After Hours Events - Ask Questions and Share Experiences Here

[icbomber11]

Yeah it absolutely wasn’t worth the money. I’m very disappointed. Cosmic rewind broke down at the start of the event and only ran on 1 side for the rest of the event. The standby line was listed as 60 minutes, but we waited much longer than that. The DAS pass system was down so cast members were letting DAS users go right through lightning lane instead of a return time, further making standby a standstill. We waited probably double the time we did for a virtual queue and only got to do it once.

Remy’s was down for a bit, then operated at half capacity as well with a 45 minute wait, the app didn’t show wait times the first hour+ of the event, and test track was down for a bit (didn’t confirm that, just heard it in passing).

Just an absolute disaster first night of Epcot after hours.

Could you share if anything was open in the countries? Were any places to eat open? What were to wait times at REMY, frozen, Test track, soarin? Thanks for your help. We are going end of June and hope it is worth it now.

 

[meremac]

Does anybody know what quick-service places were open during After Hours?

 

[bdthebrave]

We were also at the EPCOT AH event last night, and what a huge disappointment...

As others have mentioned, GOTG was inexplicably only operating on one side and the 60-minute posted standby time was an understatement. We entered the standby queue for GOTG at 10:18 and exited the ride at 11:37. By the time we actually rode the ride, the hype had worn off and my kids were just ready for it to be over with.

The cast members we encountered were not making things better either. It felt like no one wanted to be there. Special props to the CM at Nemo who antagonized my 4 year old about his AH band being removed at 12:57 AM, even though everyone else in our party showed their's. Yeah guy, we stowed away our son the entire night just so he could sneak on the Nemo ride.

In the 3 hours of the event, we managed to ride Frozen, GOTG once, Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, Soarin', and Nemo. 6 rides for over $100 a ticket and waiting over an hour for one is not the value proposition I'm looking for. This is also the first AH event we have attended since the absolutely horrendous HS AH event on Feb 22, so we are pretty darn disappointed

As another user said, I think these AH events truly only work at MK; there just aren't enough rides. To anyone on the fence about doing this event, maybe they will get the wrinkles ironed out, considering this was the first one, but I would probably just take my money and buy a day pass to EPCOT with a GOTG ILL.

 

[StarLime]

Could you share if anything was open in the countries? Were any places to eat open? What were to wait times at REMY, frozen, Test track, soarin? Thanks for your help. We are going end of June and hope it is worth it now.

From what I remember, the countries were closed. They blocked off the pathway from Norway to France. The only places to get food from that I remember were Rose & Crown, Yorkshire county fish shop and connections cafe.

We waited roughly 40 minutes for Remy’s, about 10 minutes for Soarin, and 10 minutes for Test Track. (The car design feature was down for test track which some people were upset about).

Hopefully the other events go a lot smoother and they work out the kinks from last night. Had there not been any issues, it would’ve been worth it.

 

[StarLime]

Does anybody know what quick-service places were open during After Hours?

I briefly mentioned it in my post above, but I found my pamphlet from last night so I’ll share that:

Connections Eatery (until 10pm)
Connections Cafe (until 11pm)
World discovery hot dog cart
Kringla bakeri og kafe
Yorkshire county fish shop (until 11pm)
Rose & Crown pub

 

[CeCe0906]

The walk-way thing is totally unacceptable.

Can you explain the walkway thing? Isn't Frozen and the Mexico ride open during the event. Does this mean you can't walk around World Showcase during the event?

 

[fatmanatee]

Guardians running on only one track is pretty baffling, that’s a ride you’d want to be running at full capacity bc plenty of people will want to ride multiple times during an event like this, would have also been a useful test for standby.

 

[fatmanatee]

Can you explain the walkway thing? Isn't Frozen and the Mexico ride open during the event. Does this mean you can't walk around World Showcase during the event?

It sounds like part of the path is closed, so you might have to take a longer walk around.

 

[meremac]

I briefly mentioned it in my post above, but I found my pamphlet from last night so I’ll share that:

Connections Eatery (until 10pm)
Connections Cafe (until 11pm)
World discovery hot dog cart
Kringla bakeri og kafe
Yorkshire county fish shop (until 11pm)
Rose & Crown pub

Thank you SO much. I really appreciate it.

