Hanging out at Disney World late-night is awesome — but is it worth the cash you have to shell out for extra, hard-ticketed events?
Disney After Hours events are a great way to enjoy the parks without the usual crowd of regular day guests. But admittedly, After Hours events don’t come cheap! Let’s dive in to see if these special events are worth the cost of admission.
What is a Disney After Hours Event?
Disney World offers Disney After Hours events on select nights for both Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. This is a separately ticketed event that will give guests access to the park for three hours after it has closed to regular day guests. Tickets for the event start at $129 when purchased in advance, although Annual Passholders and Disney Vacation Club members are eligible for a discount.
During the event, guests can ride select attractions, meet characters, and enjoy select complimentary snacks. And since the tickets for these events are limited, the lines for the rides tend to be very short, which is widely considered to be the biggest benefit of After Hours. So, let’s dive into the details to see whether or not it’s worth the additional cash!
What is the Price Per Hour?
As mentioned before, the After Hours events are three hours long. They run from either 9 PM-midnight or 10 PM-1 AM, depending on when the park closes that evening. But, even though the event doesn’t officially start until 9 PM or 10 PM, guests with an After Hours ticket can enter the park starting at 7 PM. So, depending on whether the event ends at midnight or 1 AM that evening, an After Hours ticket will get you in the park for a total of five or six hours.
So, using the base price of $129, the price of an After Hours ticket breaks down to $25.80 per hour for an event that ends at midnight or $21.50 per hour for an event that ends at 1 AM. Of course, the price per hour will go up slightly for nights where the ticket price is higher. Okay, now that we’ve figured out the cost per hour, let’s figure out what you can do in that time.
What Attractions are Available
At Magic Kingdom, the After Hours events offer a solid selection of attractions. All of the “big-name” attractions — Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Peter Pan’s Flight — are available. In total, over 25 attractions and character meeting-and-greets are available. At the Villians After Hours events in Magic Kingdom, there is also special entertainment, including the Villains Unite the Night stage show, ride overlays on Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain, and the Villains’ Cursed Caravan parade.
In Animal Kingdom, there are a few popular attractions that are not available during the After Hours events. Most notably Kilimanjaro Safaris and Kali River Rapids are closed during the event. But, there are still plenty of great attractions to enjoy — Flight of Passage, Na’vi River Journey, Expedition Everest, DINOSAUR, It’s Tough to be a Bug!, along with several other attractions, are open. Keep in mind, you can arrive at 7 PM to ride any attractions that will be closed during After Hours, but you won’t get to take advantage of the shorter lines the event provides.
Speaking of the short lines, we can’t talk about attractions without touching on this. In our experience, the wait times for attractions during After Hours have been very minimal. In fact, at one Animal Kingdom After Hours we attended, the wait for Flight of Passage never went above 5 minutes. Of course, this could vary by event date and number of tickets sold, but from what we’ve seen, you can expect waits of no more than 20-30 minutes for any of the attractions that are available.
Complimentary Snacks
In addition to access to the parks with super low crowds, the other selling point for After Hours is complimentary snacks. Guests receive unlimited popcorn, ice cream novelties, and bottled soda and water during the event.
The regular price of these items will run you $5.69 for a Mickey’s Premium Bar, $5.25 for a popcorn, $4.50 for a bottled soft drink, and $3.50 for a bottled beverage. So, it might be tough to eat enough snacks to recoup the full ticket price, but if you have a few snacks and drinks throughout the evening, it will help justify the cost of admission.
So, Is After Hours Worth the Cost?
Ultimately, that all comes down to what you’re looking for and how you use your time! We do think the After Hours events are worth it for certain people. If the attractions available during the event interest you and the people you’re traveling with, you have a limited amount of time on your trip, and you plan to arrive right at 7 PM, then we think you can definitely get your money’s worth!
On the other hand, if you or other people in your party can’t ride (or aren’t interested in) most of the available attractions, or you don’t plan to stay for the full length of the event, then an After Hours event might not be worth the cost for you!
Overall, we are fans of the After Hours events offered at Disney World. We love having access to the parks with super light crowds, and getting to ride some of our favorite attractions with little to no wait is a major benefit for us. But given the steep cost, it’s important to make sure you’ll get enough out of the event to justify the price tag!
Have you been to an After Hours event at Disney World? Let us know in the comments!
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From our experience we have attended them every year since 2005, the special ticketed events such as the Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party are no longer worth it. They are over selling the party and the quality of snack items are just not worth it anymore. The whole experience just lost it magic. We don’t even end up staying the whole night. Now we have done the normal Disney After Hours events and the villains after hours events and both are well worth the ticket. You can walk on any ride basically with hardly any wait if any and the snacks that are handed out are excellent. The after hours events are really something we look forward to if they are during one of the nights of our trip!
For first visits, after hours parties aren’t something that needs to be done. There will be so many experiences new to a first time visitor that spending extra money isn’t necessary.