MK Fireworks Cruise & After Hours

[JustAKid]

We are thinking of adding the paid After Hours to our trip. I have a few specific questions about After Hours, and then one related to doing a fireworks cruise and then going back to the park for After Hours.

• Are all areas of the parks open during the After Hours event?
• Does LLMP work for this event if you have an After Hours ticket linked in your account?
• Does strategy suggest that I should skip LLMP on this day because we can easily ride during the event?
• Historically, how are the Tron and SDMT lines during this time?
• If we enter the parks before 7PM, and stay in the parks, how do cast members know we have paid for the event? Do we need to go to some location to obtain a wristband of sorts?
• You can do JUST After Hours, correct? So, I can purchase and use up a 2-day ticket, then go to After Hours on a third day without needing to have purchased a 3-day park ticket?
• Does it seem doable to leave the park, go to Contemporary for dinner, do the Fireworks Cruise, then come back to the park for After Hours? Or would that eat up into too much of our After Hours time and we should split these two activities?

TIA for your help!

 

[scrappinginontario]

My recommendation is to read up about the After Hours event on the Disney website to help with some answers. I'll try to answer what I can.

We are thinking of adding the paid After Hours to our trip. I have a few specific questions about After Hours, and then one related to doing a fireworks cruise and then going back to the park for After Hours.

• Are all areas of the parks open during the After Hours event?

Per the link above:
Favorite Attractions
Enjoy some popular attractions—with lower wait times!

Highlights include:

• TRON Lightcycle / Run
• Space Mountain
• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
• Haunted Mansion
• "it's a small world"
• Jungle Cruise
• Peter Pan's Flight
• Under the Sea - Journey of The Little Mermaid
• ⁠Mad Tea Party

And more!

Attractions and experiences are subject to change without notice. Admission to this event does not guarantee access to any attraction or experience.

• Does LLMP work for this event if you have an After Hours ticket linked in your account?

No, LL is limited to regular park hours. AH events tend to not require LL for the vast majority of attractions due to the limited number of guests in the parks. Some attractions (SDMT, Tron) will still have longer queues but normally shorter than regular park hours.

• Does strategy suggest that I should skip LLMP on this day because we can easily ride during the event?

Personal choice depending on how many times you like to ride attractions. Please see heat map below

• Historically, how are the Tron and SDMT lines during this time?

This heat map from Thrill-Data's info on March 9th (the last date an AH event was held in the MK) shows wait times during the day and also during the event.

• If we enter the parks before 7PM, and stay in the parks, how do cast members know we have paid for the event? Do we need to go to some location to obtain a wristband of sorts?

Yes, guests attending the AH event are given a wristband. I believe they are available in the park for guests who are already inside but I'm not 100% sure about this. Hopefully someone else can confirm

• You can do JUST After Hours, correct? So, I can purchase and use up a 2-day ticket, then go to After Hours on a third day without needing to have purchased a 3-day park ticket?

Yes. Your AH ticket will grant you access to the MK at 7PM. The AH party is from 10PM - 1AM.

• Does it seem doable to leave the park, go to Contemporary for dinner, do the Fireworks Cruise, then come back to the park for After Hours? Or would that eat up into too much of our After Hours time and we should split these two activities?

Personally I would plan these on different days. I would want to make the most of the AH event and the fireworks cruise without the 'stress' of feeling like I'm rushing from one event to the other.

TIA for your help!

 

[Genie+]

We are thinking of adding the paid After Hours to our trip. I have a few specific questions about After Hours, and then one related to doing a fireworks cruise and then going back to the park for After Hours.

• Are all areas of the parks open during the After Hours event?

Yes, all the lands are open. Not all the food service will be open though. Some, not all.

• Does LLMP work for this event if you have an After Hours ticket linked in your account?

No, the lightening lanes aren’t used during DAH. Everything is standby. The waits are about a quarter of typical, mostly 5, 10 or 15 minutes. Tron and 7DMT can be longer but not necessarily.

