Disney After Hours at Hollywood Studios Review
Recently I got to attend the After Hours event at Hollywood Studios, and while I had a great time, I do believe that the After Hours events at Magic Kingdom are much better. But we’ll get into that a bit more later.
First, let me tell you all about the night.
The After Hours tickets will get you into the park at 7PM, I had intended to arrive between 7 and 8, however the boat over from the Yacht Club ended up taking longer than expected so I arrived around 8:10. This evening the park closed at 9PM with the After Hours event starting at 9:30PM, so I had just under an hour with the day crowds, although I was surprised that the park did not feel very crowded at that point.
I had, earlier in the day, booked a Lightning Lane for Mickey and Minnie’s Runnaway Railway that expired at 8:00, but since they typically have a grace period of roughly 15 minutes I headed that way to see if I could still use it.
Fortunately, I had no trouble scanning in so I got in the Lightning Lane queue.
This ended up taking a very long time, over 40 minutes, so just a reminder that Lightning Lanes do not necessarily mean you won’t have a wait, it just means you should have a shorter wait than the standby line.
Once off the ride it was just before 9 and the show on the Chinese Theater was going on so I stopped to watch.
Now, I would generally recommend doing the less popular rides at the beginning of an After Hours events to let the day guests clear out, however there were storms moving in this evening and I was worried that the outdoor rides would be closed once they arrived, so decided to head to Slinky Dog Dash right at 9.
There was, of course, a wait at this point but it was only about 20 minutes so only ate into the official After Hours time about 5 minutes. While waiting I watched the radar and saw the storms were getting pretty close, so decided after riding Slinky Dog Dash that it would be good to grab some of the free snacks so I wouldn’t have to eat in the rain.
This is where things took a turn for the worse. I had wanted popcorn, but I could not find a stand that had popcorn. I did a loop around the park, finally at the fourth stand, found popcorn. Now, I’ve done the After Hours event many times at Magic Kingdom, and there do seem to be many more snack carts set up there and most have more snack options. I never had to go hunt down popcorn at Magic Kingdom before!
Another downside to the free snacks I experienced at Hollywood Studios were the drinks at the cart I found were not given in a bottle but a large (like 20 oz) paper cup. Now, I cannot drink 20oz of soda quickly, and since the point of After Hours is to ride a lot of rides, I ended up having to throw away most of the drink so I could go to more rides after finishing the popcorn. Once again, never saw this at a Magic Kingdom After Hours, there I’ve always been given bottles so I can take them with me on the rides.
I was able to get a bottle later in the night at a different booth, so it’s not all booths there that give the paper cups, but I wish they all gave our the bottles.
After finishing up my snack I decided to head over to Rise of the Resistance since the posted wait time was 20 minutes and I figured it may be exaggerated by then as it was after 10PM.
I arrived at Rise of the Resistance right at the same time as a lot of other people. It turns out, the ride had been down and had just reopened. Now, I did not know that until after I got off the ride, if I had I would have went elsewhere since the wait times jump after a ride reopens after being down. So tip, if a ride comes up after an extended downtime, unless you are right there and can be one of the first in line, wait a bit for the crowds to settle down before going on it.
I ended up waiting about 30 minutes for Rise of the Resistance, which compared to the waits during the day is not bad!
It started to drizzle when I got off the ride, and since I was in the area I decided to head over to Oga’s to see if I could get in and have a drink.
Right when I arrived at Oga’s the skies opened up and it started to pour! It was actually good timing on my part though since I huddled under the small overhang at the door to give my name for the walk-up list, then went to wait under the cover to the side for about a minute before my name was called.
They have the same rules at Oga’s during the After Hours events as they do during the day, with a 45 minute time limit, you have to stay at the table/location you are assigned, you will share a table with others, and you can only have two drinks (while there, you can get one to go).
This night I was brought to a standing table, and I was surprised how empty the place was, but shortly after I arrived it started to fill up. I assume others had the same idea to wait out the rain with a drink at Oga’s!
Fortunately, the storm moved through quickly, and after I had finished my first drink (Gold Squadron Lager, highly recommend!), it was almost gone, so I decided to head out and ride more rides!
I decided to head back to Toy Story Land to get on Slinky again, but sadly when I arrived I saw it was done. Oh well, at least I got on it once!
Since I was in the land, I headed over to Toy Story Mania, and finally found a ride with hardly any line! I waited maybe 4 minutes.
Slinky was still down when I got off, so I decided to grab another free snack. This time I got a Mickey bar and some water. I really love the free snacks at these events!
My next ride was Alien Swirling Saucers. This was empty, I was one of two people riding it!
I was thrilled when I got off Alien Swirling Saucers to see that they were running trains again on Slinky, so I headed over there and got very lucky and ended up being on the first train after the shutdown!
By the time I got off Slinky it was already 12:15, and the party ended at 12:30! So not the ride heavy evening I’m used to with the Magic Kingdom After Hour events, but it was still a lot of fun. I could have run over to another ride at that point, but I wanted to grab some popcorn for the road, so headed to the one cart I knew had popcorn.
Popcorn in hand I made my way out, leaving the park right at 12:30AM.
I was surprised, and disappointed, that the boats to the Epcot resorts do not run for the After Hour events, so if you’re staying in the Epcot area your options are walking back or waiting for a bus. I decided to walk back to the Yacht Club and made it back in about 18 minutes, so not a horrible walk.
Ok, so overall impression. I had a lot of fun, and I think if it weren’t for the storms moving through and the rides going down, I could have done more. However compared the Magic Kingdom where there are many more rides and more snack carts, even if I did get on more rides it wouldn’t have been as good at the Magic Kingdom After Hours I’ve been to. I would probably do it again, it is wonderful being in the park with so few people, but I would probably skip Rise of the Resistance since that is a long ride to free up more time for other rides.
