Planning Tips Reviews

Event Review: Disney After Hours at Animal Kingdom

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Let the fun begin!

Event Details:

  • Select nights at Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom (not Epcot)
  • $125/person, $95 with Annual Passholder discount
  • 3 hour window after park closes (i.e. 9:00pm-12:00am)
  • Can arrive starting at 7pm at the park for the event (without a regular park ticket)
  • Limited restaurants and stores open
  • Some snacks and drinks included with price of ticket (Mickey bars!!)

Our Experience:

The Tree of Life at night is a totally different feel than during the day.

My husband and I went to our second Disney After Hours, this time at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We had never been to that park at night before, so we were excited to check it out! 

We got there at about 8:30pm since we flew in to Orlando that evening, and that was when the park closed to the public. As we were walking in, floods of people were leaving, so we took that as a good sign. We headed straight for Pandora. 

The floating mountains at night are spectacular.

Pandora at night did not disappoint – it was pure magic! I love the Avatar movie and the World of Avatar, so seeing everything lit up at night was breathtaking. We were starving when we arrived, so we went to the walk up Pongu Pongu for dinner (yum!). As soon as we finished dinner, the crowds were noticeably quieter. We walked on to Flight of Passage around 9pm, when the event was scheduled to start and waited maybe 10 minutes for the ride! It took about 25 minutes to get through the queue/pre-show videos. 

Expedition Everest at night is so cool!

After that, we hit up Na’vi River Journey, Dinosaur, Expedition Everest and watched the Rivers of Light Show! We had never seen the show before and absolutely loved it. We walked right up as the show was starting and it was empty – it felt like we had a personal viewing of the show. Then we headed back to Pandora to ride Flight of Passage one more time before we left and got through it even quicker the second time. We got off the ride at 11:59pm and were wiped. 

Rivers of Light is an amazing show – we had never seen it before!

It was the perfect amount of time for us to hit all of the available attractions, but still feel like we got to enjoy the park and weren’t rushing around. We would highly recommend this event and felt like it was worth the money to experience Animal Kingdom at night with very limited crowds. 

WDW Park Planner Tips:

  1. Get there at 7pm
    • You’re able to enter the park starting a 7pm. If you want to do any of the attractions that are closed during the event (Kilimanjaro Safari), or dine a any of the restaurants that are closed (I wanted to go to Nomad Lounge), get there early! We weren’t able to because of when our flight got in, but if we do another one I would definitely get there early!
  2. Ask and you shall receive! 
    • The cast members let us stay on Dinosaur twice in a row without having to go through the queue again (as much as I do love that pre-show video). Usually cast members will be pretty accommodating when the crowds and lines are quiet! Maybe not for Flight of Passage, but always worth asking 😉
  3. Take an Uber/Lyft home
    • We had a long day of work, travel and hitting the pavement at Animal Kingdom, so by midnight we were exhausted! The bus line was surprisingly long for the Boardwalk (and was combined with the Beach and Yacht Club), so we didn’t even know if we’d make the first bus. We decided to “splurge” on our $7 Lyft back to the resort. Worth every penny to be in bed by 12:45am 🙂
Reviews

Event Review: Disney After Hours at Hollywood Studios

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Park: Hollywood Studios

Disney After Hours is a late night ticketed event with certain attractions and character meet-and-greets available – all with little to no wait!

Event Details:

  • Select nights at Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom (not Epcot)
  • $125/person, $95 with Annual Passholder discount
  • 3 hour window after park closes (i.e. 9:30pm-12:30am)
  • Can arrive starting at 7pm at the park for the event (without a regular park ticket)
  • Limited restaurants open, no stores open
  • Some snacks and drinks included with price of ticket

Our Experience at Hollywood Studios:

My husband and I attended the event at Hollywood Studios on a Friday night and had a blast! We arrived at the park around 7pm and just enjoyed walking around until the event started. We had dinner and drinks at the Brown Derby Lounge (our favorite!) while we waited for the crowds to leave.

We walked around and started to notice the park slowly getting quieter. By the time the Star Wars Galactic Spectacular fireworks show rolled around at 9:30pm, the park was already cleared out! We walked up as the show started and got a viewing spot front and center – even though the park was still open to the general public.

As soon as the fireworks ended, we headed straight to meet the Star Wars characters. We had never met them before and were so excited we were able to walk right up and meet BB-8, Chewbacca and Kylo Ren.

Meet and greet with BB-8!!

From there, we were able to hit all of the rides once through. We rode Rock and Roller Coaster (front row, of course), Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers (first time ever!), Toy Story Mania (I won) and Star Tours! Tower of Terror was closed, which was a huge bummer for us.

The only ride we waited significantly for was Slinky Dog Dash, which took 25 minutes. Honestly, I was a little surprised we had to wait that long, based on what I had heard from people. It’s hard when you have such a limited amount of time to spend that long on one ride, but it was still worth it.

During the night, we enjoyed our Mickey ice cream bars and strolling around the near empty park. That’s one of my favorite things to do at Disney – just enjoy the parks while they’re peaceful and quiet. And that’s exactly what we did!

Overall, we give this event a two thumbs up! Worth the extra money for just the two of us (we also have the AP discount). We would love to try it at Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom!