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

[Ashley Marie]

You know your kids best. But I would not have been able to swing it with my kids when they were that age. We were there when they were 5 & 2, then 8 & 5. The older one would've been ok, but my younger would've had meltdowns before the end of the night.

Yeah it's hard to say. He probably wouldn't have a meltdown but he might just sleep through a lot of it which is obviously a waste of money. If I could just go with my oldest, she'd have a blast!

 

[thompj7188]

Have any of you taken young children to DAH?

When we went in July, it was a quick getaway for just adults. I'm sort of considering the April dates, this time with our two kids, 7 and 4. On our last family Disney vacation, they were 6 and 3. 6yo made it through MNSSHP and had lots of fun. 3yo slept through almost all of the party. He is tall enough for everything except Space Mountain at MK, so if he could stay awake that'd be great. They have early bedtime routines at home but I let things go at Disney.

Do I risk it? Do I amp him up with all the free ice cream, hope the sugar rush gets him through and have a pool day the next day?

Am I crazy? (My husband will think I am when I bring up this idea.)

We saw several people with young children at the 3/7 event. Some were going strong at 12 a.m. and others were zonked out in strollers.

 

[eliseisawkward]

Hmm if you can supposedly go right to the gate, you should be able to link them. If you can't get the code to link in the app or online, I would suggest giving the Internet Helpdesk a call at 407-939-4357 and explain your issue. A CM should be able to assist.

I bought my tickets from Tickets at work. I was able to add the hard tickets to my MDE by entering the ticket numbers on the backs of the cards. But even if I hadn’t, the card is a hard ticket so that should work at the tap styles.

Edit: mine also have a 2017 date on the back, I assume that was when the physical cards were made.

 

[fiasco32]

O.K. , just going to put this out there ........
Went last Night (Sold out , 3/7) and this event was far from having that "empty" feeling . There were crowds everywhere . Not daytime crowds , but crowds none the less . If you think you are going to get empty main street pictures, or castle pictures, or even frontier-land "empty" pictures ......think again . Not at a sold out event at least . Not sure what the cap is for these events, but it is NOT 3000 people, or even 5000 . A half hour wait worth of guests at SDMT and BTM , plus TONS of other people all over the place , and in other line ques ,snack ques , bathrooms , etc, do not equate to low crowd capacity as advertised . Just a guess , but maybe 10,000 people is the limit right now ?

Big Thunder was disappointing with 25-30 minutes all night . With only one side of the train que open .....it never got to be anything close to walk on . We were able to walk on some rides , but it was a constant flow of people with full loads of ride vehicles everywhere . Towards the last hour or so , some of the rides started to lighten a little . Snack carts were pretty busy right up until the last hour as well . Jumped into the SDMT 1/2 hour cue right about 12 , and it seemed a lot of people had the exact same idea, as the line started to build in the last 15 minutes towards 12.
The 6pm entry , is I feel something they have to do at MK . There is literally no where to "stack" up the waiting DAH crowds as they build . Tons of people coming and going, and the DAH crowd line stuck right in the middle . Lots of people crossing through the line to get to the other side of the courtyard . The 6pm MK DAH entry is pretty much a necessity I think . It would be mayhem in the courtyard if they didn't allow early entry .
I dont know if Disney is starting to oversell these events now too (like every other event eventually) , but it was way more crowded than we thought there would be . Bathrooms were a bit crowded . Even the buses at the end of the event were packed .

The best thing I can relate, at least a sold out MK DAH event too, is to a late night EMH from back in the day . Like a late night EMH from 10-15 years ago is what it felt like.

For us, it was still ok as we are doing a basically non -park trip and only did Epcot for opening day of Flower and garden, and this DAH event for out MK day .

In the end , it was WAY less crowded than a normal MK day , but it was still more crowded than we though it would be . Not sure if its worth $125. ? We are DVC owners, so it was $95 for us which made it a little easier to swallow .

Still a little miffed about the BTM que with only one train side running . Heard a lot of people mumbling complaints about this one ! They should not have let this happen for the money people are spending for this special event. Just open both cues and keep the line moving !

