Official 2021 Disney Very Merriest After Hours Thread

[TropicalDIS]

I think they may turn them on after November 11th when the holidays “officially” start.

It lists on the website about holiday projections in magic kingdom and where would you see holiday projections if not the Christmas party so definitely after the 11th I’m assuming!

ah my mistake. Be interested to see if they are on tonight

 

[TropicalDIS]

Christmas projections are on the castle!

great call!

 

[katyringo]

Can someone direct me to anyone showing the castle projects on YouTube or Instagram?

 

[CampbellzSoup]

Resort tv1 was live streaming then for a bit

 

[BubMunkeyBles]

Just wanted to add that we really enjoyed our extra hours and we all thought it was worth the money. We found it much less crowded than the Christmas parties. We did the Thursday night one on the 11th. I wish I had known they'd cancel the parade due to rain... I've seen the parade in the rain before but the late parade got cancelled. Would have done the earlier one. Oh well, lesson learned. The fireworks were the highlight anyways.

 

[Lsdolphin]

Do they have that back shortcut that goes behind Mainstreet open during After Hours? That would be a good way to exit park during parade Or to enter park if arriving while people are crowding around for fireworks.

 

[persnickity]

Several more sold out dates as more people begrudgingly pay the high ticket prices.

We'll be there in a week, can't wait!

 

[boop0524]

I do find it interesting that after a few After Hours nights people aren’t running to buy tickets....I guess if all the nights do sell out we can expect future events to continue to rise in price...I don’t know if Disney will see that many guests who buy tickets are compensating by staying fewer nights in a resort or spending less on food and shopping. I did modify our reservation to remove one night and made sure CM knew the reason...

It does seem to be selling very slowly. We enjoyed the party Monday much more over Tuesday when the crowd clearly picked up. And even so we all agreed we wouldn’t pay to do it again. We can afford it, sure, but it’s just too darn expensive for what you get.

 

[Selket]

I've decided to get a party ticket for only one of the 4 of us - we are meeting up with a friend who is going so those two can go together so she has someone to go with. It's so expensive. I had thought about buying just 2 days of park tickets (7 day trip) and one party ticket a person but for the savings I can get fairly close to paying for a 6 day ticket. I'd rather have the 4 extra park days vs. 4 hours at the party. I mostly care about the parade and fireworks and it's just not worth it. I may go over the CR that night to watch the fireworks.

From watching live streams of it, it looks better than the AF Halloween party at least...lol!

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

I’m hoping they sell out already on the dates I wanna go, just so I can stop thinking about if I wanna pay the money and go

 

[Sb4]

Hello again! We have party tickets for Dec. 19. The plan was to spend the afternoon at Disney Springs, maybe resort hop a little, get dinner, and then go to the party. I now see that we have more Disney rewards points than I realized, and we could cover admission to another park (DHS) for the day of the party. What would you do? DHS and then straight to MK for 7pm entry? Or stick to the plan of Disney Springs and then party. Kids are 11 and 13. They could probably make it all day / night. But can I? lol. This is our only Disney day.

 

[leeniewdw]

Hello again! We have party tickets for Dec. 19. The plan was to spend the afternoon at Disney Springs, maybe resort hop a little, get dinner, and then go to the party. I now see that we have more Disney rewards points than I realized, and we could cover admission to another park (DHS) for the day of the party. What would you do? DHS and then straight to MK for 7pm entry? Or stick to the plan of Disney Springs and then party. Kids are 11 and 13. They could probably make it all day / night. But can I? lol. This is our only Disney day.

This is almost exactly our decision to make. It's just us adults, and it's a quick 2 park day trip. Originally we were thinking a 1 day/1 park ticket for our arrival day (we arrive early) and use it for EC in the evening. Then we realized the MK Party was that night, so we opted to buy those tickets. Now we're still thinking about adding a 1 day/park day to use at HS using our travel day to stack up LLs for the the afternoon before going to MK.

Our thinking was that if the weather is cold or dreary, we'd have ALL DAY to fill before heading to MK for 7pm. If we knew the weather was going to be warm and we'd be able to spend the day at the pool, then maybe we'd not bother. We could always wait until the day before and evaluate the forecast, but we will probably go ahead and buy the ticket. We'll stack LLs all morning and head to HS after arrival/lunch and a little break. Then head to MK at some point before the party.

 

[MonkeyDishwasher]

Hello! A better late than never input from our trip last week!

We went on 11/9 and entered the park around 7:30. We walked into the park and while turnstile entry was quick and easy, Main Street was packed. So we headed directly to the west side of the park and hit Thunder (2x), Splash, Haunted Mansion, and got a free popcorn and drinks ALL with no lines. We got to catch the first parade across from Pecos Bills and then headed over to Fantasyland- stopping on the way to grab cookies and hot cocoa at the Harbor House. Then we hit Peter Pan (20ish minute wait), 7 Dwarves (30 min wait), caught the fireworks from the Hub (in front of Tomorrowland and with plenty of personal space!). After the fireworks we bounced to Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear, both no waits. By now it was about midnight and we were all pretty exhausted from our race weekend and long day at DHS so we left a bit early.

We also saw: The Country Bears on top of the building in Frontierland, Stitch at Club Tinsel, the Tweedles in front of the Mad Tea Party, and Santa behind Liberty Square.

I felt we got a good value from our time there, though I'm a little bummed our timing didn't work out to see the Castle Show- but there's always YouTube for that! For our ticket price it was great, I don't know that I would necessarily be tempted with the higher prices closer to Christmas though.

