**Disney After Hours - Animal Kingdom** FAQ & Discussion Thread

I'm a bit confused by this part. You mean you were redirected to the fastpass line?

We wanted to see the lab really bad. I guess some other people did too because a gate "mysteriously" opened about 30min before the end of the event and we saw other park goers in the regular queue. We got intercepted by a cast member near the lab. I asked if I could walk over closer to the navi in the tank just for a second and she told me no. we were so close.
 
We wanted to see the lab really bad. I guess some other people did too because a gate "mysteriously" opened about 30min before the end of the event and we saw other park goers in the regular queue. We got intercepted by a cast member near the lab. I asked if I could walk over closer to the navi in the tank just for a second and she told me no. we were so close.
That’s a bummer. We still haven’t been inside the lab before. I read on someone’s blog post (can’t remember which one) that they asked a cm to go in and they let them in to take pictures
 


8:30pm and it's in the low 60's at WDW - sounds like a fun night for DAK DAH! Hope everyone going tonight has fun. Certainly warmer than it is here!

Tonight is the 6th DAK DAH event and none have sold out so far.
 
Can anybody tell me if Chip & Dale are still out for DAH in their dino costumes? I thought I remembered reading about it, but I also remember reading that they were looking lonely during the event. I was wondering if they've still around on event nights.

Do any other characters meet during AK DAH?
 
Can anybody tell me if Chip & Dale are still out for DAH in their dino costumes? I thought I remembered reading about it, but I also remember reading that they were looking lonely during the event. I was wondering if they've still around on event nights.

Do any other characters meet during AK DAH?
As far as I know, chip and dale are still out dancing in their costumes
 


I ended up planning our March trip's Animal Kingdom day on March 5th. Same day as an After Hours event. I think we are going to pass on it though. We have a 3 year old who is too short for most of the rides. Can't justify paying for her to just ride Na'vi, Bug's Life, and Triceratops Spin. The park closes at 8 that day, but we wanted to spend some time in Pandora at night. We should be alright walking around Pandora and taking a couple pictures after closing right? No riding of course. Just a nice stroll.
 
We wanted to see the lab really bad. I guess some other people did too because a gate "mysteriously" opened about 30min before the end of the event and we saw other park goers in the regular queue. We got intercepted by a cast member near the lab. I asked if I could walk over closer to the navi in the tank just for a second and she told me no. we were so close.
That is something we have yet to see, sorry you weren't able to get a couple quick pics! Thank you for the succinct play by play of your evening, that was very useful in helping me decide to do this. It is my favorite park, so I know I'm biased, but being able just to stay in the park so late after closing to stroll around with less crowds is worth it to me. Please let this continue through my Dec. trip!
 
Let me ask this about the after dark thing for this park and the other ones. How in the world does Animal Kingdom even go about getting all the people who did not pay the extra money to leave? Its not like they wearing wrist bands or its not like they gonna walk around the park and boot people? Explain how they control this. Whats to stop someone from paying for a regular ticket and staying in the park. Maybe they check tickets on the rides but what if they just want to see the rivers of light show. No way to know who purchased what ticket. Am I wrong on this?
Disney is very good at this. They know how to very politely, yet firmly, often without the guest even realizing it, guide those who shouldn't be there to the exit. Do they get 100% out? No. But the numbers left who are wandering around and not riding, quite low.

And the DAH RoL show time slot will be only for DAH guests. They check the bands just like they do for a ride. There are other RoL shows to see that are not limited to the DAH guests.
 
I ended up planning our March trip's Animal Kingdom day on March 5th. Same day as an After Hours event. I think we are going to pass on it though. We have a 3 year old who is too short for most of the rides. Can't justify paying for her to just ride Na'vi, Bug's Life, and Triceratops Spin. The park closes at 8 that day, but we wanted to spend some time in Pandora at night. We should be alright walking around Pandora and taking a couple pictures after closing right? No riding of course. Just a nice stroll.
As long as you are making your way to the exit and not wandering around with no intention of leaving. The easiest way to think of it is to treat it as you would any other night at park closing, ignore the fact that SOME paying guests get to stay. I mean, if AK closed to all at 8:00 would you stick around or slowly make your way towards the exit?
 
That is something we have yet to see, sorry you weren't able to get a couple quick pics! Thank you for the succinct play by play of your evening, that was very useful in helping me decide to do this. It is my favorite park, so I know I'm biased, but being able just to stay in the park so late after closing to stroll around with less crowds is worth it to me. Please let this continue through my Dec. trip!

