Monday March 9 After Hours @ Magic Kingdom

[Deploraboo]

So this was pretty much an unholy debacle. Thankfully we had well earned multiuse fast passes (Primarily from complaining) prior to the start time, which we smartly used on Space Mountain, Pirates and copious amounts of Big Thunder Mountain. As the 10 PM start time approaches, we start walking over toward Fantasyland and spot an open water kiosk, and the resident water nazi, at 9:58 pm outright refuses to give my eight year old a water and demands we wait the appointed 120 seconds. Lovely. Walk over to Peter Pan, and as 10 PM hits and passes we and other gather at the fast pass line and are told to wait while the standby guests go on first. Wait. What?

Dumbo, Tomrw land spdway, kiddie rides...

Next over to Space Mountain, which, it turns out is down, as is Buzz Lightyear And Peoplemover. Walk over to a nearby water kiosk, where they now make people wait in line rather than just set out drinks for people to take. I ask why, and they tell me “well, because people were taking two and three drinks at a time”. Wait. What? I then proceed to ask for two drinks.

since big attractions were down we go over to Mine Train and 25 minutes later get on, along with everyone else in After Hours,

walk back to Space Mountain, which is evidently back up, and shows a 30 min wait time, but it’s late now and figure how bad could it be. line moves until it doesn’t move. People start jumping into fast pass line. No updates. No nothing. So we’re sitting there, three quarters into the line and we bail and go to boats at exit, which of Course aren’t running back to Wilderness Lodge (despite like three Disney reps telling me they would be).

All in, horrible.

 

[Remy is Up]

Very surprising. We do AH at MK 3 or 4 times a year and have never had those issues. I had a friend go last night and typically she would text if anything was out of the ordinary. The boats and monorail Typically dont run after AH. They usually have busses. Not sure why CMs would tell you they do unless they thought you meant after normal park close. And before you degrade CMs, keep in mind, they do as they are instructed. I realize situations can be frustrating but best case when things are an issue is to seek out someone at one of the umbrella locations and they can get assistance.

 

[yulilin3]

Unfortunately Disney can't control when a ride will go down or not.
The offerings for this start at 10pm so I wouldn't expect anything being handed out until that time, as for having drinks out, the CM are handling the issuing of food for safety reason

 

[GillianP1301]

Sorry you had a crappy experience, that is definitely not the norm. I would have definitely spoken to Guest Relations before leaving the park. We all know that attractions can go down at any time, but to have several headliners down at the same time is not good.

The only items I can think of some defense for his the PP line. AH does not give access to the FP queues and it is known that the more popular rides do take a little bit to clear out the day ticket standby queues, so going to something else in the first 15 - 20 minutes is always best. The water thing before 10:00pm is a bit picky on their part. Sometimes it is all in how you approach and ask for something though or sometimes you just get a CM having a bad day, but I wouldn't count that as an issue big enough to even let it get to you. And them handling to water to hand out is probably part of COVID-19 safety measures. The fewer hands touching your water bottle the better.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

For those reading along and unfamiliar with DAH events, watercraft and monorail do not typically run at the end of a MK Disney After Hours event. It is bus only at that time to all resorts, and some run in non-traditional sharing arrangements. This has been the case since MK DAH events were first introduced in 2016. (And is different than Villains After Hours, where watercraft and monorail transportation IS normally available)

 

[Tink9721]

we start walking over toward Fantasyland and spot an open water kiosk, and the resident water nazi, at 9:58 pm outright refuses to give my eight year old a water and demands we wait the appointed 120 seconds.

This is normal. When I went in January they made us wait until exactly 8:00 when the event started. I'm guessing that's protocol across the whole park, so calling the CM a water nazi seems a little harsh.

Next over to Space Mountain, which, it turns out is down, as is Buzz Lightyear And Peoplemover.

walk back to Space Mountain, which is evidently back up, and shows a 30 min wait time

This is where using the app to check wait times/closures would be helpful to prevent a lot of backtracking. Because of everything I read on the boards before our trip, we started at once end of the park (Adventureland) and went all the way around to Tomorrowland. The only backtracking we did was coming back to Fantasyland at the end of the night to hop on Peter Pan, because the app showed a 5 minute wait and we skipped it earlier in the night when it was 20+ minutes.

go to boats at exit, which of Course aren’t running back to Wilderness Lodge

Also normal. The only transportation available after DAH is the buses.

 

[focusondisney]

This is normal. When I went in January they made us wait until exactly 8:00 when the event started. I'm guessing that's protocol across the whole park, so calling the CM a water nazi seems a little harsh.

I agree. I don’t know the consequences for CMs if they don’t follow the rules. I’d rather wait 2 minutes than have a CM get in trouble.

 

[Tink9721]

I agree. I don’t know the consequences for CMs if they don’t follow the rules. I’d rather wait 2 minutes than have a CM get in trouble.

