Tell me about crowds and lines LATE night in the parks

[ThreeMountains]

For my upcoming trip, we’ll be in the parks three days with park hoppers (three for me, four for those I’m traveling with). DL is open 8am-12am all three nights, and DCA is open 8am-10pm the first two nights then 8am-9pm the last night.

What should I expect for crowds and lines later at night in each park? Say, after 8pm, then after 10pm for DL?

 

[blabbermouth]

You might find some info in this recent thread: https://www.disboards.com/threads/rope-drop-vs-staying-late.3884122/
Although it talks more about rope drop

 

[mdmost]

For my upcoming trip, we’ll be in the parks three days with park hoppers (three for me, four for those I’m traveling with). DL is open 8am-12am all three nights, and DCA is open 8am-10pm the first two nights then 8am-9pm the last night.

What should I expect for crowds and lines later at night in each park? Say, after 8pm, then after 10pm for DL?

Conventional wisdom is that late at night you'll see crowds go down because people go to the nighttime shows and parades. If you're interested, you can check the wait times in the Disneyland app to see how things look around that time.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

Conventional wisdom is that late at night you'll see crowds go down because people go to the nighttime shows and parades. If you're interested, you can check the wait times in the Disneyland app to see how things look around that time.

I've been stalking the tip board at in the evenings, but I haven't really seen quite the drop off I was expecting. I will say I have heard from several commentors here that Disney may inflate wait times towards the end of the night. I'll be paying attention while I am there in a couple weeks (yay for countdowns!), and try to comment back with my findings!

 

[Brandonius]

I've spent a few days there in the last 2 weeks so this is recent. Grad nites and no event nights.

So here's the thing - wait times from about 10:30 PM onward become completely worthless. They mostly just stop updating. The only exception is usually (in my recent experience) space mountain, which will have a long line all the way until midnight. Thunder mountain can also hold onto a 30 minute actual standby wait until surprisingly late (like 11:15 or so? Often a bit later even)

Lines from 7-9 PM will be about the same as mid day generally. 9-10 PM will start emptying a tiny bit, especially the rides more geared towards younger children. The headliners in DCA will stay full, if not get busier.

On the DL side, after about 10:30 things start to really REALLY empty out. Notably, Indiana Jones is almost always a walk on (maybe 2 minute wait and the long walk) after 10:30 PM even though the sign will probably say 45-minute standby line. Millennium falcon is usually empty around this time too. Matterhorn will empty out a good bit but not be a "walk on" and Space Mountain will stay busy all the way to closing. Almost everything else will have a very short wait. Indy, Splash (bc its a water ride), and Falcon are the biggest lines that get short at the end of the day though.

Just also know that the reason it gets so short at the very end of the day is that that's a long time to stay in the park haha! It sounds all great to "stay until midnight" until you've already spent most of the day there. Most people just don't make it that long. Just stay as long as you are still having fun (and you won't hate yourself on the drive home, if applicable ;P).

 

[MonocularVision]

I concur that wait times at night are typically way off. Many rides become near walk-ons after 11pm.

 

[DisneylandFan22]

In February I did every ride in Fantasy Land except for Canal Boats and Snow White’s Enchanted Wish between 11:00 PM and 12:00 AM. I didn’t want to do Canal Boats and I could have done Snow White but didn’t want to rush over from Peter Pan for the last ride (I preferred ending the night with Peter Pan).

 

[DLRExpert]

TIP: Try to save long experience or long wait attractions until the park is about to close. For example, get in line for Pirates or Space as the park is about to close.
You have until one minute before closing time to get in line.
Only downside is if the attraction breaks down.

 

[StarlitNight05]

TIP: Try to save long experience or long wait attractions until the park is about to close. For example, get in line for Pirates or Space as the park is about to close.
You have until one minute before closing time to get in line.
Only downside is if the attraction breaks down.

One of my favorite DL memories is running (well not running, maybe fast walking) over to Pirates just before closing. We were the last boat of the night! It was pretty magical walking out of an almost empty park.

 

[DonnerB]

Everyone else has covered the lines well. I will just say that managing the crowds themselves will require patience leading up to the first parade and the fireworks, and immediately afterwards in DL. Lots of rope, tape and one-way traffic. Much easier to navigate DCA with WOC.

 

[maleficent55]

TIP: Try to save long experience or long wait attractions until the park is about to close. For example, get in line for Pirates or Space as the park is about to close.
You have until one minute before closing time to get in line.
Only downside is if the attraction breaks down.

Yes! Happened to me, this was after 5 days in the park, we had only tried to ride Peter Pan once, it went down while we were on it. Had to climb out of our pirate ship down a ladder from the fire department! good times...so we never made it to try again the whole time, then on the last night I was having a solo time in Fantasyland and I got in line at 11:59pm. I was somewhere around the middle of the queue at about 12:15am when it went down. I was so bummed! The only time we saw Peter Pan that trip was by WALKING through!

 

[gelatoni fan]

DCA lines are not going to get short before its 10PM closing. If you aren't planning to do 9PM night shows, 8 something could be a good time to do Rise of the Resistance. No guarantees but its wait times typically start dropping just after 7 and will be under an hour after 8:30.

There's usually a slight increase in wait times after fireworks and then wait times get short after 11. Disney tends to have massively inflated posted wait times at the end of the day. So just before 10PM, it's possible you'll see something like a 90 minute posted wait for Racers but the actual wait only be 30 minutes. I often have 5 minute or less waits to rides with 30 minutes posted waits just before Disneyland closing. Autopia and Web Slingers are exceptions where your wait time may actually be longer than posted at the end of the day.