In this post, we review Magic Kingdom After Hours, a ticketed event at Magic Kingdom that allows guests access to the park in the late night hours with lower crowds. We cover everything from purchasing tickets to how long the waits are. Read on to learn all about Magic Kingdom After Hours!
We also have reviewed Animal Kingdom After Hours and Hollywood Studios After Hours, the similar events at those parks.
Update: After Hours Returning 2023
After Hours will return in 2023. We expect the event to largely resemble its former self, but we hope to visit soon to review any changes.
Magic Kingdom After Hour Basics
I’ll start with the basics before we move on to my itinerary for the night.
What is Magic Kingdom After Hours?
Magic Kingdom After Hours is a ticketed event held at Magic Kingdom on select dates that allows guests to access the park and select attractions “after hours”—that is, for three hours after the regular Magic Kingdom park hours. After park closing, access to the rides is limited to ticketed guests.
We’ve also reviewed some other Disney After Hours events:
Like Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, guests without a ticket are not allowed in the park during After Hours. Disney doesn’t seem to actively kick them out (at least not at first), but they’ll need an After Hours wristband to do pretty much anything other than shop on Main Street.
Unlike those holiday events, there is (mostly) no specialty entertainment. After Hours is almost entirely about getting on rides, while we largely advise against riding rides at the holiday parties.
What about Disney Villains After Hours?
There is a specialty version of After Hours—Disney Villains After Hours has special entertainment. This event is distinct from standard Magic Kingdom After Hours and occurs on different nights. The rest of this post does not pertain to Disney Villains After Hours.
How much does Magic Kingdom After Hours Cost?
Ticket prices vary and start at $135, with Disney World annual passholders and Disney Vacation Club members receiving a $30 discount. Disney After Hours tickets can be purchased online, at ticket booths, or through the concierge at your hotel.
What rides are open during Magic Kingdom After Hours?
Disney gives a partial list of attractions on the event website. When I visited, the handout given to start the night listed the following 19 rides (given in order of my priority): Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Astro Orbiter, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, PeopleMover, Prince Charming Carrousel, Barnstormer, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Mad Tea Party, Dumbo, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Under the Sea, and “it’s a small world.”
A 20th ride, Tomorrowland Speedway, was open but not listed on the event handout (I’d prioritize it between Astro Orbiter and Buzz). There were, additionally, three shows and a walkthrough attraction open: Enchanted Tiki Room, Country Bear Jamboree, PhilharMagic, Swiss Family Treehouse.
Finally, there were four character greetings—Mickey Mouse (Town Square Theater), Tinkerbell (Town Square Theater), Ariel (at her Grotto), Princess Fairytale Hall (typically Cinderella, Elena, Rapunzel, and Tiana).
Unlike the holiday parties, these character greetings are part of the standard lineup at Magic Kingdom.
You can read more about the rides of Magic Kingdom here. If you’re traveling with a little one, you’ll also want to read about height requirements at Disney World and the best rides for toddlers at Magic Kingdom. Finally, it’s worth noting that Genie+ is neither active or necessary during After Hours.
Other Magic Kingdom After Hours Perks
During Magic Kingdom After Hours, guests have access to select free snack items, particularly popcorn, ice cream bars, and some bottled beverages. Just walk up to any open snack stand and make your request. Select larger food items may be available for purchase.
Magic Kingdom After Hour Dates & Times
Magic Kingdom After Hour dates are only announced a few weeks to months in advance and are usually one day a week. You can view the upcoming schedule here. Keep in mind the alternative Disney Villains After Hours also occurs select nights.
Magic Kingdom After Hours starts at 9PM or 10PM, depending on the date, and lasts three hours. After Hours guests can enter the park as early as 7PM.
Buying After Hours Tickets
The easiest way to purchase Magic Kingdom After Hours tickets is going to be via the Disney World website. Ticket prices vary and start at $135. Disney World annual passholders and Disney Vacation Club members may purchase discounted tickets.
