Official 2021 Disney Very Merriest After Hours Thread

[Grasshopper2016]

Until Friday's party, all of the reviews that I had seen fell somewhere in between "amazing, wonderful event" and "a bit of a letdown, but still a reasonably good time." Friday's party sounds like it was a miserable disaster. Was that just due to the weather? It sounds like the bad weather forced the truncation or cancellation of many of the shows, entertainment, and characters without adequate communication from Disney. Maybe it also shut down some of the outdoor rides, at least temporarily? And the combination of closed rides and cancelled entertainment greatly increased the lines at the indoor rides (and the food and drink stands). So everything felt much more crowded, and everyone was cold, wet, and miserable. Is that what happened? Or was there more to it?

I was getting pretty excited about the party we will be attending in December. But now I'm getting nervous.

 

[LSUmiss]

Until Friday's party, all of the reviews that I had seen fell somewhere in between "amazing, wonderful event" and "a bit of a letdown, but still a reasonably good time." Friday's party sounds like it was a miserable disaster. Was that just due to the weather? It sounds like the bad weather forced the truncation or cancellation of many of the shows, entertainment, and characters without adequate communication from Disney. Maybe it also shut down some of the outdoor rides, at least temporarily? And the combination of closed rides and cancelled entertainment greatly increased the lines at the indoor rides (and the food and drink stands). So everything felt much more crowded, and everyone was cold, wet, and miserable. Is that what happened? Or was there more to it?

I was getting pretty excited about the party we will be attending in December. But now I'm getting nervous.

The weather didn’t help. But being too crowded, not having enough drinks/popcorn/ice cream, and rude/overwhelmed CMs wasn’t because of the weather.

 

[CaptainCook]

But I could see how having attractions/entertainment closed on account of weather could make it seem overpopulated by leaving guests just hanging around.

Any chance that without the entertainment/rides to keep them occupied, that guests are eating more than normal? I’m only half-kidding. It’s still not an excuse; that’s the one thing within Disney’s control that should be easy to fix. But I could see how that stress could bring out the worst in CMs, too.

Hopefully they learn from this party and don’t repeat it.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

Most of the previous parties were sold out, and apparently weren’t as crowded as Friday’s. Is Disney doing a bait and switch? Keep capacity relatively low for the first parties to encourage ticket sales, and then jack up capacity for the later parties?

 

[Lsdolphin]

But I could see how having attractions/entertainment closed on account of weather could make it seem overpopulated by leaving guests just hanging around.

Any chance that without the entertainment/rides to keep them occupied, that guests are more than normal? I’m only half-kidding. It’s still not an excuse; that’s the one thing within Disney’s control that should be easy to fix. But I could see how that stress could bring out the worst in CMs, too.

Hopefully they learn from this party and don’t repeat it.

Disney does state clearly within their description of the event that there is no guarantee of fireworks/entertainment....no refunds.....but that still leaves the shortage of snacks with no excuse.

 

[boop0524]

Most of the previous parties were sold out, and apparently weren’t as crowded as Friday’s. Is Disney doing a bait and switch? Keep capacity relatively low for the first parties to encourage ticket sales, and then jack up capacity for the later parties?

We went to the first and second nights of the party and there was definitely a difference in the crowd levels. First night with media coverage (vloggers, bloggers), and the crowds were low and amazing. Second night, much more crowded everywhere we went. It wasn't a normal day at the park by any means, but the difference was enough for me to be annoyed. It was clearly intentional on Disney's part.

From everything I've read, it seems like this is event is higher priced than Boo Bash and appears to have bigger capacity as well.

 

[bethbuchall]

Most of the previous parties were sold out, and apparently weren’t as crowded as Friday’s. Is Disney doing a bait and switch? Keep capacity relatively low for the first parties to encourage ticket sales, and then jack up capacity for the later parties?

We went a sold out party on 11/11 and thought that the crowds were relatively low. They were definitely lower than the MNSSHP that we attended in 2018. Wait times were short for everything except Jungle Cruise (though we hit it at a great time during right before the 8:00 pm regular fireworks and didn't have that long a wait). Popcorn, ice cream, water, bottled pop were never a problem to get, and there weren't many in getting cookies and cocoa the one time that we went in. We walked off of Big Thunder about 5 minutes before the first parade began and found spots to watch right at the ropes. We walked on to Main Street at the hub about 3 minutes before the fireworks and had plenty of space around us. We thought it was great crowd level. So, I do wonder if they sold more tickets to other parties.

 

[amcc]

Until Friday's party, all of the reviews that I had seen fell somewhere in between "amazing, wonderful event" and "a bit of a letdown, but still a reasonably good time." Friday's party sounds like it was a miserable disaster. Was that just due to the weather? It sounds like the bad weather forced the truncation or cancellation of many of the shows, entertainment, and characters without adequate communication from Disney. Maybe it also shut down some of the outdoor rides, at least temporarily? And the combination of closed rides and cancelled entertainment greatly increased the lines at the indoor rides (and the food and drink stands). So everything felt much more crowded, and everyone was cold, wet, and miserable. Is that what happened? Or was there more to it?

