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

[CJN]

long weekend i guess made it busier

But Disney can’t use that as an excuse. Even if it’s sold out on a busy holiday weekend there’d better be a cap in place that keeps headliners well below the 45 minutes as shown in the above picture.

 

[KandyM]

We were there last night and it was not good. Crowded, waits everywhere and waits of 45 - 50 minutes on mine train and space mountain. Space was down over 30 min and big thunder down for 40ish minutes. I’m really not happy with the price I paid for my family of five to attend. We were tired and grumpy and just left the park at 12 without complaining. Feeling sorry I did that, it’s actually caused me a pretty poor nights sleep thinking about the waste of cash!

is there an email I could send my thoughts to? Or should I bother talking to the front desk at my hotel (ASMo) ?

 

[stace1214]

We were there last night and although we had a great time, it was definitely more crowded than I expected. It was our arrival day and our plane was delayed We could not get there until 8 and still needed to grab a quick dinner. From 8-11:30 we: watched HEA, ate at Cosmic Rays, Pirates, BTM, HM, Buzz, People Mover, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Peter Pan, SDMT. We saved Fantasyland until last, around 10:45. Longest wait was mine train at about 10 min, but the posted time said 45 min. Honestly we could have done more, but were tired and ready to go. At 11:30 the rest of Fantasyland was a walk on. Although it was busier than I thought, I was happy with what we were able to do. For us, it was still worth the cost.

 

[jbish]

This is just disheartening to hear. Between HS being packed to the gills and needing to wait 50 minutes for Space during MK DAH - what is going on? Sure, it's a holiday, but this is not like some major holiday where everyone has more than just the one day off. I know there are major areas of the country where they have this entire week off of school (MA) but, honestly, it's not Spring Break. Man - I'm getting so nervous about actual Spring Break season - it's only going to get worse over the next 6 weeks! @KandyM - I'll let someone who knows the actual answer to your question to weigh in. There's certainly a Guest Relations email address, but I don't know how effective it is. But I, too, am paying for my family of 5 and that is a LOT of money to spend when the whole point of us going to DAH was to try to avoid the massive crowds.

 

[maryj11]

We were there last night and it was not good. Crowded, waits everywhere and waits of 45 - 50 minutes on mine train and space mountain. Space was down over 30 min and big thunder down for 40ish minutes. I’m really not happy with the price I paid for my family of five to attend. We were tired and grumpy and just left the park at 12 without complaining. Feeling sorry I did that, it’s actually caused me a pretty poor nights sleep thinking about the waste of cash!

is there an email I could send my thoughts to? Or should I bother talking to the front desk at my hotel (ASMo) ?

Definitely voice your complaints. I’m not sure who to call or email though.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

I sincerely hope this is an anomaly and not how it works going forward. From the reports i am reading, the wait times posted were vastly inaccurate in a lot of cases. It seemed to really depend on where you were at what time as to how the experience went.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com

 

[rileyz]

I was there last night too and in addition to the already mentioned rides down, we were on the Jungle Cruise and had to get towed backwards to the dock when our boat ran out of gas. Not really amusing when you have limited time to begin with.

 

[rileyz]

Do you know if it was sold out?

They were still selling tickets when it started so I don’t think so.

 

[focusondisney]

I know there are major areas of the country where they have this entire week off of school (MA) but, honestly, it's not Spring Break.

Actually many areas of the northeast have this week off. All schools in our area are off. Looks like NY & Boston areas are all off too. Spring break for our areas isn’t til later in April. So this is the week many people take to escape winter & hit WDW. Traditional spring break weeks aren’t a travel time here.

 

[persnickity2020]

omg, why did I let my MIL talk us into a spring break trip? It's sad how much stress this trip is causing.

SO sorry to everyone who had a disappointing experience last night, the holiday is really no excuse when the number of tickets should be limited so that the event is what is advertised.

 

[Drewmama]

They were still selling tickets when it started so I don’t think so.

I hope that last night's crowds and wait times were an anomaly. We bought tickets for the 4/5 AH because of all the reviews saying that wait times were very short. Hopefully, those who attended last night will voice their complaints to Disney.

 

[jbish]

I hope that last night's crowds and wait times were an anomaly. We bought tickets for the 4/5 AH because of all the reviews saying that wait times were very short. Hopefully, those who attended last night will voice their complaints to Disney.

This is when we're going, too.

 

[NotTheBatesMotel]

We’re going to the 2/24 AH which is also during a busy time (Mardi Gras week) so I will report back on crowds/wait times. So sorry to all that had a disappointing time last night!

 

[proud_canadian]

That's the thing. Spring Break or not, Holiday weekend or not, Disney should have sold many less tickets so it never got to the point of 50 min waits during an AH event. Very disappointing to read this. Hopefully many people from last night write Disney and they see what type of backlash this will introduce and rethink the limit.

