Last year, one of my best friends from high school, Doug, came to visit and I took him for his first visit to Walt Disney World. I planned everything down to the smallest detail. When we started planning his return to Orlando, I wanted to give him some options so he could make the decisions now that he knew more about the parks. One of my suggestions was the Disney After Hours event at Magic Kingdom. It’s a three-hour, specially ticketed event that includes most of Magic Kingdom’s rides and characters in addition to unlimited drinks, popcorn, and ice cream novelties.
I am so unbelievably happy he picked the After Hours.
I usually don’t suggest things to my friends when they’re visiting unless I’ve tried them first. I like to know what it is I’m recommending and if it’s actually a good fit for them. In this case, however, I had to rely on research. If it was just Jay, Duffy, and me, I couldn’t justify the price tag for a three-hour event at a park I go to whenever I want, no matter how fun it sounded. With Doug, it would be another story.
Tickets were purchased as soon as I knew we were committed to going since I was worried they would sell out. The Disney After Hours event has an extremely limited number of tickets. Disney hasn’t released an official number, but based on the number we saw, I’d guess it’s limited to about 4,000 people. 4,000 may sound like a lot, except the World Famous Jungle Cruise usually carries 1,100 people in an hour and that’s just one attraction.
A moderate day at Magic Kingdom is about 40,000 people.
Our tickets would allow us to get into the park at 7:00 p.m. sharp. Magic Kingdom was scheduled to close at 9:00 p.m. so that was two hours of park time before the event even started. We made it to the Ticket and Transportation Center a little before seven but I still needed to pick up our tickets. The ticket booths at the Ticket and Transportation Center were already closed, so that meant I had to go to the Guest Relations window outside Magic Kingdom. This took about twenty minutes, but it was entirely my fault for not picking up the tickets in advance like I was supposed to. (My original plan was doing it after the Enchanted 10K during the Princess Half Marathon Weekend but exhaustion got in the way.)
We made it into Magic Kingdom right at 7:30 p.m. and headed straight for the castle. The last time we saw “Wishes” was actually with Doug, about three weeks before “Wishes” retired. I was so excited for him to see “Happily Ever After”. I grabbed a spot for us at the top of Main Street U.S.A.
He didn’t like “Happily Ever After” but my crushing disappointment can wait for another time.
The fireworks ended and what Jungle Cruise Skippers refer to as the “world’s largest stroller derby” began. This is when everyone tries to leave the park immediately following the fireworks. We made a bee line for the Jungle Cruise. We still had about forty minutes until the After Hours Event actually started and we hoped to get a Jungle Cruise boat to ourselves.
This did not work out, because apparently other people also thought this was a good idea. We aborted and headed for the Haunted Mansion. Doug had fallen in love with the spooky house and its 999 Happy Haunts on his last visit, and he couldn’t wait to ride it again.
After we exited the Haunted Mansion, we decided to go hit Splash Mountain and Big Thunder. This did not quite go according to plan. Splash Mountain was already a walk-on when we boarded about ten minutes before nine, but I’ve never gotten stopped so many times on that ride in my life. It’s called a cascade when the logs get backed up because the ride is temporarily stopped. It’s pretty common, and you often experience it about once every other time you ride.
We cascaded (that’s when the logs back up and the ride stops for a minute) at least three times. The good news is we got some amazing pictures. The bad news is it was almost 9:15 p.m. before we got off Splash Mountain.
We headed over to Big Thunder. We’d been in line maybe five minutes before they announced the ride was temporarily down. We turned and headed out. I wanted to stop at one of the ice cream and soda carts, but Jay pointed out that it was slammed because Thunder just went down. We kept moving through Adventureland and stopped at a cart by the Jungle Cruise stairs. We grabbed two ice creams and a fruit bar before continuing.
We headed across the hub towards Tomorrowland. There were Cast Members scattered everywhere checking to make sure everyone had their lanyards on. I like the lanyards much better than the wristbands Disney usually does. You can take it off for photos if necessary and it’s a souvenir.