 

[scrappinginontario]

For those concerned about the path between Norway and France not being open during the AH event, it's actually a shorter walk via Canada than it is through the countries.

 

[Kcnc]

Could you share if anything was open in the countries? Were any places to eat open? What were to wait times at REMY, frozen, Test track, soarin? Thanks for your help. We are going end of June and hope it is worth it now.

We're booked for July 6th so I was watching last night until I fell asleep around midnight. Frozen stayed around 15 min, Test Tack fluctuated 10-30. Remy's was down an hour or so, opened and stayed at 15 for a while then jumped to 45. Guardians stayed at 60. Everything else stayed at 5-10 min.

Reading here and elsewhere, I'm hoping last night can be chalked up to the perfect storm of the technical issues on 3 of the most popular rides: GotG, Remy's, and Test Track. I know we always have to expect something to go down, but this sounded pretty bad. It looked like they learned from the HS AH issues too and there was an hour buffer between park close and the event starting. So that can give people enough time to watch the fireworks or go ahead and get started on rides.

I saw that Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Pluto were meeting people and dancing. I was happy about that because my kids are going in July too.

 

[brockash]

Can you explain the walkway thing? Isn't Frozen and the Mexico ride open during the event. Does this mean you can't walk around World Showcase during the event?

Correct. They block it off from Frozen to Remy, so you can't go through the other countries and have to walk all the way around and backtrack to do both rides. It was tacky enough that they have this blocked off ever, but to do it for a pricey 3 hr. event...totally unacceptable and really just goes to show how little they care about the guest experience during that time.

 

[icbomber11]

Correct. They block it off from Frozen to Remy, so you can't go through the other countries and have to walk all the way around and backtrack to do both rides. It was tacky enough that they have this blocked off ever, but to do it for a pricey 3 hr. event...totally unacceptable and really just goes to show how little they care about the guest experience during that time.

Agree...there is something special about just walking around and being able to see the countries even if they aren't open.

 

[Mermaidtails1323]

To follow-up on my original post from last night, pretty much what everyone else said was correct.

We had such a good day before going to the after hours event. We started the morning at Hollywood studios and got so much done, with a combination of rope dropping and genie plus. We hopped over to Epcot that evening. We had dinner at Via Napoli, which was excellent. I managed to pull fast passes for frozen, and Remy, which ended up being a blessing in disguise. We also were able to do a fast pass for Soarin and got several other rides done in a few hours before it started.

I was happy to see that they open the rides at 9 PM. I wasn’t sure if they would make us wait until 10 PM. This was probably the last good part of the evening. We started with test track, which we ended up waiting about 10 minutes. We then made it over to guardians of the galaxy and we were really excited to ride this again. I had decided to buy a lightning lane for the evening, so we could get an additional ride in before the event started. I’m really glad we did, as we hardly had to wait that time, and both sides were running at that point in the night (around 815pm). While we were in the line during the event, it shut down. We decided to wait, but it ended up making our wait time in line over 45 minutes. At that point, my youngest was pretty cranky. We decided to get a snack and head back over to test track, which was listed as a 10 minute wait. Of course, we got right to the front about to get on our car when the ride shut down. We waited another 15 minutes before we had to hop out of the line due to crankiness and tired feet with no hope of riding any time soon. We made another stop at the ice cream stop, and at that point every ride listed in the app was 45 to 60 minutes. Or rather, every ride that was worth riding. Remy had been down the beginning of the night, and when it finally came back up, the lines were rather long. My kids also couldn’t make the walk all the way back to that part of the park. We decided around midnight that we were going to call it a night.

Overall, the best part of our night was the couple of hours we had prior to the start. Had I known that I was going to wait in line that long and hardly accomplish anything, I would not have paid for this ticket. We’ve gotten more rides done rope dropping. Again, we were actually looking to go to Hollywood Studios instead, but I waited too long and wasn’t able to buy the tickets. I think that event would’ve been a much better fit for us. Have they had a Magic Kingdom option, though, we would’ve gone there instead for sure.

 

[Disneyfandenver]

First time poster but have enjoyed the posts for years. Agree with above on Epcot ah on 6-1. My flight was delayed and walked in international gateway at 11pm. All I could accomplish was remy (which was off, seemed slower than normal plus half capacity). Grabbed a water and ice cream bar then was in line for guardians for over an hour. People were leaving the queue and I asked why. Told limited capacity by cast member. By the time I got off it was 1250 so grabbed some waters and soda for the room. Very disappointed and wouldnt recommend if they can’t fix the issues. Did see Mickey and Pluto available for photos. Didn’t feel the dj piped through added a lot. Several carts for the included snacks and drinks near mission space but not a lot between ig and there. Had a much better experience at studios ah earlier this year.

 

[cigarboo]

I'm so disappointed with Disney. I splurged for tickets for my son and friends to go to Epcot's afterhours last night to celebrate his graduation. I was so excited for them to have a wonderful time and it was terrible. The ride lines were long because so many of their rides were broken. They wasted their time waiting for Ratatouille only to have it break down just before they got on, then waited in line for TT and it broke after another 30min wait. While they waited for guardians, the ride broke down twice while they were in line. They ran that ride at half capacity and had them skip the preshow because they ran out of time. I'm normally a big Disney fan, but that really was a horrible waste of time. Shame on Disney for passing this event off as a special ticketed event. Their reputation has been going down lately and it's their own fault for not being able to maintain their rides. A big part of their selling point for these events is shorter lines and they did not deliver and did not do anything to rectify the situation. The group ran out of time miserably walking from one part of the park to the other part trying to get on a ride, only find long lines and broken down rides.

 

[wdw4rfam]

Sorry this is unacceptable. I understand things break down but multiple things at the same time when you are paying so much extra to be there is not acceptable at all.

 

[brockash]

I'm so disappointed with Disney. I splurged for tickets for my son and friends to go to Epcot's afterhours last night to celebrate his graduation. I was so excited for them to have a wonderful time and it was terrible. The ride lines were long because so many of their rides were broken. They wasted their time waiting for Ratatouille only to have it break down just before they got on, then waited in line for TT and it broke after another 30min wait. While they waited for guardians, the ride broke down twice while they were in line. They ran that ride at half capacity and had them skip the preshow because they ran out of time. I'm normally a big Disney fan, but that really was a horrible waste of time. Shame on Disney for passing this event off as a special ticketed event. Their reputation has been going down lately and it's their own fault for not being able to maintain their rides. A big part of their selling point for these events is shorter lines and they did not deliver and did not do anything to rectify the situation. The group ran out of time miserably walking from one part of the park to the other part trying to get on a ride, only find long lines and broken down rides.

And if Disney does have a night with terrible luck (if that's what it was,) then they should be compensating their guests. These events are waayyy to expensive to not be a decently consistent experience.

 

[kelleybean]

We went to the after hours last night and unlike the other reviewers left feeling overall positively about it. Not a great start to the night - we entered Epcot through the back gate and it was really poorly organized. At the Hollywood Studios event, they scanned everyone's ticket well before 7:00 and issued wristbands and started letting people in at 6:45. Last night they waited until 7:00 to even begin checking people in (it began raining around 6:45, so I'm surprised they didn't bump the timeline up a bit). The other thing is that at the turnstile the cast member had us transfer the tickets from the app to Apple Wallet before scanning, my husband was in another line and did not have to do that. So I (and other families) completely held up the line trying to get it in that format. If it was necessary they could have told everyone to use Apple Wallet during the downtime before entering.

We did not experience any of the issues that others did, but that may have been luck. We did Remy as soon as we got in the park so the shutdown during the event didn't affect us. We got in line for Guardians at 9:15 and walked straight to the pre-show, got held up before getting on the ride with a shut down but it wasn't too bad because we had cruised through the first part of the line. We walked on Test Track, Soaring and the Land. After that I really wanted to ride Guardians again and we wound up waiting an hour that went past closing, but I think we easily could have done the other rides instead. I agree with the other posters that it is completely unacceptable that they didn't have both sides of Guardians open.

I think a couple of things made this event worthwhile for us. One was that even though the event was officially 3 hours we really got 4 because we could get in line at 9:00. That extra hour vs what we had at the Hollywood Studios AH was a huge benefit. We had never ridden Remy so it was a priority for us, and knocking that out upon entering the park turned out to be really helpful. Also because we have visited Epcot many times, we didn't feel like we missed much trading Frozen, Spaceship Earth etc. for riding Guardians twice.

Hope this helps.

 

[kat_lh]

I haven’t done any googling today but has anybody seen what the bloggers are saying?