I was getting pretty excited about the party we will be attending in December. But now I'm getting nervous.

We were there Friday and the weather was obnoxious with intermittent rain all night. Many places ran out of ponchos so that was also annoying.
The second parade was canceled right at 12:05 with everyone waiting. It wasn’t raining at the time so they were watching the radar - they should have let us know earlier so we wouldn’t waste the time.
I agree that the food carts were few and far between so the lines at the available ones before 11:30 or so were ridiculously long (as were the few places to buy food - I wish there was a free salty option but they didn’t even hand out the pretzels that they gave out at previous MVMCP). We waited 30 minutes for Pooh but most other things were short especially after 11:30.
For me, the $200 pp is too much to risk for a rain out. $90 I can handle but $200 leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I’ll never pay that for my family again especially since it was very similar to the late EMH that were free not that long ago. I did love the fireworks.

 

[KayKayJS]

Dang I hate to hear that about Friday's party. Did anyone go to Thursdays and have the same experience? It was raining then too or at least was at 8PM when we were out and about.

We are going next week. Hopefully no rain.

 

[EPCOT-O.G.]

Dang I hate to hear that about Friday's party. Did anyone go to Thursdays and have the same experience? It was raining then too or at least was at 8PM when we were out and about.

We are going next week. Hopefully no rain.

We went Thursday and made it a point to watch the earlier parade for that reason. I heard they did the same thing the week before.

 

[KayKayJS]

We went Thursday and made it a point to watch the earlier parade for that reason. I heard they did the same thing the week before.

Did they cancel the stage show? We're only going for the stage show and parade for my fab 5 obsessed 2 year old.

 

[mtrib]

I agree.
I knew going in to not expect it to be like the After Hours in the past. But I still did not expect what I encountered last night. There were low ride wait times for some rides and extremely high for others....I think it had to do with the rain?
There wasn't entertainment to take people away from the rides...the stage show I watched ended abruptly after just a few minutes. Left and went to Peter Pan but it had 45 minute wait.
There were huge lines for food all night - waited 20 minutes past my alert that mobile ordered food was ready at Casey's.
They ran out of bottled water at the cart locations closest to the castle, and all those lines for popcorn/coke/ice cream were long, but admittedly went quick at some locations.

The Reindeer Wranglers just simply didn't show up for their first scheduled performance and nobody came out to inform or explain what was going on.

It looked like the first parade went, we should have watched it knowing the weather could get bad....

The fireworks were amazing and so glad they could still do them...it was like the rain cleared for just those 20 minutes or so!

And why in the world are they piping in the DJ microphone all over Tomorrowland? It was really jarring and mood killing to hear him screaming "look at you really going for it tonight, wow you've got moves!" etc. over and over again even by the teacups! How about Christmas music or literally anything else?

The worst for me by far was just the sheer amount of people everywhere.

We have two more party nights...Sunday and Tuesday....I'm very concerned about the crowds and wish we hadn't invested in the pre purchasing. But I will look forward to the chance to hopefully see the parade next time...and again, I loved the fireworks.

would love an update after tonight’s party.

 

[TikiRob]

Random question but does anyone recall if Coke Zero was an option for the free bottled soda?

 

[Lsdolphin]

Random question but does anyone recall if Coke Zero was an option for the free bottled soda?

No. Regular and Diet Coke and Sprite, Daisani water

 

[LottiesMommy]

Was there last night. It was a great use of our time. We made one loop of park riding people mover, under the sea, small world, haunted mansion and jingle cruise. Saw the first parade from a distance and got a table by Casey’s around 10:30 to stay and watch fireworks. We had two mobility challenged individuals (one wheel chair and one slow walker) so the above took more time for us than it would for others. We enjoyed not having the crowd especially for my mother who walks slowly. The lines for drinks and ice cream were pretty long (waiting behind around 20 people) and that seemed like an easy place for an improvement. Jingle Cruise was very fun. What we rode was mainly a five minute/ walk on timeframe except Jingle Cruise. We would do it again just for the lower crowds. Leaving at the end of the night was a breeze. We were there around 7:30 to midnight and got everything done that we wanted. No traffic leaving, lower crowds, great fireworks, no wait for monorail for way back, lower waits for rides…. It was a great night.

 

[whiporee]

We were there last night. A constant drizzle didn't help the overall mood, but it was a lot more crowded than the other After Hours we've gone to (we went to four pre-COVID). Plenty of snacks all night, but the only walk-ons were SW and HM. Everything else had some sort of wait. Not a huge one, but a wait nonetheless. We spent a lot of time getting spots for the fireworks, but we didn't need to -- plenty of room to watch in front of the castle. Same thing for the parades (though we only watched the first one). The fireworks were as good as any WDW has done. It sucks that they use the regular entrances instead of the fast one because that reduces the number of rides you can get done -- in the past we've done 12-16 rides during the event and last night we managed 9, but we spent too much time waiting for shows.