We headed straight for Space Mountain. It was posting a ten-minute wait and, honestly it takes ten minutes just to walk through Space Mountain’s queue. We waited maybe one dispatch before it was our turn.
We went to the snack cart outside Space Mountain for drinks this time, and the boys suggested we get Winnie the Pooh out of the way so I’d stop asking about it. It’s my favorite ride-I just wanted to do it once!
After Pooh, we made our way through Fantasyland towards Liberty Square for another ride on the Haunted Mansion. I had to stop to take a photo of the Peter Pan’s Flight’s wait time. I’d never seen it so low!
When we arrived at the Mansion, we were extremely lucky, because it was dead quiet. (Get it? Dead quiet?) We wound up being the only ones in the Stretch Room! Doug could not have been more excited. Scratch that, none of us could have been. How often do you get a private Stretch Room? (The answer is not very often.)
The best part for me was actually not being in the stretch room by ourselves, it was being on the ride by ourselves. There was no one around us! The reason you’re not allowed to take flash pictures on the ride is so you don’t ruin it for anyone else. I didn’t have anyone to ruin it for! So, I now have a whole slew of flash photos from the Haunted Mansion to add to the Mansion wall of our house.
We got another round of ice cream and drinks and headed back towards Tomorrowland for another couple of rounds on Space Mountain.
After the second or third ride, honestly it was extremely hard to keep count, I spotted a coordinator outside while I was munching on popcorn. I asked him if he could find out if Big Thunder had reopened. He said sure, and by the time the boys got back, I had confirmation that Thunder was up and running.
We headed back across the park to ride Big Thunder Mountain at last, almost two hours after we had originally lined up for it. They were only running one side of the station (usually Big Thunder has both sides running for increased capacity) so it was about a five-minute wait. We wound up in the front car, so that was cool, but another single rider decided to join Doug instead of waiting like he was supposed to. It annoyed me just because he disobeyed the Cast Member’s instructions, but I don’t know if it bothered anyone else.
One more trip across the park! It was nearing 11:30 p.m. and we planned to finish out the night with as many more rides on Space Mountain as we could manage. We made it on twice more, and I had the Cast Member checking lap bars insist that Duffy check his too. It was adorable.
We made it out of the gift shop on our final ride about five minutes after midnight. There was a long line at the snack and drink cart, but they hadn’t closed it yet so we hopped in line. Doug got the very last Coke they had, and Jay and I opted for Sprite since they were out of water.
We headed back towards the castle where we planned on doing photos with the Partners Statue. We wound up doing just castle photos instead, because I’d never seen such a long line for the Partners Statue photos. I guess since it was the best opportunity to not have other people in the photo, everyone wanted to do it. I am quite happy with our choice however.
We made one last stop part way down Main Street U.S.A. for a photo before heading for the Ferry Boat since the monorail wasn’t running.
I absolutely love the Disney After Hours Event. I would still have a hard time justifying the price tag if it was just Jay and myself going, but for someone who doesn’t live here, it’s an amazing value. We saw “Happily Ever After”, rode the Haunted Mansion twice, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, and Space Mountain seven times, all in under four and a half hours. We each got three rounds of ice cream and frozen fruit bars, at least two rounds of drinks, and I got a box of popcorn. From a sheer numbers by numbers comparison, we each had about $45 worth of snacks and probably $9 in drinks. Plus the $4.25 popcorn! So that’s roughly $55-$60 of the ticket price right there. We also weren’t as efficient with our time as we could have been. We were having so much fun wandering around an empty Magic Kingdom we didn’t care, but we probably could have squeezed in another few rides if we’d done everything in sections.
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train still had a twenty-minute wait at the end of the night, which was why we never made it a priority. Space Mountain is a more fun ride anyway.
Cost: Admission tickets start at $119 plus tax per adult. The annual passholder discount makes it $89 plus tax per adult.
Value: 10/10, would gladly do again.
Duration: The actual event is three hours, but you can arrive as early as 7:00 p.m. Depending of if the event starts at 8:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m., you can get a total of four to five hours at Magic Kingdom.
Add Ons: This is the add on.
