During our summer trip to Walt Disney World, we went to the Epcot After Hours event. What's the event, you ask? It's one of those times where the park looks gloriously empty and everyone's wandering around with an armful of free snacks — yes, that means free Mickey Bars. You get a quieter park, unlimited treats thrown in, and rides that normally make you fight a virtual queue suddenly running as a regular standby line.
Booking the event
These events only run on certain dates and do need to be booked in advance.
- As we were new DVC members (Disney Vacation Club), we booked ours direct through Member Services, but you can also buy tickets through the Walt Disney World website.
- Tip: if you're UK-based, you'll need to use a VPN to book them.
- While the treats and drinks are billed as "free," what that really means is they're included once you've bought your after-hours ticket — Mickey Bars, popcorn and soft drinks, all thrown in on the night at no extra cost.
For us, the standby-queue point was the real draw, but the free snacks didn't hurt either.
So, how was it?
The day we chose was the day Florida decided to have a thunderstorm. We sat on our balcony at Animal Kingdom watching it roll in, pondering whether the event would still go ahead — oh, and Mr Disney was on the tail end of a stinking cold. But the weather eased, and we headed to Epcot by Minnie Van, of course. Well, for an after hours event you do have to arrive in style.
The rain had eased off by the time we reached the park about half past seven, although the grey clouds still lingered. We headed to the entrance, where they scanned our magic bands and gave us our after hours wristbands.
We picked up the event guide and started to head to the Norway pavilion for dinner in Akershus Royal Banquet Hall. We'd just started into World Showcase when the rain returned, so it was cue poncho time. We rocked the Disney poncho beautifully and still ended up with soaking wet feet. Those YouTube videos of the puddle rivers running through the parks, the ones where you think "nope, that can't really happen" — trust me, it does.
We arrived and checked in for our dinner with the princesses, and as soon as we got inside the storm started up again. I was like, I'm so glad I'm not outside right now. Dinner was great fun. We've had breakfast in Akershus before (review coming soon), but this was our first time having dinner there, and it was pretty good.
After dinner we jumped onto Frozen Ever After and then went for a walk around the other pavilions. I do like seeing the parks at night, as they take on a whole new feel. When we reached the Italian pavilion, Luminous the Symphony of Us was just starting, so we stopped there to watch the show.
This is the second time we've seen it. We first caught it back in February, watching from the celebration side, and both came away thinking it was a bit meh.
This time we found a spot by the Italian pavilion, looking back across World Showcase towards Spaceship Earth — and honestly, it was like watching a completely different show. Same fireworks, wildly better view, and the light features on Spaceship Earth helped make the show so much better.
Tip: if you only take one thing from this, watch it from the World Showcase side.
Party time !!
Once the fireworks finished we carried on round World Showcase and chilled in the UK pavilion while the day guests left. I do like to people-watch. Once the park was cleared, the party started and the park was ours.
As we were still on World Showcase, we hopped over to the France pavilion and jumped on Remy's Ratatouille. This usually has one of the biggest queues in the park, but we were on within five minutes.
We then headed round towards World Celebration, where most of the evening's entertainment was happening, stopping on the way for a couple of fun photo ops and a meet with Pluto — oh, and we picked up our first Mickey Bar and drink of the evening.
Once in World Celebration, we saw that Mickey Mouse was out posing for pictures next to the new Walt the Dreamer statue in Celebration Gardens, so of course we had to have our picture with him.
However, I was on a mission.
I wanted to ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. This is the ride everyone bangs on about, and one I'd wanted to ride ever since we started going to Walt Disney World but had never got around to doing. Mr Disney, however, was not as keen — as mentioned, he was just getting over a cold, so he found a place to perch and I headed over to ride Guardians. The queue was posted as 20 minutes. However, as I later discovered, it was actually an hour I was gone — but so worth it, and the bonus was the tune I got was "September." I couldn't have asked for more.
Feeling very hyper, I headed back to Mr Disney and we grabbed another drink and snack.Just by Connections there was a character dance party, and I had to stop, as Chip and Dale were out dancing and posing for pictures. They usually have one of the longest queues in the parks, so of course I had to grab a selfie with them — I do love Chip and Dale.
By now it was nearly midnight the time had flown by and Mr Disney was tired and wanted to head back, so we had a quick look around Connections to see if there was anything event-specific to buy, but nope, there wasn't.
As we came out, the clouds were looming again, so we headed to the exit, jumped on the bus back to Animal Kingdom, and were back in our room before the next storm hit.
The verdict
Did we think it was worth the extra money? Yes, we did. Even on a soggy night with one of us under the weather, the shorter queues and the calmer, gentler park more than earned the ticket. We'd happily do it again. ★★★★☆
We paid for everything here ourselves — this isn't sponsored, just our honest take.
