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Disney After Hours
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Would you pay $150 to be among a few thousand people to enjoy three hours inside the Magic Kingdom after it closes to the general public? If the rumors are true, a new premium event called "Disney After Hours" may offer you the chance to do just that on select nights on April and May.
The source of this rumor is an e-mail reportedly sent to some cast members on Monday, though Disney has yet to make an official announcement. The exclusive event is scheduled to take place on seven Thursday nights this spring:
April: 14, 21, 28
May: 5, 8, 12, 19
Reservations are now open. expected to open on April 6. The cost is $149 per person (ages 3 and older), plus tax. The event includes select attractions and character experiences, along with ice cream novelties and bottled soft drinks from vending carts around the park.
At first glance, it's hard to see how this offering would appeal to all but a handful of park visitors, especially if they are also eligible for Extra Magic Hours.
Extra Magic Hours offers Walt Disney World Resort hotel guests a 1- or 2-hour bonus before or after park hours at selected parks and dates. On Wednesday, April 13, the Magic Kingdom closes to the public at 11:00 p.m., with Extra Magic Hours offered until 1:00 a.m.
On Thursday, April 14, the supposed first date of this event, the Magic Kingdom again closes at 11:00 p.m., so this Disney After Hours event would likely run until 2:00 a.m.. That timing alone is enough to rule out most families with children.
Of course, Disney could make this experience much more compelling by changing the timing—closing the Magic Kingdom to the general public earlier in the day, creating an "After Hours" event that doesn't run until last call. It's not hard to believe that Disney might tweak the Magic Kingdom's schedule to close much earlier one night each week, especially if Animal Kingdom further extends its evening hours following the debut of the new Rivers of Light show and nighttime safaris.
Update: now that Disney has announced the event to the public, it turns out that the event does include more than 3 hours of admission to the park. Guests who purchase the ticket have access to the Magic Kingdom starting at 7:00 p.m., 3 or 4 hours (depending on date) earlier than the park's posted closing time. The "after hours" portion runs until 3 hours after the theme park closes to the public, so 1:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. depending on date.
To crunch the numbers, we have to first look at the normal price of admission on one of these event dates. All of these events fall on a "regular" season date, when the price of a one-day ticket is $110.
Again referring to April 14, the park is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., or 14 hours. That works out to $7.86 an hour to share the park with however many tens of thousands of people also visit that day.
The Disney After Hours ticket is valid from 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., or 7 hours. It works out to $21.29 per hour, and half of the time you'll have the park almost entirely to yourself. Disney won't officially confirm the number of tickets to be sold each night, but CMs tell us it's about the capacity of Mickey's PhilharMagic (just under 500).
If this number is accurate, you better convince your friends to join you for the event, else you may not see another non-employee the entire night. With just 500 people in the park, you could probably ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train as many times in a row as you wanted without ever getting off. With just 500 people in the park, you could have all the face time with Cinderella and Rapunzel that any princess fan could ever ask for. That few people could probably all ride Pirates of the Caribbean at the same time.
So yes, you're spending three times as much per hour to be inside the park, but the longest wait you'd have for any attraction is the time it takes you to walk to it. For the time-is-money crowd, this could be a very attractive prospect indeed. I could see this as being popular with convention-goers, a way to unwind after a long day of seminars and meetings.
Reservations are available by calling (407) 827-7185. [Ask the automated system for "tickets," because this offering is not yet recognized the by voice response system]
Now, if it IS only 500 tickets per event, it might be worth trying this out. Still would depend on what attractions are available and what "Meet and Greets" would be happening.