Am I understanding E-ride night correctly???

[lovetovacation]

I am putting the finishing touches on our plans for our WDW vacation from July 9 - 16. We are staying at the Yacht Club.I hadn't even thought about doing an E-ride night until I mentioned it in passing to my DH & DS. They are loving this concept. I have tried to quickly get some info on this and what I have found out is this ~ am I getting the right idea??

E-ride night would be available to us on July 11 and July 15. I see on the calendar that the park closes at 10:00pm on the 11th and 11:00pm on the 15. Does E-ride night start immediately after closing? And it lasts 3 hours?

I read that you purchase E-ride tickets once you are checked in at the resort. Is this right? No advance purchases are allowed?

I have seen a list of rides that are open ~ does this list change frequently or are these attractions usually the ones that are operating? Thanks so much for the help. I can't believe it's almost time for us to go!!!

Michelle

 

[YesDear]

YES
YES
YES
YES

Next question?

Our family loves E ticket night at least once per trip if they offer it. It is always the E ticket rides ie: E ticket night
You have to buy at resort after you get there.

Enjoy

 

[jaysue]

The list is static I believe - I thing to keep in mind, nothing in Fantasyland/Toontown is open...sometimes kids are disappointed by this

Thanks
jaysue

 

[DisneyVillain]

Of course, rides can be down unexpectedly. On our 6/7 e-ride night, Space Mountain was closed for 2.5 hours out of 3. Also, Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain will close if there is lightening.

We have done e-ride night once, and we will always do it if it is offered.

 

[DRU2L8]

We went to E-nite on Friday, 6/13. We bought the armband in the park after 4 pm, just had to show a resort key. (linmit of 5000 guests)
Buzz, Space, Splash, Thunder Mtns, Haunted Mansion, Astro Orbiter were open. The park officially closed at 7 pm but still saw plenty of non armband guests wandering about for awhile. The rides closed promptly at 10 pm and CMs were even "counting down, 15 seconds until last ride". It was fun and well worth it, even though it felt like we were paying for the park to stay open for what should have been it's ordinary hours.

 

[wdwgoofeeee]

Just a bit of warning....we were at E-night last Tuesday from 10pm until around 12:15am. The crowds were LARGE. Make a plan just as you would during the day. We got on Buzz twice just before E-night started (while the fireworks were on). Then jumped over to Space Mountain with little wait. Then over to Big Thunder. The crowds were getting bigger by the minute.
E-night is a LOT of fun but don't think that there will be no waits. Last year the crowd was much lighter. I don't know why, but all the parks were extremely crowded last week. And this spilled over to E-night.
Go and enjoy, but do not expect an empty park. The only place that is empty is around the castle since Fantasyland is closed.
Have a great trip!

 

[MrsPete]

We LOVED our first e-ticket night a few weeks ago. Here's how it worked:

While we were checking into Wilderness Lodge, we mentioned that we wanted to buy e-ticket night tickets. The CM gave us four cards (exactly like our hotel keys) that said something like "One adult e-ticket night admission." On Tuesday night we arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 5:30, and we went to City Hall (enter through the left hand Magic Kingdom gate, it's on your left in a little alcove area) to get our bands. Everyone in the party had to go personally because the CM put a blue holographic wrist band on each of us. I assume they use a different color every night.

The Magic Kingdom closed at 7:00 that evening, and it was miserably crowded. We walked through Toontown, but it wasn't much fun in the crowd. We had planned to eat dinner so we'd not waste a minute of our E-ticket night, and that turned out to be a great plan. You do need to be inside the Magic Kingdom before the park closes.

At 7:00 sharp we were at the Splash Mountain entrance, and the CM was politely telling people without bands that they could not enter -- the rides were closed to them. Some people were not too happy. The crowds disappated pretty quickly once people got the message: no band, no rides. Tomorrow land had the most people, but I wouldn't call it anywhere near crowded. Note: people without bands are welcome to stay in the park and shop or eat, but they cannot ride rides.

Those three hours were great! We were able to walk right up to the rides and either board the first or the second car. We spent more time walking between rides than waiting in lines! We rode everything except Alien (we had two small girls in our party), and we rode many things twice.

Here are my suggestions for making the most of e-ticket night:
Force everyone in your party (especially children) to take good long naps before e-ticket night.
Be inside the Magic Kingdom well before closing time; you don't want to cut it too close because there are no refunds if you miss out on the evening.
Skip the camera on this night; it'll be too dark to take pictures, and there won't be characters out.
Have dinner, use the restroom, and take care of all other necessities before your e-ticket night begins -- you don't want to waste your precious three hours.

 

[tmeyer]

Actually they do have characters out in front of the castle on E nights. They are to the right side and the left side under a little pavillion type building and it was lit up so you could take some pictures.

 

[MrsPete]

Hmmm . . . perhaps the characters vary. I know the area you're describing -- we saw characters there several times during the days at Magic Kingdom. They were definately not there on our e-ticket night.

 

[JulieWent]

Thanks guys! We're going to do our first e-ride night on July 22. (We've been to WDW more times than we can count, but our DS is now 8, old enough to take a nap and stay up late.) We've been wondering what to expect and how to plan, and you've certainly helped!

Julie

 

[tar heel]

Disney Villain mentioned that Space went down 6/7. I sure hope she/he took that golden opportunity to see what it looks like with the lights on. We had already ridden it three times that night and were getting ready for the fourth when it went down. Along with hundreds of other people, we headed straight to TTA so we could see the lights on inside the mountain. I was surprised at how big it is and how industrial-looking (no frills) the inside of the building is!

E-night is WONDERFUL! Once piece of advice I have is to not run back and forth across the park. We always start in Tomorrowland, usually by riding Space Mountain four times, TTA once or twice and Buzz twice. Then we move to Frontierland and do the same thing with Splash and Big Thunder.

 

[DisneyVillain]

Originally posted by tar heel
Disney Villain mentioned that Space went down 6/7. I sure hope she/he took that golden opportunity to see what it looks like with the lights on.

Not that time, but we've seen it before.

 

[Brier Rose]

Space Mountain went down on the June 24th E-night too!
We were on TTA at the time, and as we were entering SM were shocked that it wasn't dark.When we got all the way in we saw that they had all the lights on,and you could completly see what the actual coaster track looked like.Pretty cool!, but we felt sorry for the LOOOOOONG line of people backed up put of the door waiting to ride.
They had it fixed VERY quickly...within 5-10 min.

 

[jaysue]

We had the chance to be on TTA as well when Space Mtn was all lit up - it was really neat

Thanks
jaysue

 

[jlambrig]

We got some pics of SM with the lights on 6/7 riding via TTA. That was a pleasant surprise even though we would have rather been riding it.