Yup! Plus if the event starts at 10:00, I'm not expecting to get the event perks until 10:00.

 

[jbish]

So this was pretty much an unholy debacle. Thankfully we had well earned multiuse fast passes (Primarily from complaining) prior to the start time, which we smartly used on Space Mountain, Pirates and copious amounts of Big Thunder Mountain.

Sorry you had such a bad experience. What a bummer. But just for clarification, you had "multi use" FPs that you utilized in the 7-10 pm time frame for something that happened prior to the event happening? Seems like you had a productive start to the evening, at least. Was just curious how the multi-use FPs work - have not heard of these.

 

[Deploraboo]

We received he multiuse FPs due to our room @Wildernes Lodge smelling like puke and having constant construction over our heads over there. Even given that, still enjoyed Wilderness Lodge.

 

[rockinrollercoasters]

We were there on March 9th too. We found the same issues with a bunch of headliners closed during the AH and we also had the pleasure of being stuck on Splash Mountain before AH started 2/3 of the way up the big hill before the drop. They had to evacuate us which took forever (and was actually pretty scary climbing out on that angle) and then gave everyone a fastpass for the next day which we couldn't use. This was right after Haunted Mansion had stopped four different times while we were on it including a fairly lengthy one. I know people say rides go down but when you are paying a lot for the AH tickets you shouldn't have Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Buzz, TTA and Pooh all down at once. And while, yes, you should go to guest services while you are there to complain about it who wants to waste even more time doing that? We went on some rides prior to the Splash Mountain mess and did go on a bunch of rides that weren't our first choice during the AH but it wasn't as good as I expected it to be.

 

[Deploraboo]

As an addendum, did the Animal Kingdom After Hours yesterday and they got it right, mostly. First, they close he rides at 8. The after hours people can start riding them at 8:30 which was a bonus, so did everything twice and three times. Unfortunately, Everest was closed down for something at like 10:30 or 11 so we left (weirdly about the same time we got word that WDW was closing). All in, a great time and loads of people, but short waits, and yes, they freely handed out water prior to the 9 Pm official start time.

also, to poster above, we rode Splash just after the closure reopened prior to After Hours in a practically empty car. Great view of the fireworks then. Of course, as I said, the Night summit plummeted from there.

 

[wiggy500]

While I don't think you can fault Disney for some of those negative experiences, such them waiting to give you a beverage until they told you they would, all the closures certainly make for a frustrating experience. My suggestion for anyone that was rather disappointed from an experience like this, particularly if their trip is over, is to e-mail guest.services@disneyworld.com and politely explain to them your experience. And then be patient for them to respond. I was disappointed with ride closures the week before at After Hours and when I called they steered me to that e-mail address. The response I just got left me satisfied.

 

[acarsme123]

I was at the After Hours event at MK on the 9th too. Was so ticked Splash was down for half the event. When we were finally able to ride halfway into the event, it had many lengthy pauses while we were on it, taking up precious time. I wish the reliability of these rides was better. A lot of stuff seems to be breaking. Splash...space mountain was down for a time...people mover was down all night. Huge bummer.

Does Disney at least run the boat back to TTC after the event? We ended up valet parking at Contemporary, which took way more time at the end of the night than I anticipated.

I do believe we saw a monorail running above through as we were walking back to Contemporary, and that was at 1am...so not sure if they were still fully running the monorail to get people back to TTC or not.

 

[wiggy500]

Does Disney at least run the boat back to TTC after the event? We ended up valet parking at Contemporary, which took way more time at the end of the night than I anticipated.

I do believe we saw a monorail running above through as we were walking back to Contemporary, and that was at 1am...so not sure if they were still fully running the monorail to get people back to TTC or not.

Yes, they run the boat to TTC after the event.

They stop running the monorail (though they replace it with buses that say they are a monorail) before they stop running the ferry. From reading these boards I get the impression that the monorail runs later than I thought it did. But the two times I've gone I've gone on rides as late as I could and the monorail was not running when I got out.

 

[cakebaker]

I often find that once something happens that I don't like, it just sort of cascades downward and it takes a real effort on my part not to let that happen. I've been before and know they are strict on start times to dispense drinks and snacks and wouldn't have even asked. It's not a huge deal to me to wait until the event start time. I've had rides down before. We had both SDMT and PP flight down the entire morning on an EMM morning. They don't control the rides being down, just an unfortunate incident. If it severely impacted your experience, I'm pretty confident they would've done something to try and make it up to you had you gone to guest services. But the water and the transportation issues are not really issues. It's sop.

 

[acarsme123]

Yeah I know we saw a monorail running above us as we were walking back to Contemporary and that was just after 1am. But I’m not sure where it was going. It was going counter-clockwise so from TTC to MK

They stop running the monorail (though they replace it with buses that say they are a monorail) before they stop running the ferry. From reading these boards I get the impression that the monorail runs later than I thought it did.