 

[Iowamomof4]

My current thought is that last night was an anomaly. Every once in awhile there is a night like last night where suddenly a perfect storm comes together and rides go down or it seems extra crowded or something else happens to just make people wonder where all the praise for the event even came from because those in attendance on that night did NOT have a magical time. I truly feel bad for anyone who happens upon one of those nights and the worst part is that you really can't predict which night will be great and which night will be bad, especially when the bad experience comes from one or two headliners having technical difficulties. If you did have a bad experience, and especially if your experience caused you to leave early, PLEASE email at the address @GADisneyDad14 posted earlier. Or, if you are headed back to MK today, stop in at guest services there to let them know about your experience last night. There's nothing they can do about the rides going down, but sometimes they will offer a partial refund or other recovery if they feel it is warranted based on your experience. As always, be polite.

 

[NotTheBatesMotel]

That's the thing. Spring Break or not, Holiday weekend or not, Disney should have sold many less tickets so it never got to the point of 50 min waits during an AH event. Very disappointing to read this. Hopefully many people from last night write Disney and they see what type of backlash this will introduce and rethink the limit.

I completely agree, but I can say from personal experience that AH events during our spring break trip were more crowded than January AH we did. They were still MUCH better than daytime crowds, but we definitely didn’t walk right on headliners or have a whole big thunder train to ourselves.

 

[ninafeliz]

The confusing part about this is that some people report having gone on a sold out night, and having no lines. Others go on a non sold out night and have many lines. I guess we should consider some aspect of just plain old bad luck - those with the lines had a whole night of wrong place, wrong time, and seem to have gotten stuck in a rut of moving around the park sort of "with" the crows, so to speak. Because unless Disney is messing with the numbers, it shouldn't be possible to have a busy night if there have been sold out nights that weren't crowded and had no lines. Even if it were held on Christmas Day, if they don't change what number is sold out, it shouldn't be any busier than a random non holiday Feb day if both are sold out. I'm at a loss of what to make of all of this. I just know I went 2/3/20 and had no lines, I went to a VAH last summer and had 10-20 min lines for a lot of things early in the evening, and I went to one of the first MK DAH in 2016 (I think it was) and had no lines and hardly any people around at all, and I'm pretty sure we did another regular DAH somewhere in the middle that had no lines. So my experience is still amazing with DAH, but I am so worried they will mess with this and add to the numbers until it really is too crowded and not worth the money. It is expensive, but worth it to us if we can ride pretty much everything in 3 hrs. If it moves to ride a few things in 3 hrs with 20-30 min lines for each, then it's no longer worth the money.

 

[preemiemama]

wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com

We were there last night and it was not good. Crowded, waits everywhere and waits of 45 - 50 minutes on mine train and space mountain. Space was down over 30 min and big thunder down for 40ish minutes. I’m really not happy with the price I paid for my family of five to attend. We were tired and grumpy and just left the park at 12 without complaining. Feeling sorry I did that, it’s actually caused me a pretty poor nights sleep thinking about the waste of cash!

is there an email I could send my thoughts to? Or should I bother talking to the front desk at my hotel (ASMo) ?

You can certainly email them and voice your concerns. but I would encourage you to go to the front desk at the resort, or better yet guest relations at MK, and voice your concerns in person. Particularly if you have a day or more left. Complaints are always better in person. As PPs have said, be polite and to the point. It's not the CM's fault (certainly not the one you are complaining to) so don't take any frustration out on them. Just let them know how the event didn't meet your expectations, especially for the amount of money you paid, in the nicest manner you can.

 

[mla973]

We attended the 2/17 After Hours event at MK. This was our first one, but we decided to book it because of the fabulous reviews I’ve read here. There were three of us, including DS9.
We’re ready early; decided to head out from SSR at 5:30 and wait at MK gates. Got to the bus stop and an MK bus pulled right up. Got through bag check, and they let us in about 6 pm. I had three FadtPasses booked, so we headed to Adventureland. Here’s a breakdown of what we did:
Pre-event: Jungle Cruise, POTC, Happily Ever After, Aladdin’s Magic Carpets, Frontierland Shooting Arcade
9 pm: Dumbo, Barnstormer, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, grabbed an ice cream bar and drink each
10 pm: Haunted Mansion, BTMR 2x
11pm: Tomorrowland Speedway, Mad Tea Party, SDMT 2x, Peter Pan’s Flight

Like others have mentioned, the posted weight times for the marquee attractions hovered around 45 minutes the entire time. We were on BTMR when it stopped twice, and then went down. Pooh went down as well. We finally just decided we wouldn’t be able to do Space Mountain or SDMT and happened to overhear another guest say the SDMT wait time was only 5 minutes, so we risked it, and it was about 8! In general, wait times were okay, we walked on a few things, but it was probably a 5-10 minute wait for most things. We had fun but were bummed we didn’t get to do more for the $129 price of the ticket. We bounced around a bit hoping some of the key wait times would go down. I’m on the fence if it was worth the $413 we paid.