Yes. Some might say the value is not there due to amount of rides. But it is wonderful being there without the crowds and to see it at night.
 
Let me ask this about the after dark thing for this park and the other ones. How in the world does Animal Kingdom even go about getting all the people who did not pay the extra money to leave? Its not like they wearing wrist bands or its not like they gonna walk around the park and boot people? Explain how they control this. Whats to stop someone from paying for a regular ticket and staying in the park. Maybe they check tickets on the rides but what if they just want to see the rivers of light show. No way to know who purchased what ticket. Am I wrong on this?
While not AK, I was in DHS as a regular park guest on 12/8 for the first DAH event with a late ADR. CMs were stationed throughout the park asking to see peoples wristbands. I headed right to the exit after my dinner, but I saw multiple CMs wristband checking by Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Season Greetings was still going on and I do not think they would have let me pass by them to just stand and watch without event admission.
 
I ended up planning our March trip's Animal Kingdom day on March 5th. Same day as an After Hours event. I think we are going to pass on it though. We have a 3 year old who is too short for most of the rides. Can't justify paying for her to just ride Na'vi, Bug's Life, and Triceratops Spin. The park closes at 8 that day, but we wanted to spend some time in Pandora at night. We should be alright walking around Pandora and taking a couple pictures after closing right? No riding of course. Just a nice stroll.

It will definitely be dark before the park closes on March 5, so you could even head over before that. It might even be dark first thing in the morning if it's an EMH day. I love watching the sun rise while riding Everest during our March trips.
 
I see that February doesn't have a DAH ROL posted yet. Are these posted anywhere on the Disney website or somewhere else? I am just trying to decide my game plan for DAH the first week of February.
 
We did this last Wednesday, January 16.

We got to Animal Kingdom at 6 PM so we had to wait around for an hour prior to everyone being gathered.

Something else we learned was that Disney allows people who get on the line even at 7:59 PM to Pandora to finish the ride so we were advised to do Avatar Flight of Passage at 9:30 PM.

At 7:00 PM, an hour before the park closed, we were let in and were advised to take advantage of some of smaller rides. (Rapids and Safari were closed). We did Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl & Tricerotop Spin.

Around 8:15ish we did It's Fun to be a Bug and made our way to Expedition Everest where we got our first Premium Ice Cream bar. Did Everest twice and by then it was about 9:00, we got our "cups of popcorn" and "small cups of soda". We refilled a few times and watched Rivers of Light.

After 9:15 pm, we made our way to Pandora and since we were newbies to both the Navi River Journey and Flight of Passage, we did the Navi ride first because we wanted to save the best for last. Avatar Flight of Passage IS AMAZING and that experience was worth the $125 ticket alone. We finished the night in Pandora, riding the Navi ride twice and the FOP three times.

By 11, we stopped at a different spot and got another Ice Cream bar and we both took bottles of soda and water and a box of popcorn each. (I would check multiple areas giving the complimentary items. As I said earlier, the place near Everest were giving away small cups, the place near Pandora were giving away bottles and boxes)

It's definitely worth it, just for the Avatar ride and the multiple ice cream bars. In the span of 4 hours, we did 6 rides (total of 10 times) and 2 shows. I personally wouldn't do this experience in Magic Kingdom or Epcot at the moment, but would definitely do this at Hollywood Studios when Star Wars opens.

Edit: As an aside, eat before you do this as they won't have any place unless you want to pay for hot dogs or the like prior. Although, I'm not sure if Yak & Yeti, Tiffins, etc. would be open, however, we didn't want to waste our time sitting down to eat at AK, nor did we want to "pay double" if we started the day in AK instead of another park. We ate in Hollywood Studios around 3:30 which made us eager to snack here.
 
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Was there a line to get in at 7? It sounds like they held you there until 7, not a minute early... that’s disappointing since it means we will have to miss the safari... oh well.
 
I see that February doesn't have a DAH ROL posted yet. Are these posted anywhere on the Disney website or somewhere else? I am just trying to decide my game plan for DAH the first week of February.

When Disney adds it, it's been showing on this page under "Hours" on the right hand side: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/en_CA/entertainment/animal-kingdom/rivers-of-light/

Eg, change the date to 1/31 and you'll see two regular times listed and then a third "9:30pm" time under "Ticketed Event." The dates past Jan don't have that "Ticketed Event" part yet. Disney is often late to update their park schedule with RoL times (DAH or not) so I'm guessing that's what is going on. Not totally sure though.
 

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