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

[mrsxsparrow]

I thought last night was definitely more crowded than when we went in early December 2018. The best comparison I could make was that 2018 seemed like a crazy exclusive event where I wasn't even sure I should be in the park, and last night felt more like what EMH used to be back when it was regularly midnight-3:00am. BTMRR was down as soon as we walked into the queue at the beginning of the event so that was a bummer, and we never made it all the way back there again.

Still, I thought it was another awesome event and worth every penny. Crowds lowered considerably in the last hour. We waited (too long) for a bus from Riviera and didn't arrive to the park until 7pm -- no lines to enter. After watching HEA and using (unnecessary) FP+'s on Jungle and Pirates, and getting kicked out of line at BTMRR at 9pm, we did the following:

Snack
Mansion
Small World (boat to ourselves)
Pan (FP queue was full, longest wait of the night)
Mermaid
Snack
Peoplemover
Buzz (did not see anyone else on ride)
Snack
Pooh
SDMT x2 (wait said 15 minutes but it was a walk-on -- though we did have to walk entire queue)
Walked Main Street
Barntormer x3 (train to ourselves, didn't get off)
Snack
Pan (did not see anyone else on ride or in line)
Mansion (only two other parties with us)
Snack

This event has become a must-do on our trips! My main suggestion is to definitely leave Fantasyland for the tail end of the night. Crowds dropped drastically.

 

[jackieleanne]

That’s interesting as we went last night and waited wayyyy to long for 7DMT. The kids were beyond disappointed that thunder mountain was down and I think that caused a longer line at 7DMT. Kids and adults couldn’t understand why we could not use the fast pass lanes at space Mountain vs walking the entire entrance. That’s seemed like something easy to fix! By 11pm the less walking thr better!

Did you do 7DMT earlier on in the night? When we did it I found at the start of the night Fantasyland still had leftover crowds left or was just the busier of the areas. We found leaving 7DMT until the last hour was best and we walked on, though we had to walk round all the queue for it.

 

[ShelleyLovesOrlando]

Did you do 7DMT earlier on in the night? When we did it I found at the start of the night Fantasyland still had leftover crowds left or was just the busier of the areas. We found leaving 7DMT until the last hour was best and we walked on, though we had to walk round all the queue for it.

We hit 7 Dwarves around 9:30-40 ish, wait time said 15mins but it was a walk on, just the time it took to get through the queue. We started the whole event in Tomorrowland and worked our way around with the plan on ending with Pirates but when we got to BTMRR it was down so we did Pirates and Aladdin then thought we'd backtrack to hit Peter Pan and Pooh (which we had skipped earlier) but on our way, I heard the BTMRR train running as it had just came back up so we skipped PP and Pooh to head back for Thunder Mountain, rode it twice in a row as a walk on both times.
I don't know if we just got really lucky but we seemed to hit everything at the right times. Aside from the backtracking listed above (which was only because BTMRR was down) we did not criss cross the park at all, this seemed to work best for us, hitting all of our priority rides and then some others along the way, we did miss Splash of course but there's always next year.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

The Christmas Parties are wall to wall people. We quit doing both it and MNSSHP because we found them to be so crowded it was just miserable. I'll do AH's any time they're on the schedule though.

The parties are a very different experience to be sure. If you goal is to ride with low crowds they are definitely not the event for you, but it you are after the holiday atmosphere and special parades and character meets, they are worth it. We enjoy both the parties and after hours events for very different reasons.

 

[kungaloosh22]

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that AH is on a holiday, but I’ve never heard of a busy AH and in general based on last year VAH will have more people (or at least feel like it) and have shortish lines instead of no lines- at least for the big rides or slow loading rides). I’m thinking regular after hours would be your best bet for riding as much as possible with no lines, despite the holiday. I’ll be interested to see if others agree or disagree with me!