Still worth it for us , as it full-filled our "MK" day for our trip . We got to ride everything we wanted to do basically , but it had a definite "rushed" feeling. 4 hours would be a little better .

Just our opinion on the event, to let other people know, NOT to expect these events (if they are sold out) , to be EMPTY . They are not !

Good report, we went on 3/7 as well and this was our experience. I was disappointed that BTM was only running one side. That's not acceptable when you're paying for a premium ticket that promises low wait times. Just unacceptable.

I fully believe that Disney has increased the tickets sold for this event as time has gone by. They built up a ton of buzz/word of mouth of people going to this event and reporting back how empty the park was and the ability to ride things like 7DMT back-to-back-to-back, and now that they've generated a ton of demand, they're selling more tickets.


That being said, I'd still probably do this again. There's really no better way to experience Magic Kingdom and get a ton of rides in over a short period of time. Disney has found a way to monetize the experience of how the parks used to be 10-15 years ago with lower crowds and shorter lines. A genius business move.

Although I agree it's disingenuous (and borderline false advertising) to say that the event features little to no wait times at all the rides. I sent an email to customer service saying as much, and that I was disappointed at the product they put out the other night. We'll see if they get back to me.

 

[kc51570]

O.K. , just going to put this out there ........
Went last Night (Sold out , 3/7) and this event was far from having that "empty" feeling . There were crowds everywhere . Not daytime crowds , but crowds none the less . If you think you are going to get empty main street pictures, or castle pictures, or even frontier-land "empty" pictures ......think again . Not at a sold out event at least . Not sure what the cap is for these events, but it is NOT 3000 people, or even 5000 . A half hour wait worth of guests at SDMT and BTM , plus TONS of other people all over the place , and in other line ques ,snack ques , bathrooms , etc, do not equate to low crowd capacity as advertised . Just a guess , but maybe 10,000 people is the limit right now ?

Big Thunder was disappointing with 25-30 minutes all night . With only one side of the train que open .....it never got to be anything close to walk on . We were able to walk on some rides , but it was a constant flow of people with full loads of ride vehicles everywhere . Towards the last hour or so , some of the rides started to lighten a little . Snack carts were pretty busy right up until the last hour as well . Jumped into the SDMT 1/2 hour cue right about 12 , and it seemed a lot of people had the exact same idea, as the line started to build in the last 15 minutes towards 12.
The 6pm entry , is I feel something they have to do at MK . There is literally no where to "stack" up the waiting DAH crowds as they build . Tons of people coming and going, and the DAH crowd line stuck right in the middle . Lots of people crossing through the line to get to the other side of the courtyard . The 6pm MK DAH entry is pretty much a necessity I think . It would be mayhem in the courtyard if they didn't allow early entry .
I dont know if Disney is starting to oversell these events now too (like every other event eventually) , but it was way more crowded than we thought there would be . Bathrooms were a bit crowded . Even the buses at the end of the event were packed .

The best thing I can relate, at least a sold out MK DAH event too, is to a late night EMH from back in the day . Like a late night EMH from 10-15 years ago is what it felt like.

For us, it was still ok as we are doing a basically non -park trip and only did Epcot for opening day of Flower and garden, and this DAH event for out MK day .

In the end , it was WAY less crowded than a normal MK day , but it was still more crowded than we though it would be . Not sure if its worth $125. ? We are DVC owners, so it was $95 for us which made it a little easier to swallow .

Still a little miffed about the BTM que with only one train side running . Heard a lot of people mumbling complaints about this one ! They should not have let this happen for the money people are spending for this special event. Just open both cues and keep the line moving !

Still worth it for us , as it full-filled our "MK" day for our trip . We got to ride everything we wanted to do basically , but it had a definite "rushed" feeling. 4 hours would be a little better .

Just our opinion on the event, to let other people know, NOT to expect these events (if they are sold out) , to be EMPTY . They are not !

