DAH HS Questions

[Little E]

Hi all!

We will be at WDW for the last week in March and we have DAH booked at HS. We've never done an after hours event before, so I'm a little confused about how they work. We will have park hoppers, and we have an EP park reservation that day. I'll be traveling with DH, DS 21, DS 18, and DS's buddy 18. We arrive on 3/22, so we'll have been at WDW for a week by the time the 3/29 DAH rolls around. I'm anticipating the guys will sort of be dragging by this point. We definitely won't be doing rope drop at EP that day; I anticipate some major sleeping in that day, and I don't rule out the possibility that the guys might even want to do a water park during the day, and then roll to HS right before the event.

So, here are my questions:

1. Do we have to tap in to EP at some point that day before DAH?
2. Or do we need a HS park reservation? I assume no because we have park hoppers and because I assume the ticketed event sort of covers the park reservation?
3. Regardless of whether we make it to EP at some point during the day, or we just lounge around and hit the resort pool or go to a water park, what time is best to get to HS before DAH?

Any advice anyone has is so greatly appreciated!

 

[musicguy856]

Hi all!

We will be at WDW for the last week in March and we have DAH booked at HS. We've never done an after hours event before, so I'm a little confused about how they work. We will have park hoppers, and we have an EP park reservation that day. I'll be traveling with DH, DS 21, DS 18, and DS's buddy 18. We arrive on 3/22, so we'll have been at WDW for a week by the time the 3/29 DAH rolls around. I'm anticipating the guys will sort of be dragging by this point. We definitely won't be doing rope drop at EP that day; I anticipate some major sleeping in that day, and I don't rule out the possibility that the guys might even want to do a water park during the day, and then roll to HS right before the event.

So, here are my questions:

1. Do we have to tap in to EP at some point that day before DAH?
2. Or do we need a HS park reservation? I assume no because we have park hoppers and because I assume the ticketed event sort of covers the park reservation?
3. Regardless of whether we make it to EP at some point during the day, or we just lounge around and hit the resort pool or go to a water park, what time is best to get to HS before DAH?

Any advice anyone has is so greatly appreciated!

1. No, unless you want to enter HS using your hopper ticket before 7pm.
2. No park reservation is needed for HS after hours events if you enter after 7pm.
3. You can enter at 7pm but there will still be day guests in the park until 9pm. When I went I used that time for lower wait rides like Star Tours and AS2. You could also watch Fantasmic if that interests you.

 

[Little E]

@musicguy856 this is kind of what I was thinking. Thanks so much for the info!!!

 

[disneyfan123]

You will have a blast, our AH night at HS was the highlight of our most recent trip. There is nothing like a nearly empty Disney park at night, and the ability to walk on the most popular rides.

 

[Little E]

@disneyfan123 I'm so glad to hear this! We are really excited to experience our first AH event!

 

[kelleybean]

Hope it's ok for me to add some questions rather than start a new thread. We are going on Feb 22. Our priorities are the newer rides because we haven't been on them yet (Runaway Railway, Rise, Smugglers Run). If we can, we'd also like to do Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror as those are favorites. So I'm wondering ...
1) To get on the newer rides, do we have to have a strategy or are wait times low enough that we can just go anytime after regular park close
2) Is the coaster and TT open during the event, or just during regular park hours? If they are closed during after hours, does the wait time tend to be prohibitive between 7p-9:30p?

We don't care about Fantasmic so we can use that time for rides. Any advice would be welcome!

 

[Little E]

@kelleybean these are questions I have too! I know that RnR is going to be closed while we're there, but I am curious about the other headliners.

 

[SkyGuy]

Hope it's ok for me to add some questions rather than start a new thread. We are going on Feb 22. Our priorities are the newer rides because we haven't been on them yet (Runaway Railway, Rise, Smugglers Run). If we can, we'd also like to do Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror as those are favorites. So I'm wondering ...
1) To get on the newer rides, do we have to have a strategy or are wait times low enough that we can just go anytime after regular park close
2) Is the coaster and TT open during the event, or just during regular park hours? If they are closed during after hours, does the wait time tend to be prohibitive between 7p-9:30p?

We don't care about Fantasmic so we can use that time for rides. Any advice would be welcome!

