I understand that a separate ticketed event called “Magic Kingdom After Hours” will be offered in early 2018 (was also offered in 2017). You pay a separate ticket admission price ($120), and are admitted to the Magic Kingdom for 3 hours after the park closes to regular guests (plus the last normal operating hour of the park).
My question is: Is anyone aware of how the Magic Kingdom After Hours event impacts the MK park crowd levels that day? Is the park noticeably more crowded overall, and/or during the last normal operating hour? Are the fireworks more crowded due to the After Hours event? Does the addition of the After Hours event make it less desirable to visit the MK that day if you are NOT attending the After Hours event? In an upcoming trip, I was planning a MK day on 1/30/2018. If I don’t attend the After Hours event, I was wondering if I should avoid the MK that day. Thanks for any help on this one!
My recollection is that it has no impact. It seemed hardly anyone attended the after hours event so any bump in attendance was on the order of hundreds so you wouldn’t really notice any difference for a normal day guest.
We went to the After Hours event in March. We spent the morning in MK and went back to the resort for the afternoon before heading back for the evening and night. We didn’t notice any increase in crowds on that morning or when we returned. (Although we only have that trip to compare it too). The real crowd change we saw was our second week when Spring Break crowds seemed to have started properly (or that’s what we assumed). The After Hours event itself was fab and well worth it for us as we only had two weeks to see as much as possible so it took a lot of pressure from being afraid of missing anything in our favourite park.