I had the same exact experience on 2/28. I’ve had better luck booking a PPO Be our guest breakfast or doing early EMH (before they let EVERYONE in the park at 8AM) using our 3 FPS, and maximizing early rides. I’ve been able to do much more with the early breakfast in 3 hours time than during this 3 hour up-sell. Main St. was crowded, there were not empty Main St. Castle pic opportunities and the big rides had significant waits. I’ve had much better luck riding Thunder Mountain 2-3 times during the fireworks than during this event where we only rode it once since only one side was running. Less crowded than during the day, but there were not walk ons beyond Small World which we chose not to ride and Little Mermaid. Not worth the $100 or more per person.

 

[ryanpatricksmom]

I understand everyone's frustration and get that your experience could be vastly different from mine. That said, on 3/7 we held back about 20 minutes past 9pm and rode Fantasyland rides. After that the Mine Train was maybe a 10 minute wait (a consistently moving line that felt darn close to a walk on), which was the same experience for BTMRR (although that may have taken 15 minutes). Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, I'm assuming Splash (It was way too cold for me), all appeared to be walk ons. PP seemed like maybe a 5-10 minute wait. Snack lines were sometimes 5 people deep, often no line at all. I took a picture of Main Street at 10:30 pm and it was completely empty. Given that the parks were insane all week, it seemed like a bargain if you were a motivated rider. I happened to be with my nephew who was not so much so we accomplished a lot less, but I could have ridden everything many times alone. I absolutely think this is the best value for maximizing your time.

 

[Haley R]

I understand everyone's frustration and get that your experience could be vastly different from mine. That said, on 3/7 we held back about 20 minutes past 9pm and rode Fantasyland rides. After that the Mine Train was maybe a 10 minute wait (a consistently moving line that felt darn close to a walk on), which was the same experience for BTMRR (although that may have taken 15 minutes). Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, I'm assuming Splash (It was way too cold for me), all appeared to be walk ons. PP seemed like maybe a 5-10 minute wait. Snack lines were sometimes 5 people deep, often no line at all. I took a picture of Main Street at 10:30 pm and it was completely empty. Given that the parks were insane all week, it seemed like a bargain if you were a motivated rider. I happened to be with my nephew who was not so much so we accomplished a lot less, but I could have ridden everything many times alone. I absolutely think this is the best value for maximizing your time.

I think this is a perfect example about how it all depends if you’re going with the flow of traffic. I would say a lot of people start in Frontierland.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Been off the DIS several days so just catching up on everyone's comments. I was there on Thursday night as well. Always interesting to me to read the ebbs and flows of DAH event comments over time.

I'll work on a full write-up here in a bit, but overall we (DW, DS8, and DD4) had a great time and the event fit our expectations. I guess I'd say there were more people there than my past DAH events, but if I weren't always following the event so closely on here and reading all these comments, I'm not sure I would have really noticed. To me it was shades of grey vs a dramatic difference.

My only personal gripe was the one-side operation at BTMR that has been discussed above, as that had a material impact on ride times. BTMR has always been a 0-3 train wait at past events, this was a lot longer.

And I'll throw a little shade to the CMs on Splash Mountain that still had the full water cannons on with temps in the 50's!

This was DW's first MK DAH and after rolling her eyes at me for "thinking it would be a good idea to keep the kids up on our travel day," as we walked home she said it was absolutely worth it.

I do think with more people around it increases the "lumpiness" of the crowds. We had times where it definitely felt like a really late EMH, and times where it was pretty desolate.

I took pretty detailed notes on wait times and such so will have a better post later.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

All right, full event write up from Thursday 3/7/2019. This was a 9pm-12am event night. Happily Ever After was at 8pm and Once Upon a Time was at 8:45pm. This night sold out sometime on 3/6/2019, the day before the event.

For context, this was me, DW, DS8 and DD4. I have previously attended MK DAH events Thursday 2/16/2017 (8pm-11pm), Saturday 6/30/2018 (10pm-1am), & Thursday 9/30/2018 (9pm-12am). None of my prior nights were sell-outs.

This was our arrival day. DD4 is a trooper but 9pm-12am is pretty late for her, and for DS8 for that matter. Our general plan was to go until they were showing signs of petering out, then call it a night. We moved casually overall, but with some modest haste, with a few breaks here and there for popcorn/ice cream.