RocknRoller Coaster is closing on 2/20, so you can mark that one off your list. That *could* cause Tower to have a bit more of a line that it did when we were there for the AH in Jan. That being said, we had no lines on a sold-out night and were able to ride everything as walk ins with zero strategy. We stacked Genie and rode things with LLs starting around 6:00 when the park was still open and crowded, but we also did Vacation Fun and Muppets, which are both closed during AH, and then we had an Oga’s res to bridge the time because we didn’t want to waste AH time even though Oga’s is open during AH.

 

[brockash]

RocknRoller Coaster is closing on 2/20, so you can mark that one off your list. That *could* cause Tower to have a bit more of a line that it did when we were there for the AH in Jan. That being said, we had no lines on a sold-out night and were able to ride everything as walk ins with zero strategy. We stacked Genie and rode things with LLs starting around 6:00 when the park was still open and crowded, but we also did Vacation Fun and Muppets, which are both closed during AH, and then we had an Oga’s res to bridge the time because we didn’t want to waste AH time even though Oga’s is open during AH.

Question...when you went did the park close at 9, with after hours starting at 930 or did after hrs start at park close?

Ima lil concerned about the first half hr or so of ours being kinda wasted wth day guests still in the lines. On the day we're going the park closes at 930, which is also when ahs starts, so there's no buffer unfortunately for us.

 

[SkyGuy]

Question...when you went did the park close at 9, with after hours starting at 930 or did after hrs start at park close?

Ima lil concerned about the first half hr or so of ours being kinda wasted wth day guests still in the lines. On the day we're going the park closes at 930, which is also when ahs starts, so there's no buffer unfortunately for us.

I honestly don’t remember the official start time. I do know that we entered HS around 6:00 (AP) and rode RnR, Tower, and TSM in quick succession, then we went to Vacation Fun and Muppets before heading to Oga’s for a 7:50 res. When we came out around 8:45, we did Star Tours with LL, but it was probably, at most, a 10 minute wait. When we exited, it was a little after 9:00, and they weren’t allowing people back into GE without a wristband. Rise had a bit of a line, but it didn’t look too bad. We did single rider MF with no wait, showed our wristband, and asked for pilot - got it. After that, it was pretty much a free for all even though there were still some day guests milling around since you had to have wristbands to get in ride lines.

 

[Little E]

OP here. I have another dumb question. What do we need to do when we get to HS for the DAH event? I assume we have to go somewhere to check in? Do we get wrist bands or something to indicate we are there for the event, or does it just show up in our magic bands? Not sure how to nagivate this.

 

[focusondisney]

OP here. I have another dumb question. What do we need to do when we get to HS for the DAH event? I assume we have to go somewhere to check in? Do we get wrist bands or something to indicate we are there for the event, or does it just show up in our magic bands? Not sure how to nagivate this.

There are roped off “event entrance” signs at specific entrance tap points. They’ll start letting you in at 7 or just before. Once you tap in there will be CMs right there to give you your wrist bands. I haven’t been to HS, but at MK there are a few additional spots you can get your wrist bands if you’re already in the park. There should be at least 1 spot inside HS too if you’re there on a day ticket before 7. During the event you will just show your wrist band to get on rides & get your snacks. Much quicker than everyone needing to scan or tap in.

 

[Little E]

@focusondisney that's perfect! Thanks so much for the intel!

 

[Jacq7414]

Ima lil concerned about the first half hr or so of ours being kinda wasted wth day guests still in the lines. On the day we're going the park closes at 930, which is also when ahs starts, so there's no buffer unfortunately for us.

I went 2/22. The line to Rise was very long the entire night. The lowest wait was 45 minutes. It was regularly 50 minutes. Slinky was 25-35 minutes the whole night as well. All of the others were walk ons. I would probably do it again, but I didn’t experience the walk on waits like others did for the earlier events

 

[brockash]

I went 2/22. The line to Rise was very long the entire night. The lowest wait was 45 minutes. It was regularly 50 minutes. Slinky was 25-35 minutes the whole night as well. All of the others were walk ons. I would probably do it again, but I didn’t experience the walk on waits like others did for the earlier events

Thanks...we were there last Wed. as well and were pretty disappointed. We waited in longer lines at this expensive "special event" than we did during rope drop and throughtout the day using fastpass. We definitely wouldn't do it again. The only walkon we experienced was ToT, which was great, but everything else was very underwhelming for us.