or RnR? Or were these closed?

 

[VAtink]

Thank you so much! Did you not try for ToT or RnR? Or were these closed?

We didn't go to those, but I believe they were open.

 

[firefly_ris]

We did After Hours at Magic Kingdom on 1/27. Myself, my husband and my 3 kids (14, 13, 11). We had never done a separate ticketed event before so I don't really have anything to compare it to.

We did not have a day ticket to the park, event ticket only. My goal was for my kids to be able to ride all of their favorites without a long wait. In addition we enjoy the park at night all lit up. We don't particularly care about watching fireworks shows but they make a great ambience as you are walking around.

We ate dinner at our hotel/condo. We parked at the TTC at around 6:05 and took the monorail over, fairly promptly. We were in line to enter by 6:25. They started scanning tickets/bands at I think 6:45, then beyond that point we had another person place the AH wristband on our wrists. Then we were held there until I think maybe 6:55 then they let us enter. It could have been a few minutes before that.

I was sad about BTMR being down, but there was actually more stuff open for the event than I thought. Even though I read the materials online I thought all of the animatronics shows would be closed but several were infact open.

Anyway, it was still regular park hours when we arrived and fairly busy. We headed to PeopleMover first, but it was down, so we went into Carousel of Progress instead. After that, PeopleMover was still down and Space Mountain was showing a 25 min wait, so we went in there, and waited maybe 15 if that. After that, PeopleMover was STILL down -- Buzz was showing as 25 so we headed in. This was actually our longest standby line of the night -- we definitely waited nearly 30min. I get super sick of listening to that Buzz animatronic, haha.

We got quite a bit done in the first 3 hours before the event even started, and then got everything we wanted done after that. We stopped at the snack/drink kiosks twice.

We waited until near the end of the event to do Tron (which we waited 23min for) and Peter Pan (longer than I thought it would be -- 25 maybe?). Everything else we did was walk-on or close to it -- Seven Dwarfs was about 15.

I wanted to end the night with PeopleMover, so we got on that.... and it broke down for over 35 minutes. So that was how we ended the night -- we might have been able to do one more round of Seven Dwarfs or Space if we weren't stuck on there.

In all we did Carousel, Space Mountain, Buzz, Tron, Seven Dwarfs, Small World, Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, Haunted Mansion, Country Bears, Barnstormer, Pirates, Jungle Cruise, Philharmagic, People Mover.

Crowds were good overall, I think Peter and Tron would have benefitted from more crowd spread if BTMR and/or Tiana had been open. I think if those 2 rides or at least one of them were operating, Peter and Tron might have been lower, or at least Peter.

They had a showing of Enchantment at 11pm, which was happening while we were on Seven Dwarfs which is always really cool.

With a group of 5 this isn't something I would do on a regular basis for the cost, but it did replace an entire park day for us in 5.5 hours. For first timers this probably isn't the best because you might not know where you're going or how to maximize your time.

 

[Minsc]

There was a time the MK was open until 2:00 am in the summer. And it I didn’t cost you an extra $125 or whatever. All they care about is taking your $$$.

We've had some great DAH experiences but definitely miss the days of "free" EMH, particularly at MK which would go to 2am. Our kids were troopers and would hang in there until the end! So many great memories of the kids sitting in front of the Plaza Ice Cream Shop eating ice cream at 2am.

 

[baggs32]

We did DAH at MK on Mon Jan 27th and your sentiments mirror mine exactly. Definitely more crowded. Most rides were still walkons but absolutely a lot more people. I think this will probably be the last DAH at MK we'll do - the price keeps going up and the crowds keep going up too.

We did the one on the 27th too and I have to disagree that it was more crowded, at least based on our past experience. The only other AH we did at MK was in April of 2024 and it was more crowded than the 27th as far as I could tell. We walked on most rides and the only waits we had were Mine Train which was about 5 minutes and Pan which was about 10 minutes, we did not ride Tron but it was posted at 15-20 minutes most of the time. Now we did wait until after Enchantment to ride those two popular rides and I would imagine they were longer lines earlier.

My only gripe was all the people without party wristbands that stayed to watch Enchantment then left. After the show we walked up front to our locker and I was checking out people's wrists for the party wristbands. Many did not have them and were heading towards the exit after the show. I blame this on the CMs because in April they were standing at the hub paths directing those without wristbands to the exits, but not on the 27th. I know day guests can hang arount to shop or whatever for a little while but they should be directed to the exits if they didn't pay to be there in my opinion. As the night went on the CMs were not checking for wristbands at the rides either and I hope that doesn't continue for future parties. We are going again in March and if it's like that again I might be done with them until they do a better job of getting the freeloaders out.

 

[buzz1fan]

When does everyone think magic kingdom after hours will be released for June?

 

[Lsdolphin]

We did the one on the 27th too and I have to disagree that it was more crowded, at least based on our past experience. The only other AH we did at MK was in April of 2024 and it was more crowded than the 27th as far as I could tell. We walked on most rides and the only waits we had were Mine Train which was about 5 minutes and Pan which was about 10 minutes, we did not ride Tron but it was posted at 15-20 minutes most of the time. Now we did wait until after Enchantment to ride those two popular rides and I would imagine they were longer lines earlier.

My only gripe was all the people without party wristbands that stayed to watch Enchantment then left. After the show we walked up front to our locker and I was checking out people's wrists for the party wristbands. Many did not have them and were heading towards the exit after the show. I blame this on the CMs because in April they were standing at the hub paths directing those without wristbands to the exits, but not on the 27th. I know day guests can hang arount to shop or whatever for a little while but they should be directed to the exits if they didn't pay to be there in my opinion. As the night went on the CMs were not checking for wristbands at the rides either and I hope that doesn't continue for future parties. We are going again in March and if it's like that again I might be done with them until they do a better job of getting the freeloaders out.

During the AH we attended last year at HS we also noticed quite a few guests without wristbands walking by the stands that had bottles of water and soda and boxes of popcorn and ice cream bars just sitting out and helping themselves to everything. None of CMs were checking for wristbands at the refreshment locations.