7:40pm - We arrived at MK, scanned our MagicBands at the Event Entrance tapstyles and got our wristbands with no issues.

With HEA at 8pm, we were on a mission to get behind the castle ASAP as we had no desire to deal with Hub madness. Fortunately the Main Street bypass was open so we took that towards the Tomorrowland side of the hub, then the bridge to Tea Cups, then behind the castle.

7:44pm - Walking in the Main Street bypass.

7:52pm - Arrived behind the castle. This is not the most ideal spot to watch HEA, but it works for repeat visitors looking for an alternative. It's not crowded, you can show up minutes before the show, and the audio is good.

HEA is an approx 18 min show, so from there we needed to kill 40'ish mins before event start time, so decided to do low priority Fantasyland rides.

I took selfies when we were seated on each ride, so the times below are from those pic time stamps. The wait times I note (where applicable) were started with a stopwatch at/shortly after entering the ride entrance. I did not track when we stopped for snacks/drinks/breaks. Here's how our night looked:

8:28pm - Under the Sea - Journey of The Little Mermaid, no wait.

8:41pm - Dumbo, 1 ride cycle wait.

8:53pm - Barnstormer, 7 minute wait. (This was posted at 20 mins when we entered)

8:59pm - Light up lantern photo in front of Tea Cups. The CM said she'd be done at 9pm and they would not have this shot available during DAH.

We were around Tomorrowland when 9pm hit. I personally did not hear any sort of park closing announcement at the time, but may have just not been in earshot of a speaker.

From here on out it was all DAH time.

9:07pm - Peoplemover, no wait.

9:28pm - Space Mountain, 6 minute, 6 second wait. Both sides running. This was a lot faster than I expected.

9:39pm - Buzz Lightyear, no wait.

At this point we decided to head across the park to Adventureland.

9:54pm - Magic Carpets of Aladdin, no wait.

9:59pm - Jungle Cruise, walked right on and the boat left. There were maybe 12 total people on our boat. Poor Skipper, the speaker had a ton of feedback and screeching through the whole ride, she did her best but it was pretty rough.

10:12pm - Pirates of the Caribbean, no wait.

Adventureland was pretty dead with very few people around, not surprising given the relative lack of rides on this side of the park, generally speaking.

10:29pm - Splash Mountain, no wait. It was really borderline too cold to get wet, so this was a big risk. Turned out OK though. The ride stopped for about a minute when we were at the very top of the big hill - just a long enough of a pause to have me worried!

10:57pm - BTMR, 11 minute, 19 second wait. I think the posted wait was 20 when we entered. Only one side running. This was our longest wait of the night (so far) and it 'felt' like a solid wait. I know 11-12 minutes is not that bad relatively speaking, but compared to past events where BTMR was practically a walk on and we rode 3-4 times, this felt quite a bit different. Unless maintenance or a train being offline was somehow involved, running / staffing only one side on a sold out night was a poor operational decision. With one hour left, the clock is ticking at this point.

11:14pm - Haunted Mansion, <1 wait before entering. There were maybe 12-15 people in the stretching room with us. Man you can move through the room/ride queue quicker with so few people!

11:32pm - Peter Pan, 3 minute 10 second wait. The low wait surprised me. At our past DAH events they had the standby line open and there always seemed to be a more material line. At this point they were using the FP line and the wait was pretty minimal.

We had purposely left 7DMT until the end of the night, so got in line at 11:39pm with a 25 minute posted wait. I've done end of night 7DMT before with similar posted waits and this looked/felt like it should be more like 15-20ish minutes. We were on the ride at 12:05am, for a total wait of 26 minutes, 38 seconds. This included a good (approx) 10 mins of "pauses" where the line wasn't moving at all, so I think there must how been a ride stoppage or two of some sort. Usually with no FP interference lines like this move at a pretty decent clip, but this was different so something must have been up (I don’t know this for sure, just felt like it). Let's just say it had been 15-20 mins, still a decent number. Always best to plan this one strategically in your night if possible. Was I ‘happy’ with a 26 minute wait when getting in line 20 minutes before event closing? No, not really. I think this is one of the areas you see the impact of sellouts - rides like this have trouble shaking the line the whole night.

