New After Hours Event - a Must or a Bust

[mindeola]

I was in the camp of no way would I ever pay for this...and then when I saw the pictures of an empty park I started thinking about how it would actually work for us this particular trip. $745 is a lot of money though, so we would have to cancel Ohana and Crystal Palace Pre Park opening breakfast. My husband was all for it as crowds and lines are his biggest objection to Disney vacations. Had a little three way phone conference with the three college kids for a family a vote and they all said it sounded so cool, but they would rather keep the Ohana and CP ressies. That definitely surprised me and it is helping me not spend an extra unbudgeted $300!

 

[agavegirl1]

Read over on another board (reliable source) that Disney's "capacity" for this event is 8000. About 1000 attended night one with a little over 300 actually paying for it. This event will not be sustainable if changes aren't made.

 

[Ladyfish77]

Edit--wrong quote!

 

[Ladyfish77]

Read over on another board (reliable source) that Disney's "capacity" for this event is 8000. About 1000 attended night one with a little over 300 actually paying for it.

And yet there were posts from people saying Disney called it a "sold out" event. Pretty misleading if you ask me.

 

[mom2rtk]

Read over on another board (reliable source) that Disney's "capacity" for this event is 8000. About 1000 attended night one with a little over 300 actually paying for it. This event will not be sustainable if changes aren't made.

That capacity figure does not surprise me at all.

And I agree with your assessment.

We will be back in Florida summer 2017 (for a beach vacation) and will likely make a 1 day stop in the MK. That sort of visit would be ideal for this, and I would probably consider that instead of a one day ticket. But I give it about a 5% chance of still being around.

 

[DreaminDisney2013]

sorry if this was mentioned already, but if you wanted to buy food were there any restaurants open? or snack type places? TIA! Also, thanks for sharing OP!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Casey's and Main Street Bakery plus water, soft drink, ice cream locations.

 

[crazy_for_the_dis]

I attended as a regular $149 paying customer and thought the value was there for my wife and I. We rode every ride as many times as we wanted and like most of the others, had several rides all to ourselves. You don't realize how large a queue rides have when you just walk on them, it was actually tiring going on and off.
The park was eerily empty though and that for some reason took away from the event. It's like going to a party so exclusive you have no one to share it with, a bit lonely I guess. The weather was also a bit of a downer later on, but all in all. We only had one day for Magic Kingdom and instead of buying a one day ticket for $100 something we splurged the extra $50 and had the park to ourselves. I must admit that sometimes it's good to have time between rides because I was getting a little queasy towards the end and could have used a break.
Any questions, feel free....

Sounds great! Please Disney, continue this event through August! We would love this.

 

[Daddio]

The limitation of ticket sales number I heard most often from cast members was 3,000. There could have been close to 3000 people in the park that evening and it would still feel empty. Keep in mind that if freebie tickets were allocated, many of those that reserved them may not have shown up. No investment translates to no committment.

~ David

 

[Bete]

I have mixed feelings about this event. We take our dog on our trips and we don't kennel her. It would cause her high anxiety. We always stay off property with our dog. I have to say we have accomplished much less at the parks then we were able to do before without the dog in the picture. So, for us this could work; because, we would have easier access to the rides. It would be a very quick process, too which is appealing. We are older and standing in long ride lines, etc. is a hardship for us. The other side, we are not late owls, but for one night I suppose we would take a nap and do it.

Another way to look at it for us is we have multi-day park tickets when we go; so, we could add an extra day to our multi-day park tickets and pay for an extra night resort stay for the cost of this event. We would probably see the same amount of rides this way, but it would take us longer to do so and more energy.

Since it's a toss up for us we will probably try it once and see how it works for us.

I would love to do this with our great grandkids, but I would never let three year old children stay up that late. I would say they would at least have to be 10 before I would consider that aspect.

 

[rnavarette]

For those mentioning the massive price increase vs E-ticket (which I'll admit I'd have loved if given the opportunity) remember this: E-ticket required separate park admission according to the provided link. Given today's MK admission price of $110, the difference in price is really only like $27. Sure, there's less time in the park but you should be able to do quite a bit in the 7 hours you have.

Crossing my fingers the crowds stay low for the remaining dates as we have tickets for one of the last days advertised. Even though we go almost every year, this looks like a great way to splurge on something extra special for our anniversary when we only had 2 days to spend at Disney anyway. My only worry these posts have brought up now is weather! Crossing my fingers