I agree with this. I don't have direct experience with VAH, but have heard they're generally more crowded than regular AH. I DID debate whether to attend AH on Martin Luther King day because of the holiday, but it turned out to be wonderful. It was almost creepy how empty it was, but I'm not complaining! The only thing that even resembled a line was 7DMT. It was advertised as 20 minutes, but turned out to be a walk on. A bit later it was advertised as 25 minutes. That time it ended up being about a 10 minute wait. No wait at all anywhere else!

 

[kylenne]

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that AH is on a holiday, but I’ve never heard of a busy AH and in general based on last year VAH will have more people (or at least feel like it) and have shortish lines instead of no lines- at least for the big rides or slow loading rides).

I agree with this. I don't have direct experience with VAH, but have heard they're generally more crowded than regular AH.

I’m going to sound like a broken record about this but judging VAH attendance for this year based on last year doesn’t make sense for a lot of reasons. Last year was the first year, a surprise event with a very popular theme—villain fans are starved and will come out in droves for new villain stuff in the parks just because it’s so rare. It also had an extremely limited run, just a couple months over the summer, and replaced regular DAH. None of which is applicable this year and I’ve been saying since they announced the return that the sheer number of dates coupled with concurrent regular DAH at a lower price point will mean much lower crowds. Opening night of this year seemed to bear that out also, judging from reports on the VAH thread and the vlogs I saw.

Anyway as someone who actually went last year, waits were still low relative to the average park day despite the higher crowds compared to DAH, and there were a number of nights that people reported very low crowds similar to regular DAH. It’s also worth noting that not every regular DAH has been smooth sailing either, but people somehow don’t warn folks off of it.

For someone who doesn’t care about the villain programming, VAH doesn’t make a lot of sense given the higher price tbh, but I would advise OP to do the event that makes most sense given their schedule. Skip VAH because you don’t care about the extras and the date doesn’t work, but don’t be terrified of crowds based on reports from last year with a totally different set of circumstances.

 

[Iowamomof4]

I’m going to sound like a broken record about this but judging VAH attendance for this year based on last year doesn’t make sense for a lot of reasons. Last year was the first year, a surprise event with a very popular theme—villain fans are starved and will come out in droves for new villain stuff in the parks just because it’s so rare. It also had an extremely limited run, just a couple months over the summer, and replaced regular DAH. None of which is applicable this year and I’ve been saying since they announced the return that the sheer number of dates coupled with concurrent regular DAH at a lower price point will mean much lower crowds. Opening night of this year seemed to bear that out also, judging from reports on the VAH thread and the vlogs I saw.

Anyway as someone who actually went last year, waits were still low relative to the average park day despite the higher crowds compared to DAH, and there were a number of nights that people reported very low crowds similar to regular DAH. It’s also worth noting that not every regular DAH has been smooth sailing either, but people somehow don’t warn folks off of it.

For someone who doesn’t care about the villain programming, VAH doesn’t make a lot of sense given the higher price tbh, but I would advise OP to do the event that makes most sense given their schedule. Skip VAH because you don’t care about the extras and the date doesn’t work, but don’t be terrified of crowds based on reports from last year with a totally different set of circumstances.

Well said!

 

[jbish]

Based on the reviews and data available from last year, it does not appear that they ran this event during the peak Spring Break week in 2019. I know it's total speculation at this point, but any thoughts on what this event might look like this year? They are running it on Sunday, April 5th, one week before Easter Sunday. As of right now, the scheduled park close in 9 pm with the event starting at 10 pm. Seems like there's room for a change in park hours - however, the most recent events have started one hour after official park close. But still not super consistent on when there's the one hour break and when there isn't. I'll be keeping an eye on the chart in post #3 to see if they start pushing back park close in March.

Would just be curious as to anyone's thoughts on this - I know several posts here have mentioned they will be there on the 5th, which I don't think is sold out yet. Hoping it will be a great night!

 

[persnickity2020]

Based on the reviews and data available from last year, it does not appear that they ran this event during the peak Spring Break week in 2019. I know it's total speculation at this point, but any thoughts on what this event might look like this year? They are running it on Sunday, April 5th, one week before Easter Sunday. As of right now, the scheduled park close in 9 pm with the event starting at 10 pm. Seems like there's room for a change in park hours - however, the most recent events have started one hour after official park close. But still not super consistent on when there's the one hour break and when there isn't. I'll be keeping an eye on the chart in post #3 to see if they start pushing back park close in March.

