Get ready for 'After Hours' extras at Walt Disney World

August 27, 2024, 1:10 PM · Walt Disney World has set the dates and prices for its Disney After Hours events next year.

Disney After Hours is a specially-ticketed event that happens at select Disney theme parks on certain nights throughout the year. This year's events will be at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Disney's Hollywood Studios. You can enter the parks as early as 7pm and stay three hours after the park closes to day guests. After the park closes, you can enjoy shorter waits for attractions as well as free ice cream, popcorn, and select drinks.

Here are the 2025 Disney After Hours event dates for Magic Kingdom, where tickets will range from $175 to $185 plus tax per person and the event runs until 1am:
January 6, 13, 20 and 27
February 3, 10, 17 and 24
March 3, 17, 24 and 31
April 7 and 28
May 5, 12 and 19

Here are the dates for EPCOT, where tickets will range from $155 to $175 plus tax per person and the event runs until 1am:
February 27
May 8 and 29
June 19 and 26
July 10, 24 and 31
August 7, 14, 21 and 28
September 11 and 25

And here are the dates for Disney's Hollywood Studios, where tickets will range from $155 to $185 and the event will run until 12:30am, or 1am on nights noted with an asterisk(*):
January 22 and 29
February 12 and 19
March 5 and 26*
April 1* and 30
May 14 and 28
June 4,11 and 25
July 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30
August 6, 20 and 27
September 3

Tickets will go on sale to the public starting September 10, with a presale starting September 4 for guests staying at select Walt Disney World Resort hotels, as well as the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotels and Shades of Green.

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Replies (2)

August 27, 2024 at 1:31 PM

These after hours events use to be a good deal, but now it just seems like Disney is trying to get double the profit by closing the parks early and splitting the admission into a day group and a night group. I'm a Disneyland local originally, and I use to to be able to visit and stay the whole day and into the evenning (sometimes even into early morning) on one paid admission ticket. Has that ever been the case at Walt Disney World?

August 27, 2024 at 1:47 PM

So true AngryDuck, and it's kind of funny that all of the influencers have changed their tune to not only promote these after hours events, but to also encourage guests to visit parks on days when they're staging after hours events. For the longest time, every Disney "expert" would recommend guests avoid parks hosting after hours events (most notably MNSSHP, MVMCP, and OBB) because of the limited operating hours and the crush of guests during the transition period. These same outlets are now arguing that the parks are less crowded on those days primarily because the outlets were recommending against visiting, but the time you have to visit is significantly reduced by 4-6 hours or 25-40% of a typical operating day.

I can see the benefit of these after hours events when they're themed (Halloween, Christmas, Pixar, Star Wars, etc...), but when it's just an excuse from Disney to grab a second gate, that kind of rubs me the wrong way. If the point is to charge a premium for a less crowded park, then why don't they just blackout APs on certain days and charge that premium for a standard operational day where capacity is deliberately restricted (through dated tickets)? Disney knows that crowds are a problem, and between LL and these expanded after hours events, they are deliberately trying to profit from the problem instead of trying to solve it.

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