Since the event ended at 12am, that meant our night was over so we started making our way out.

We saw one Kiss Goodnight at 12:15am.

There were still lots of PhotoPass photographers out on Main Street as we headed out. Most had no to 4-6 people lines, approximately. We have one photo time stamped 12:18am, then a few more photos of our own around the Ray/Minnie statue at 12:21am.

You can go back to my 9/20/2018 review and I'm pretty sure I posted this same comment, but when you hang out in the hub after the event ends, you get a good sense of just how many people are in fact in the park and how MK absorbs TONS of people. This night felt the same. If you want the "mostly empty" Main Street pics, you're going to need to hang around longer and let more people clear. Still, I saw plenty of people working with PhotoPass folks for unique shots... sitting on the ground, different poses, etc. This can be a good time to try stuff like that if so inclined.

We were never in the Hub long enough to see if the Main Street vehicles were running (they have at our past events) or if they were still doing those little musical castle snippets.

As for crowds, I had more "empty park" moments at past DAH events, but nothing about this night was materially all that different. Like I said above, maybe shades of grey more than anything else. With the exception of BTMR & 7DMT, we didn’t wait in a line all night. The BTMR wait did have me frustrated, if I’m honest. We enjoyed the same “quiet park” ambiance as past events - being able to hear to background music, absorb some of the park details, etc - that is sometimes hard to do with daytime crowds.

We did not see any major snack/drink lines throughout the night. Most were 0-6 groups in line. Approx 10-12+ people in line is where I start to feel like it’s longer than I want to wait. When we did see something that looked longer, we'd just move on to the next one and it would usually pay off. I witnessed materially longer snack/drink lines in June than on this night (probably weather based). A more or less consistent observation and recommendation on this thread from the beginning has been when you see a longer than you like snack/drink line, roll the dice and keep moving to the next one.

I do think with sell out crowd levels, things can really change quickly here and there all over the park. I felt like we had good zig/zag strategy and dumb luck on this night. I say this because the ‘lumpiness’ of the way crowds move around the park is going to cause different people to have different experiences in the same three hour event, generally speaking. (I had poor zig/zag dumb luck at DHS DAH last night, for context)

Whether what we accomplished above is successful/unsuccessful is subjective of course, but for us it made for a good family evening. DD4 once again surprised me and was still hard charging even at the very late hour for her. (I was fully prepared to bail well before midnight!). We did enjoy a total resort/rest day the next day and a rare sleep in morning!

We were staying at CR this trip, so had a convenient walk back.

So that was our night. Happy to answer any questions, and thanks for reading.

 

[melliemelo]

Attended DAH on 3/7. It definitely was MUCH MORE crowded than the previous sold out event I attended back during Mardi Gras week in Feb. 2018. (Also definitely WAY busier than the first one I attended the same time in 2017.) We were never really alone - there were small groups of people everywhere. It was definitely more than the 3,000-5,000 estimated when DAH first began. It was probably closer to 10,000, but still very manageable over all. A lot of the snack carts were busy and running out of items... had trouble finding bananas! But then there were people in front of me who got like 10 of everything, so that's probably part of why. I even saw someone with a rolling suitcase.

We got in around 6:30. Had a FP for Dumbo and got a FP for The Little Mermaid ride right after. Went back to the hub to get a spot to watch HEA. Then we split up: Husband and oldest kid went to Frontierland, youngest kid and myself went to Tomorrowland. We rode People Movers to kill some time....

Right at 9:00 we hit Buzz and there was a short wait as the queue was clearing out -- 5 minutes maybe? There was a line of DAH guests filling in behind us though. There were short waits at Peter Pan (10 mins?) and Big Thunder (15 mins or so.) Mine Train was rather longish most of the night - 20-25 minutes. Kids each rode it only once because it was such a time waster. Everything else was practically walk on.