I had my go-to agent, Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character, purchase my tickets for me. To date, I haven’t seen any discount offers besides the AP and DVC discounts, but you might want to check discount Disney World ticket brokers to see if any have popped up.
My Magic Kingdom After Hours Experience
While I think this entire thrilling narrative is worth a read, I get that some of you are just here to see how much you can accomplish in an evening. Here’s what my schedule for a 10PM to 1AM event looked like (wait times were negligible—under 5 minutes—unless otherwise noted):
10:02PM Splash Mountain
10:27PM Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
10:36PM Haunted Mansion
10:52PM Peter Pan’s Flight
11:02PM Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
11:10PM Space Mountain
11:27PM Astro Orbiter (7 minute wait)
11:31PM Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin
11:37PM PeopleMover
11:55PM Meet Mickey
12:03AM Jungle Cruise
12:20AM Pirates of the Caribbean
12:30AM Magic Carpets of Aladdin
12:40AM Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
12:48AM Dumbo
12:52AM Barnstormer
12:57AM Tomorrowland Speedway
That’s 16 rides and one character greeting. The missed rides were Mad Tea Party, Under the Sea, “it’s a small world,” and the Carrousel, all of which are easy to fit into a regular day at Magic Kingdom. I skipped the shows intentionally because they’re also easy to fit into a regular day at Magic Kingdom, and they’re time-consuming.
Next we’ll talk through this itinerary before discussing my conclusions about the event (including how to think about “is it worth it”).
I arrived after 7PM, so wristband distribution was already going on at the front of the park. There was a special set of gates for event guests, and I was given a wristband and this handout (use arrows to see both sides):
Keep in mind that if you’re arriving early, you can visit any open attraction in the park, including any that will close for After Hours. You can also watch the nighttime show, Happily Ever After, usually at 9PM. If your event starts at the same time as Happily Ever After, I wouldn’t recommend watching the show unless it’s your only opportunity.
General After Hours Strategy
Magic Kingdom After Hours has enough going on that you probably won’t be able to experience everything in a single trip. That’s good, though, because it allows you to really get your money’s worth.
Generally, you’ll want to prioritize rides that are more difficult to get on during regular park hours. You’ll also want to prioritize shorter rides, since you’re on a clock.
The attraction list I posted above was how I’d prioritize them. Here are a few quick notes about that ranking…
I’d rank the first six as “must do.” Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, and Astro Orbiter. These are five very popular rides, plus Astro Orbiter which doesn’t have a Lightning Lane and is generally just awful to fit into your day because of its elevator load system.
I’d skip the shows and treehouse entirely. These are all easy to visit during a regular day at Magic Kingdom and take too much time out of your After Hours experience.
The last seven are easy to get same-day Genie+ Lightning Lanes for at Magic Kingdom, and thus low priority. That’s: “it’s a small world,” Barnstormer, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Mad Tea Party, Under the Sea, Dumbo, Magic Carpets of Aladdin.
My Magic Kingdom After Hours
I made the decision to start with Splash Mountain, boarding at 10:02PM. I sort of regretted this. It’s a long ride, and I had a 5 minute delay in the middle. I picked it since it had no wait and to let other wait times drop (since non-After Hour guests were still in line for some of them).
But I considered it a must-do for the event, and the only other time you’d really want to ride it would be at the very end. A long ride is a good way to finish your day, because you’ll queue right as the event ends, essentially getting the ride time as “bonus” event time.
That said, I don’t want to finish on this side of the park. I’d rather finish in Fantasyland / Tomorrowland, where there is a high density of quick attractions.
From Splash, I knocked out neighboring Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and then Haunted Mansion on my way to Peter Pan’s Flight, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Space Mountain. By about 11:15PM (75 minutes into the 180 minute event), I’ve covered the biggest names in the park.
Exiting Space Mountain, I headed to Astro Orbiter. With its elevator load system, there’s never a good time to ride Astro Orbiter. On a typical Magic Kingdom day, it will be one of our last rides (often very last). The ride also doesn’t have a Lightning Lane. From there I visited Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin before hopping on PeopleMover at 11:37PM.
