Hello and welcome to my 2026 WDW Marathon Weekend trip report! You can see all the posts in this report here. Today we’ll be recapping our night at Disney’s hard ticket event Magic Kingdom After Hours. Onward!
How much would you pay to have the Magic Kingdom all to yourself for a couple hours?
Most of us will never experience a proper, celebrity-style full park buyout. But there’s one way you can get close, and that’s with Walt Disney World’s hard ticket event Magic Kingdom After Hours.
WHAT’S MAGIC KINGDOM AFTER HOURS?
Magic Kingdom After Hours is part of Disney’s After Hours series of hard ticket events. On select dates and for an additional cost, you can stay in the Magic Kingdom three hours after it closes for the day. The number of tickets sold is comparatively minimal and a majority of attractions are open, so lines are short to very short to nonexistent.
But wait, there’s more! In addition to attractions, ticket holders can enjoy unlimited bottled water and sodas, assorted ice cream novelties (yes, including the iconic Mickey bar), and popcorn.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE AT MAGIC KINGDOM AFTER HOURS?
The official Magic Kingdom After Hours website lists attractions that will definitely be open (subject of course to unscheduled downtime). For 2026, the guarantees are:
TRON Lightcycle / Run
Space Mountain
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Haunted Mansion
it’s a small world
Jungle Cruise
Peter Pan’s Flight
Under the Sea – Journey of The Little Mermaid
Mad Tea Party
There’s also a special showing of the fireworks show no one liked, Disney Enchantment.
Upon arrival, however, we found more than Disney promised. Just off the top of my head:
Peoplemover
Princess Fairytale Hall
Mickey Mouse at Town Hall
Dumbo
Barnstormer
Autopia
It looked like even Philharmagic was open???
And this is without me doing any kind of exhaustive survey. I’m sure it’s all subject to any number of factors and Disney is just hedging their bets, but it looks like the vast majority of attractions do stay open.
… for now. I attended the very first Magic Kingdom After Hours event of the year. I would not be at all surprised if Disney plays with the attraction roster for an optimal efficiency-to-guest-satisfaction ratio. Don’t set your heart on anything.
WHAT ISN’T AVAILABLE?
What you won’t see: stage shows or roving entertainment of any kind. No Main Street band, no Dapper Dans, no roaming characters. Most restaurants and gift shops also either close at the onset of the event or shutter before it ends. If you want a proper meal and Casey’s Corner won’t do it for you, make sure you eat before the park closes to the public for the night.
Speaking of gift shops – you know what else I don’t remember seeing? Specific Magic Kingdom After Hours merchandise. I hardly need to buy more stuff, but given Disney’s propensity for churning out the merch I find that a tad surprising. You have too many spirit jerseys already, okay? Somebody had to say it! 😉
OKAY, SO HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
As already noted, Magic Kingdom After Hours is a hard ticket even. To quote my Jollywood Nights money diary: a Disney hard ticket event is a park function not included in regular ticketed admission, Annual Pass or otherwise. You may have the means to enter a park during regular operating hours, but you’ll be kicked out when the party starts unless you purchase a separate event ticket.
Disney employs variable pricing for its hard ticket events; certain dates are more expensive than others. Since this event isn’t tied to a holiday, proximity to a specific date doesn’t seem to be a factor. It probably depends on how historically busy the time period tends to be.
Tickets to Magic Kingdom After Hours run from $175 to $199 not including tax. I attended a Monday night party with a base price of $175, which came to $186.38 after tax.
FOOD FREEBIES COUNT FOR SOMETHING
By now I’m sure you’ve already clocked that this another one of my classic value posts, in which I attempt to make qualitative “worth” quantitative. Magic Kingdom After Hours comes with a unique feature: it comes with free food that is, in fact, genuinely quantifiable. By availing yourself of the included food and beverages, you can arguably “make back” some of the cost.
The food and beverage items at play are:
Bottled water and soda (usual cost: $4 – $5)
Ice cream cart novelties (usual cost: $6 – $7)
Small popcorn ($6)
Snack and drink stations are scattered around the park. These prices can vary across property, but I took them from real World, in-park menus and should suffice for a thought exercise.
I took two bottles of water and two small popcorns over the course of the evening. Water seems to be $4.25 in most cases, and popcorn is generally $6, for a total of $20.50. There we can, if we want, subtract their collective cost from my ticket price when assessing the value. In that case I now paid $165.88 for my time in the Magic Kingdom.
WHAT’S THE VALUE OF MAGIC KINGDOM AFTER HOURS PER, WELL, HOUR?
There are two ways to look at the question of the hourly price of Magic Kingdom After Hours. The party runs for three hours – our date from 10pm to 1am. However, ticket holders were permitted to enter at 7pm, effectively doubly the length of the stay. From 7 – 10pm we had to share the park with regular day guests and longer lines to match, but Magic Kingdom time is Magic Kingdom time!
Thusly there are FOUR ways to answer this question:
1) At a list price of $186.38, the three hours of party cost $62.13 each
2) At a list price of $186.38, the six hours in the Magic Kingdom cost $31.06 each
3) Minus food costs for $165.88, the three hours of party cost me $55.29 each
4) Minus food costs for $165.88, the six hours of party cost me $27.65 each
I like that last number; feels almost reasonable.
HOW ABOUT PER ATTRACTION?