 

[katyringo]

Hello again! We have party tickets for Dec. 19. The plan was to spend the afternoon at Disney Springs, maybe resort hop a little, get dinner, and then go to the party. I now see that we have more Disney rewards points than I realized, and we could cover admission to another park (DHS) for the day of the party. What would you do? DHS and then straight to MK for 7pm entry? Or stick to the plan of Disney Springs and then party. Kids are 11 and 13. They could probably make it all day / night. But can I? lol. This is our only Disney day.

for what it's worth- I wasn't going to have a ticket for my party day either, but it wasn't much to add the 5th day to my ticket so I did. My plan is to hit DS when they open for a couple hours, then back to my resort to change clothes and then I'm going to MK. I'm going to use genie+ And LL before going to book some rides. I plan to get to MK around 3-4. This will also allow me to get my party wrist band from inside the park instead of at the turnstiles. Then around 630 I can find a good spot for enchantment. I like my plan because then I can focus on enchantment and the holiday party entertainment because I will have done some rides already... I then plan to hit rides again after the holiday fireworks..

 

[princesswahooey]

Hello! A better late than never input from our trip last week!

We went on 11/9 and entered the park around 7:30. We walked into the park and while turnstile entry was quick and easy, Main Street was packed. So we headed directly to the west side of the park and hit Thunder (2x), Splash, Haunted Mansion, and got a free popcorn and drinks ALL with no lines. We got to catch the first parade across from Pecos Bills and then headed over to Fantasyland- stopping on the way to grab cookies and hot cocoa at the Harbor House. Then we hit Peter Pan (20ish minute wait), 7 Dwarves (30 min wait), caught the fireworks from the Hub (in front of Tomorrowland and with plenty of personal space!). After the fireworks we bounced to Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear, both no waits. By now it was about midnight and we were all pretty exhausted from our race weekend and long day at DHS so we left a bit early.

We also saw: The Country Bears on top of the building in Frontierland, Stitch at Club Tinsel, the Tweedles in front of the Mad Tea Party, and Santa behind Liberty Square.

I felt we got a good value from our time there, though I'm a little bummed our timing didn't work out to see the Castle Show- but there's always YouTube for that! For our ticket price it was great, I don't know that I would necessarily be tempted with the higher prices closer to Christmas though.

Thanks for this input. We're going Dec 19 and I think our plan is pretty close to this, so I'm glad it worked out for you! We plan to start on the adventure land side, watch the first parade from Frontier & work our way toward Tomorrow land. Fireworks show will be a priority, but we may not stop for stage show until the last one depending on how we're doing on rides (we love the rides). We do plan to stay the whole time since it will be our first day (check-in and relax at resort that day) plus we're coming from Alaska, so hopefully the time change won't have hit us yet and 1:00 am will only feel like 9:00 pm.

 

[BillFromCT]

Looks like we've got the first non sold out party for tonight. Tickets still available 35 minutes before it starts.

 

[Lsdolphin]

Looks like we've got the first non sold out party for tonight. Tickets still available 35 minutes before it starts.

Hope you have low crowds and a great time!!!

 

[lostprincess_danie]

My husband and attended last night's after hours (11/14). Our focus wasaonly rides as we were using this event as our only MK time during our trip. My plan was to start in Adventure land and make our way around to Tomorrowland doing whatever we came across in between. Crowds were low, lots of space to walk around. Lines for snacks and drinks moved quickly also.

Here's how our night went:

- Arrive 6:45. Husband got flagged for additional security screening but we were at tapstiles by 6:55.
- Inside at 7:05. Spent 15 min just looking around, taking in the decorations.
- Stop at Emporium to find 50th ornament with no luck. CM said they are all out of stock.
- 7:30 Grabbed a spot for Enchantment in hub near Adventureland. It was crowded but manageable.
- After fireworks went straight to Jingle Cruise, walk on. CM were checking wristbands before 9 and turning day guests away. When we got off the line had formed considerably.
- Pirates, walk on.
- Stop for cookie and hot cocoa at Pecos Bill.
- 9:00 Thunder mountain, walk on. Rode twice!
- Stop for popcorn and drinks. Country bear sighting.
- Haunted Mansion, walk on. (There is a Magic shot shown on the map but CM said the map is wrong, they have not had one there for any party)
- 9:35, Grabbed spot for first parade. Sat on the ground near riverboat dock. Only one row in front of us and they were sitting as well.
- After parade, Christmas shoppe to look for ornaments. Unsuccessfully
- Wanted to get in Dwarves or PP as the waits had dropped. They were 35 at beginning of the evening, dropped to 25.
- Happened upon the Rapunzel lantern shot so we stopped to do that.
- 7DMT, 25 min posted, waited 20.
- Headed back to castle to grab drinks and Orange Bird churro. (Husband does not like churros but said this was good.)
- Decided to stay in hub and wait for fireworks. Walked up at 11:05 and there was plenty of space. (The show was so fun and festive. I could not stop smiling.)
- Post fireworks, PP. Wait posted 25, actual 10.
- Pooh, walk on.
- Space, walk on.
- Buzz, walk on.
- 12:40 we headed to the castle for photos.
- Stopped back by Emporium to buy a magnet.
- Saw a little of the 12:50 stage show.
- Few more photopass with castle and tree.
- Slowly made our way out and were back at the resort by 1:50a.

 

[sherlockmiles]

@lostprincess_danie
Thank you for this report - it was very helpful to me!

 

[bennettfam]

My crew has decided (a little too late) that they want to attend 11/21 which is now sold out I’m sure we’re out of luck but has anyone had any luck purchasing day of for a sold out party?