PeopleMover is a longer ride and typically easy to get on during the day at Magic Kingdom, so it might not be high priority. I chose it for two reasons. First—I love it. And thats enough. Second—I wanted to take a minute to relax and plan my next steps.
Only planning to meet one character, I went to visit Mickey Mouse. This is a tough one because I had to go all the way down Main Street and back. And keep in mind, an extra two or three families in front of you could mean an extra 10 minutes of time spent greeting the character. Luckily I only had one family in front of me.
From there I resolved to hit the last two “long” rides I really wanted—Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean. I was impressed with the energy our Jungle Cruise skipper had at midnight. Exiting Pirates just before 12:30AM, I was left with 30 minutes and no “must do” attractions left.
I grabbed a Mickey Ice Cream Bar and Diet Coke and threw them in my bag (to let the ice cream bar soften) before hopping right on Magic Carpets of Aladdin at 12:30AM.
From there it was the quick Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at 12:40AM and Dumbo at 12:48AM. Barnstormer is only about a minute long, so I was able to squeeze that in at 12:52AM. I headed over to Tomorrowland Speedway—not on the published ride list—and finished with that at 12:57AM.
While you might feel like the park is deserted as this point, back on Main Street there’s still plenty of picture-taking going on, including by some Photopass photographers. (I visited during Christmas season, hence the decorations and lit up castle.)
Disney will continue to run buses until the very last guest leaves the park. Sadly, I was at a Disney Springs hotel so had to make my own way home. I walked over to Contemporary and caught an Uber there (you can also take an Uber from Transportation and Ticket Center).
Magic Kingdom After Hours Conclusions
Unlike Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom—the other two parks that have or do offer After Hours—you can’t easily complete Magic Kingdom in a single day most days. That means After Hours is naturally going to be of more value at this park than the other two.
Setting price aside for a second, this event was flawless for me. I had next to no waits. The delay on Splash was inconvenient, but not fatal to my night. I was able to basically walk right onto rides the entire event time, limited only by my own walking speed.
The sixteen rides and one character greeting I completed would be a good day at Magic Kingdom, and I was able to do it all in three hours instead of 12+. So…how about that price?
Is Magic Kingdom After Hours Worth It?
I structure this post to answer this question last because hopefully I’ve helped you come to a conclusion about it already. But if not, I’m happy to help a little more.
I paid $148.04 because I purchased a same-day ticket. In advance you’d pay $137.39 per person. A one-day ticket to the Magic Kingdom costs somewhere around $120 to $170.
More important though isn’t the single day ticket price, but the marginal cost for adding days to your trip. For a family of four, adding a fifth day to their park tickets will cost around $50 total most of the year. This means if their hotel costs less than $500 and they can get the same flight prices, it will actually usually be cheaper to add an entire day to a trip than for a family of four to do Magic Kingdom After Hours.
A full extra day at Magic Kingdom is a different experience than After Hours, to be clear. You’ll have lines and crowds, but you’ll also have more time, Lightning Lanes (if you pay for them), entertainment, and more attractions. Either way, adding a day to a vacation isn’t always an option.
Personally, I think a great full day at Magic Kingdom is a near perfect theme park experience. With the right Magic Kingdom Genie+ strategy and a good complementary Magic Kingdom rope drop strategy, you’ll usually be able to put together a wonderful day.
You can also get some help with your day via Magic Kingdom Extra Magic Hours or Fantasyland Early Morning Magic (review upcoming).
And if you can put together that good, full day, you don’t need After Hours. I’d say Magic Kingdom After Hours is typically only going to make sense when your group can’t fit in a full day at Magic Kingdom. Since I’d always make a full day at Magic Kingdom my top priority, that would rarely happen.
But you aren’t me. I could easily see a three day trip where it would make sense to do three mornings at Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot, with an afternoon and After Hours at Magic Kingdom one of those days.
So will it usually be worth it? No. But that’s not an indictment of the event at all. It’s just a pricing problem. If the price doesn’t irk you, then you’re probably setup to have a wonderful time at this event, just as I did.
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