Would just be curious as to anyone's thoughts on this - I know several posts here have mentioned they will be there on the 5th, which I don't think is sold out yet. Hoping it will be a great night!

Park hours have been pushed to 10 for the spring break weeks in March, so I would think it's very likely to close at 10 for your date, as well!

 

[Iowamomof4]

Based on the reviews and data available from last year, it does not appear that they ran this event during the peak Spring Break week in 2019. I know it's total speculation at this point, but any thoughts on what this event might look like this year? They are running it on Sunday, April 5th, one week before Easter Sunday. As of right now, the scheduled park close in 9 pm with the event starting at 10 pm. Seems like there's room for a change in park hours - however, the most recent events have started one hour after official park close. But still not super consistent on when there's the one hour break and when there isn't. I'll be keeping an eye on the chart in post #3 to see if they start pushing back park close in March.

Would just be curious as to anyone's thoughts on this - I know several posts here have mentioned they will be there on the 5th, which I don't think is sold out yet. Hoping it will be a great night!

I don't believe the bolded statement is true. Where are you getting that information? As far as I know, Magic Kingdom has never had a break between park close and the start of an after hours event.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Just added March 30th after hours to our trip!

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Just added March 30th after hours to our trip!

I don't believe the bolded statement is true. Where are you getting that information? As far as I know, Magic Kingdom has never had a break between park close and the start of an after hours event.

It isn't. They have always left fireworks where they were, but shifted park close to line up with the start if the event,.

 

[Iowamomof4]

Just added March 30th after hours to our trip!

It isn't. They have always left fireworks where they were, but shifted park close to line up with the start if the event,.

That may be where the confusion is. Maybe the pp is seeing the fireworks time vs the start time of the event instead of the park close time.

 

[jbish]

I don't believe the bolded statement is true. Where are you getting that information? As far as I know, Magic Kingdom has never had a break between park close and the start of an after hours event.

That may be where the confusion is. Maybe the pp is seeing the fireworks time vs the start time of the event instead of the park close time.

Ah yes...you might be right about that. I was looking at the chart and seeing HEA at 8 pm and the event starting at 9 pm in February. But the March 2nd event starts at 9 pm and HEA is also at 9 pm. Guess that would be worse as there would definitely be more people slowly making their way out of the park at the official start of the event.

 

[constanze]

... but don’t be terrified of crowds based on reports from last year with a totally different set of circumstances.

Thank you for this! I haven't done this or DAH. But if Villians is all that will be offered when we're going, I'd like to give it a try to experience possible walk-on's to rides

 

[lobolabo]

Do you guys think AH will be offered in June or more dates for VAH? When would they announce them if they do? I looked at the charts, but I wanted to ask your opinions.

 

[AndreaDM]

Do you guys think AH will be offered in June or more dates for VAH? When would they announce them if they do? I looked at the charts, but I wanted to ask your opinions.

I'm curious about this as well!

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Do you guys think AH will be offered in June or more dates for VAH? When would they announce them if they do? I looked at the charts, but I wanted to ask your opinions.

VAH dates are already out through July. I don't know that they will add to them. They are consistently one a week. As far as regular AH, your guess is as good as mine. The only way I can see more VAH is if they replace regular AH and go to twice a week.

 

[chaoskids]

I don’t think they will add additional VAH in June but I’m hoping for some regular AH in June and July.

 

[lobolabo]

VAH dates are already out through July. I don't know that they will add to them. They are consistently one a week. As far as regular AH, your guess is as good as mine. The only way I can see more VAH is if they replace regular AH and go to twice a week.

I don’t think they will add additional VAH in June but I’m hoping for some regular AH in June and July.

I’m really hoping they add some regular AH in June, which is why I asked. I’m not sure I want to do VAH on a Friday, but if that’s my only option I will.