But it never felt crowded-crowded, and no one ran out of food -- they were pushing hot chocolate on us at 1 as we walked out. Not what it had been in the past, but not a bad night. Not sure a thousand-dollar night (5 of us) but not a bad night.

 

[Lsdolphin]

We were there last night. A constant drizzle didn't help, but it was a lot more crowded than the other After Hours we've gone to (we' went to four pre-COVID).Plenty of snacks all night, but the only walk-ons were SW and HM, and everything else had some sort of wait. Not a huge one, but a wait nonetheless. We spent a lot of time waiting for fireworks' nd SM broke down and the kids who to re-enter lines from the other direction, so that ate up 40 minutes. But the fireworks were great, n one ran out of food and the crowds were workable. Not what it had been in the past, but not a bad night. Not sure a thousand-dollar night (5 of us) but not a bad night.

thank you for your report...we are going Tuesday 11/30.

 

[persnickity]

We didn't have the best luck last night - certainly a combo of Disney not meeting expectations, crowds, and mistakes on our part in choosing the wrong things at the wrong times.

We didn't arrive until 7:45 due to food and transportation delays, but were able to take the bypass to get to Tomorrowland without much fuss. Rode Peoplemover and watched the rest of the fireworks there. Then rode
Buzz, which kept shutting down. Then we had a really long wait for Space Mountain (40 minutes). Snack carts were out when we got out, but the first line was huge, so we skipped it. The next wasn't as bad, so we hit that one and waited less than 5 minutes. PP was down and 7D was slammed, so we ended up waiting 25 for Pooh (probably a poor choice on my part as the little kids were still raring to go on rides at that point (we have teens). Hustled over to Frontierland for the parade and got popcorn and drinks - we weren't ready for ice cream yet.

Hurried to follow the tail of the parade to HM and walked on, PP still closed and BTMR looked like a madhouse, so went to walk on Splash and Pirates and ended up blowing my plan to get a good spot for fireworks - they were already going when we got off, and it took a few minutes of hustling to get anywhere near the castle. The Hub was completely packed! We did enjoy the fireworks while we walked, but I wish I'd done a better job of getting us in position - we should have waited to ride Pirates, but we'd been on less rides than expected at that point and I just had to try to squeeze one in.

I think it was during that walk that we spotted the first of many closed down snack carts. We were relieved to find an open one on the way back to 7D (PP still closed!) and ate in line - maybe 25 minutes? Wanted to grab water afterwards, but most of the carts seemed to be closed on the way to BTMM - we found one, but they were out of water. Walked on Thunder and Pirates (MIL wanted to ride again, the rest of us were pretty done).

So, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't as great as I hoped, and I don't really think it was worth the steep price. Couldn't help but notice that last night sold out last week and then came available again for a few days. Not sure if it sold out again, but it sure seems like they added capacity at the last minute.

 

[Kyhome]

We went last night (Sunday) and had a great experience. Background-kids are 11 and 14 and we have been going to Disney since they were born. They only wanted to do rides and get snacks and catch a glimpse of fireworks.

We have been to Villians AH a few years ago and really enjoyed that for the lower crowds.

We arrived at TTC around 6:00, in line at front gate at 6:30 and walked into park at 6:55. Waits pretty long at that point so we did pirates first (25 mins), then over the course of the night did Splash x 2, Big Thunder x 2, HM, Mermaid, Space x 4, Buzz x 2, Pooh, People Mover, Speedway x 2, Mine Train. Not in that order and we did a little zig zagging. Lots of snacks-popcorn, soda, ice cream and cookie stops. We watched both sets of fireworks while walking and/or waiting in line. Longest wait was Mine Train (25-30 mins) and Pirates when we first arrived. Peter Pan down all night but we were not going to ride it anyway. We didn’t do Jungle Cruise bc didn’t want the long wait.

We left around 1:15 am and got back to our car, via ferry about 1:50 am.

For us, it was an efficient and fun way to get in all of the rides we wanted while being able to have fun snacks, see some fireworks and holiday decorations. We figured it was a lot more efficient and lower crowds than a regular park.

 

[DisneyDoesMyHair]

We went last night and had a great time! It was a sold out party, but did not feel like it. We always had plenty of space to move around and the wait times were relatively low. All posted wait times were overstated. We never waited 15 minutes for a ride, and we rode every coaster in the park. Plenty of snacks throughout, with all stations open. We made multiple stops to grab popcorn, hot cocoa, ice cream, etc. and never stood in line. Service was excellent, staff in great moods all evening. We missed our chosen time to watch the stage show due to a cancellation for inclement weather. It really only drizzled a bit off and on. We could have easily caught a later show, we just chose not to. We rode tons of rides, ate tons of snacks, took lots of photo pass shots, and overall took in the Christmas ambience. The fireworks show is spectacular! My favorite part of the night, by far! It really was a magical experience, and we will be back next year! I always love the after hours events for the opportunity to take it slow and just soak up the park. Such a lovely experience!