All in all between the 4 of us we did:

Buzz
Pooh
Splash
Big Thunder
Mine train
Peter Pan x 2
Haunted Mansion
Mine Train
Big Thunder
Jungle Cruise
Haunted Mansion
Peter Pan
Buzz x 3
Space x 3
Peter Pan
Buzz
Astro Orbiter
People Mover
Buzz

And we had our share of snacks and drinks. (I agree with the poster who said a few of the snack CMs seemed grumpy.) Even though it was busier, it was still enjoyable. It basically replaced a park day for us and the kids liked being able to ride the same things multiple times. My youngest was really disappointed at the wait for Mine Train, as she had planned to ride it over and over as she did last year.

We started to head out a few minutes after 12. Took a few pics. Saw the Kiss Goodnight. Did a couple of Photopasses. Main St. was pretty busy with everyone leaving and the ferry back to TTC was pretty full.

We had a great time and I'd probably do it again as long as prices and number of tickets sold do not keep going up...... (wishful thinking perhaps!!)

 

[Ashley Marie]

Thanks for the detailed review, @GADisneyDad14. I'd actually just asked thoughts on bringing a 4-year-old to DAH a few posts back, so the timing was right on for me. I'm glad to hear your daughter kept up with you all. My little guy is very consistent with just passing out asleep when he's done for the night, but I kind of want to chance it.

 

[Haley R]

I even saw someone with a rolling suitcase.

This frustrates me so badly. These are the people that are going to ruin the unlimited snacks.

 

[NickC]

Does anyone know if there is a way to be notified when dates are announced; either through WDW or a site like TP? I’d love to be able to 1. book as soon as possible and 2. Have time to modify my plans as far in advance as possible. Right now, I’m going to keep checking often, but our trip isn’t until November. We have time, but I’m just pre-planning.

 

[melliemelo]

This frustrates me so badly. These are the people that are going to ruin the unlimited snacks.

Right? Now I have no proof they put snacks in the suitcase... but that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't a small park bag either. Hard shell carry on sized suitcase on wheels!

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Does anyone know if there is a way to be notified when dates are announced; either through WDW or a site like TP? I’d love to be able to 1. book as soon as possible and 2. Have time to modify my plans as far in advance as possible. Right now, I’m going to keep checking often, but our trip isn’t until November. We have time, but I’m just pre-planning.

Hate to say it, but watching this thread is one of the best ways. There will be a lot of chatter when/if more dates are announced.

 

[NickC]

Hate to say it, but watching this thread is one of the best ways. There will be a lot of chatter when/if more dates are announced.

Thanks for the info. That’s what I figured. Actually, it might be more fun to keep checking back. I am thinking with SWGE opening just a few months before our trip, I want to take advantage of DAH as much as possible...especially for MK.

 

[Ashley Marie]

Right? Now I have no proof they put snacks in the suitcase... but that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't a small park bag either. Hard shell carry on sized suitcase on wheels!

I mean... this has to be the exception to the norm, so I wouldn't be too concerned. I don't think many people are willing to lug a suitcase around the park. Wouldn't someone have to sit out on rides to keep an eye on it? That's an expensive night of snacks.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Thanks for the detailed review, @GADisneyDad14. I'd actually just asked thoughts on bringing a 4-year-old to DAH a few posts back, so the timing was right on for me. I'm glad to hear your daughter kept up with you all. My little guy is very consistent with just passing out asleep when he's done for the night, but I kind of want to chance it.

Yeah, 4 is such a tough age. This was DD's second 9-12am DAH. The 9/20/18 event I went to was just me and her, and same thing - she was wide eyed awake and dragging me around at 12! The only difference between then and last Thursday was that she had a monster nap that day. She hadn't napped last Thursday.

I always go in with the thinking that I could really waste money on the DAH ticket if she's just not feeling it and bedtime is in order, but it's a calculated risk and so far it's worked OK.

Good luck!

 

[Haley R]

Right? Now I have no proof they put snacks in the suitcase... but that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't a small park bag either. Hard shell carry on sized suitcase on wheels!

There always has to be someone who does that

 

[Juventus]

9:40 BTMR: 25 min wait
10:20 7dwarves 35 min wait.

1 hour for 2 rides...3 hour event...crazy. other than waiting for regular park close guests to leave I should not need a plan of attack for this event.

EMM earlier in the week was as advertised. Fantastic.