• Does strategy suggest that I should skip LLMP on this day because we can easily ride during the event?

Depends if you’d like to repeat rides. LLMP can help you get more done. If you’re doing 2 days at MK then I’d probably skip LLMP if your already doing the After Hours.

• Historically, how are the Tron and SDMT lines during this time?

They can still be longer than the rest, but typically not more than 25 minutes during DAH. MK DAH has a second set of fireworks mid-party, and that’s a good time to find these 2 rides with low waits, like 15 minutes. The last hour is also likely to see waits shorten, especially if your party doesn’t start until 10pm.

• If we enter the parks before 7PM, and stay in the parks, how do cast members know we have paid for the event? Do we need to go to some location to obtain a wristband of sorts?

They have this down to a science. CMs will check for wristbands as people try to enter different lands and in the hub, etc. They’ll turn people away without the wristbands. There’s an hour between official park closing and the party starting. The CMs basically squeeze people without a DAH ticket toward the gate and out.

• You can do JUST After Hours, correct? So, I can purchase and use up a 2-day ticket, then go to After Hours on a third day without needing to have purchased a 3-day park ticket?

Yes you do not need a day ticket to attend DAH. Yes that 3 day plan will work. You just won’t be able to enter until 7pm or whatever the earliest DAH arrival time is that date.

• Does it seem doable to leave the park, go to Contemporary for dinner, do the Fireworks Cruise, then come back to the park for After Hours? Or would that eat up into too much of our After Hours time and we should split these two activities?

I’d split it up if you have the time. You’ll get more value out of it that way. You can do a full day at MK and ap it off with a fireworks cruise. Then come back again, do an early dinner at Contemporary, and then make it into MK well before the party starts. Doing it that way I’d skip LL.

TIA for your help!

You’re welcome. Sounds like a great trip!

 

[RivGirl]

We did After Hours at MK in March 2025.

- Pretty sure all lands are open, but not all attractions are. Shows are not open. Restaurants are not open. The official website lists some attractions “and more” but also puts a disclaimer that nothing is guaranteed.
- I can tell you that LLMP worked for us. We did not have a day ticket to MK that day. Somewhere on these boards I gave an account of this. We did have a 2 day single park pass, which is good across three days, and IIRC we used it on either side of the MK After Hours day. So that may have been why the system allowed me to book the LLMP. YMMV.

- Did we need LLMP? Not necessarily. But for us, it was our only time in MK that trip. It was also Spring Break, and busy. So it depends on what time of year you are going. We used LLMP to do Pirates, Tiana, Haunted Mansion and maybe one or two others between 7 and 10PM. Basically hitting up the attractions we wanted to do on the western side of the park before After Hours began, so we could focus on Fantasyland and Tomorrowland during AH.

- Tron and SDMT were 30 minutes or less.

- Yes, there will be a location inside the park to go and get your wristbands before 7PM.

- Yes, you can do just After Hours without paying for a whole day at the park. That is what we did.

- I don’t think I would want to give up any of my After Hours time for that fireworks cruise. I haven’t done a fireworks cruise before, but I would imagine that by the time you got back into the park you could have easily lost 30 minutes or more of the three hours you have paid for.

 

[RivGirl]

I should specify: LLMP worked for us from 7-10PM, before park close.

As others have said, there is no LLMP during the actual event, from 10PM - 1AM.

 

[scrappinginontario]

They have this down to a science. CMs will check for wristbands as people try to enter different lands and in the hub, etc. They’ll turn people away without the wristbands. There’s an hour between official park closing and the party starting. The CMs basically squeeze people without a DAH ticket toward the gate and out.

Just a note that often this is not the case. It is not uncommon for a park to close at the same time an official After Hours Party starts. (Possibly you were thinking of MNSSHP and MVMCP when yes, there is an hour between official park close and those parties starting.)

The March 9th party started at the same time the park closed and the same will happen with the next party happening April 13th.