REVIEW: Disney After Hours at Animal Kingdom

We recently experienced the After Hours event at Disney’s Animal Kingdom! The price, at $125, is a good value for the event. There are a few downfalls, but it is overall a very solid experience. The park is open only to After Hours event guests from 8:30-11:30.

The main highlight of the experience is that the park was empty. The busiest area was Pandora with a 10 minute wait posted for Flight of Passage. They had a private showing of Rivers of Light at 9:30; it was awesome because there was maybe 20 people watching!

Taking a look around the empty park:

The food offering were weak. Small cups for soda. Free popcorn and ice cream, only issue was the temperature was in the 50’s so no one was wanting ice cream. The other major complaint was that Avatar Flight of Passage only uses the Fastpass+ queue during the After Hours event. This is an issue because the FP+ queue is an un-themed and boring hallway. The queue of Flight of Passage is half of the experience, and it is where a good amount of the story is told. If i’m paying a premium price to go to an event that is mainly focused on riding this ride (most popular ride at Disney World), you bet I want the full thematic experience.

Other than that, Disney After Hours is a great event at Animal Kingdom if you’re looking to ride the major attractions (excluding Kilimanjaro Safaris, which is closed during the event) with little to no wait times. Everest and Dinosaur were walk on all night, along with Navi River Journey. I definitely suggest this event to anyone visiting Walt Disney World who has a little extra money to throw at some fun in-park experiences.