Two day Park Ticket or AK & Villains After Hours?

[akaDaddy]

Planning a last minute trip to Orlando. Our family has a 1 day park hopper left over from a previous visit and was looking into getting a couple of additional days in the parks. Here is what I’ve found and would love input from the forum professionals...

A two day, two park ticket will run $990 for our family of four adults.

AK After hours on July 29th and MK Villains on August 1 will cost $1,056.

With crowd levels being lighter with the night tickets along with it being cooler, I’m seriously leaning toward doing the two events instead of an all day ticket at each park.

Am I crazy? Am I missing anything?

Thanks for the advise.

 

[jhoannam]

You are allowed to enter the parks at 6:30/7 with the AH tickets, I think you'll get more out of those 6 hours than all day park tickets and you can still schedule 3 FPs with the AH tickets.

 

[Gehrig1B]

You can get a lot done during the After Hours events but AH is primarily for rides... no shows, few meet and greets. You can get some of this done by arriving early of course.

I'm a bit more of a leisurely make my way visitor. I would go with the full day tickets myself and yes, I have done the After Hours events.

If you choose the AH events, I know people say you can get fast passes for the 2-3 hours you are allowed in prior to After Hours but I would not use that time for rides (you will get to experience them during the event) but focus on the things that close during after hours, shows and such!

Again, I would opt for the full days instead of AH...

 

[akaDaddy]

You can get a lot done during the After Hours events but AH is primarily for rides... no shows, few meet and greets. You can get some of this done by arriving early of course.

I'm a bit more of a leisurely make my way visitor. I would go with the full day tickets myself and yes, I have done the After Hours events.

If you choose the AH events, I know people say you can get fast passes for the 2-3 hours you are allowed in prior to After Hours but I would not use that time for rides (you will get to experience them during the event) but focus on the things that close during after hours, shows and such!

Again, I would opt for the full days instead of AH...

Thanks for the advise

 

[Mzpalmtree]

We may have just had the WORST luck where after hours are concerned but we went to a regular non Villains MK after hours in late May where we were stuck on a broken ride for 1/3 of the event. Additionally, the crowds were not as low as on some other dates (though certainly lower than on a regular park day). We spent the remaining bit of the evening rushing to get on about three other rides while feeling irritated and stressed out. We tried to ride 7DMT at the end of the night but the wait was too long. The next night we tried HS after hours and it had a shakey start with ToT being down and RnR having limited capacity for a short while. The waits were pretty bad at the start but then they got better and we did have a really good time. I think those two experiences really drove home for us the fact that with such limited time (and at least with AK and HS limited attractions) only a couple of things need to happen to make everything go bad.

 

[akaDaddy]

Oh

We may have just had the WORST luck where after hours are concerned but we went to a regular non Villains MK after hours in late May where we were stuck on a broken ride for 1/3 of the event. Additionally, the crowds were not as low as on some other dates (though certainly lower than on a regular park day). We spent the remaining bit of the evening rushing to get on about three other rides while feeling irritated and stressed out. We tried to ride 7DMT at the end of the night but the wait was too long. The next night we tried HS after hours and it had a shakey start with ToT being down and RnR having limited capacity for a short while. The waits were pretty bad at the start but then they got better and we did have a really good time. I think those two experiences really drove home for us the fact that with such limited time (and at least with AK and HS limited attractions) only a couple of things need to happen to make everything go bad.

That doesn’t sound good at all. Were the parks crowded on those nights like the Halloween or Christmas Parties? I didn’t realize the After Hours that crowded.

 

[Mzpalmtree]

They weren’t super crowded like a Halloween or Christmas party or even like during the day really. They were just never empty like you see in a lot of pictures people post of AH. There were always people around (and in your way when you were rushing like we were at MK, lol). The ride waits were shorter than during the day but longer than we may have liked for an event that only lasts three hours—25-30 mins for the popular attractions (which was a lot when we’d already lost an hour stuck on a ride). I know it’s not that way for every event but for the ones we went to it was. I just wanted to share that with limited time (and attractions) there can be the potential of things going wrong and not having enough time to recover. We would probably try another after hours event but I would prefer park tickets if it was my only option.

 

[akaDaddy]

They weren’t super crowded like a Halloween or Christmas party or even like during the day really. They were just never empty like you see in a lot of pictures people post of AH. There were always people around (and in your way when you were rushing like we were at MK, lol). The ride waits were shorter than during the day but longer than we may have liked for an event that only lasts three hours—25-30 mins for the popular attractions (which was a lot when we’d already lost an hour stuck on a ride). I know it’s not that way for every event but for the ones we went to it was. I just wanted to share that with limited time (and attractions) there can be the potential of things going wrong and not having enough time to recover. We would probably try another after hours event but I would prefer park tickets if it was my only option.

Thanks

 

[skuttle]

So much of AK isn’t open during AH, I wouldn’t want my only AK time to be during the AH event. But we LOVE AK and I know we are in the minority.

We did both the normal MK AH and the AK AH end of May/early June. MK was totally worth it and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. AK I probably wouldn’t do again. I’d rather spend a normal, full day at AK.