Okay, let’s look at the other logical metric: attractions. Here’s how our six hours played out:
We were let into the park at 6:55pm; the park was still a bit crowded so we decided to start with (1) Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, which is a reliable people eater. As per usual, I texted a joke that was not selected. 😅
Next we headed to the castle hub to check out (2) the new night parade, Disney Starlight. The crowd was sizable, and we were unable to see the street level dancers and performers, but that was expected. What bothered me was the number of people lifting their phones high in the air to film, specifically the guy who filmed every single float for every single second it was in front of us. I am begging everyone to not do this. Otherwise the parade was very nice.
After that we headed over to the new Pirates of the Caribbean bar, Beak & Barrel, where we had a reservation. I’m not going to count this is an attraction as then we’d have to add the bill and open a subcategory of cost. Also it was… not an optimal experience (more on that in a later post). But it was something we did, and you could do too at the restaurant of your choice in the mix-in hours.
We needed a bit of a palate cleanser afterward, so we hit up (3) Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, followed closely by (4) it’s a small world, bringing our pre-party attraction count to four. By the time we exited, the Magic Kingdom was closed for the day and After Hours was on!
AND THEN THE EVENT ACTUALLY STARTED
Since we were already in Fantasyland, we elected to jump on (5) The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. We then walked through Storybook Circus on our way to Tomorrowland and stopped to ride (6) Dumbo the Flying Elephant, where we had the ride all to ourselves.
Once in Tomorrowland, we wandered over to (7) Tron Lightcycle Run, which did have a line but we still only waited about 15 minutes. I was pleased to experience the Ares overlay before it went away, which I myself found to be an improvement? It gave the ride as a whole a stronger narrative – or at least a noticeable story. (Lack of story is my primary problem with this attraction, if that isn’t clear.)
Exiting Tron landed us with (8) Space Mountain our lap. We had our choice of both sides, and we went right as this is usually the Lightning Lane side and therefore slightly less accessible in standard operation. And then since we were in (9) Tomorrowland anyway, we took a spin on the Peoplemover (I was delighted to see it open!).
Now down to only an hour or so of After Hours, we circled back to (10) Peter Pan’s Flight, which by this point had no line at all. We followed this up with a visit to the 999 happy haunts of (11) the Haunted Mansion. Would you believe I didn’t know where the Haunted Mansion photo camera was at the time? And yet I nailed it!
Last but not least we headed over to (12) Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which had a posted 30 minute wait. Becky had read, however, that Disney likes to inflate wait times toward the end of the night to discourage people from queueing, so we took our chances and only really waited about 15 minutes.
Upon disembarking, we still had about eight minutes of party and probably could’ve snuck in one more attraction. But it was late, and we had just run a marathon the day before, so we elected to get on our true final ride of the night: the bus back to Beach Club.
CAN YOU PLEASE JUST DO THE ATTRACTION MATH NOW?
I know, I know; you didn’t ask for a trip report. Let’s crunch the numbers.
1) At a list price of $186.38, 12 attractions cost me $15.53 each
2) Minus food costs for $165.88, 12 attractions cost me $13.82 each
And then just for funsies, let’s only count the three hours that were truly After Hours. What if you didn’t get going until 10pm, when the party genuinely started?
1) At a list price of $186.38, 8 attractions cost me $23.30 each
2) Minus food costs for $165.88, 8 attractions cost me $20.74 each
None of that is amazing, but none of it is bad either. I guess the question is whether or not you consider the short lines and efficient touring worth the premium. You could also further maximize your value by hustling to hit even more rides or stocking up on more bottled water and ice cream. Does that sound like more fun? Maybe it does, or maybe it doesn’t! Your call.
COULD YOU JUST SNEAK INTO MAGIC KINGDOM AFTER HOURS FOR A COST OF NO DOLLARS?
C’mon, you were thinking it! No, you can’t neatly sidestep all this math by sneaking into the event. Well, I take that back – kind of.
I’m not sure how aggressively Cast Members check for people without wristbands just wandering around the park. If you were to come into the Magic Kingdom during normal hours and simply overstay your welcome, you might be able to wander around during the party without being apprehended, assuming all you did is look around.
If you want to do, anything, however – ride a ride or grab a soda – you’ll need to show your wristband. All After Hours guests are given a wristband upon park entry. There are CMs posted at every ride entrance and every food stop, and they’re pretty diligent. And as noted above, aside from attractions there’s not much to do; no entertainment or anything.
Is it worth no dollars to meander the Magic Kingdom and not much else while hoping nobody catches you? Sounds stressful to me, but hey – I did say value is subjective.
SO IS MAGIC KINGDOM AFTER HOURS WORTH IT?
Alrighty, I’ve quantified what I can quantify. This is the part of the post where normally I’d talk about the unquantifiable: atmosphere. Ambience. That Disney feeling.
In this specific case, that Disney feeling may count less than any other. Magic Kingdom After Hours certainly does have a certain electricity, a certain excitement. But with the experience stripped down to more or less JUST the attractions, there’s not much interstitial magic to be had.
Therefore in this case only I would say Magic Kingdom After Hours is for those who want to do just that: ride a bunch of attractions back to back with little or no wait. Move from A to B to C, grab some popcorn, then C, D, E in quick succession. For those who find their primary Walt Disney World value in the little things hidden in corners – for those who like to slow down and take it all in – I’m not sure Magic Kingdom After Hours is a fit.
I do think it’s a GREAT event for Disney regulars who nevertheless would prefer not to drop big money on regular park tickets, say as an enhancement to a runDisney weekend? That’s what I did, and I felt great about my decision.
As per usual, I end with the statement that ties all these posts together: value is subjective. Read up on the event, consider what’s important to YOU, and act accordingly, and you’ll never miss!
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Threads @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!