Best Disney World Ticket Choice: After Hours or More Days?
What if you went to Disney World and didn’t leave a day on your ticket to visit Magic Kingdom? What if you went to Magic Kingdom After Hours instead? Would you save money? Would you see more? Would it be a great use of your vacation dollars?
After Hours events are happening at three Disney World parks in 2025, and you could ask this question about all of them. Let’s take a look, including finding the dates where you could do two After Hours events on the same trip.
About Disney After Hours
Just in case someone emailed you this article and you’ve never even heard of Disney After Hours …
What is Disney After Hours?
Disney After Hours is a hard-ticket event at Disney World. Your regular ticket covers admission to one or more parks during regular hours. An After Hours ticket lets ticket holders stay for several hours after the park closes. Since the number of tickets is limited, waits for the attractions are shorter. There are snacks and sometimes there is event-specific entertainment, but the main draw for most After Hours events is the shorter lines.
How much can you get done at Disney After Hours?
The number of tickets sold for Disney After Hours is limited, but an After Hours ticket lets you into the park a few hours before closing. This time when you can enter with your After Hours ticket, but the park is still open, is called the mix-in period. In all, your After Hours ticket gives you at least 6 hours in the park. At least 3 of those hours are after the mix-in period has ended and the park has closed to day guests.
Our experience is that in the time after the park closes, it’s possible to do at least 3 major headliners per hour. These are rides that would normally have waits of an hour or more during peak times of the day. If you are focusing on rides, we find that you can generally get as much or more done during an After Hours event as during a full day of regular hours in the same park.
What Should You Consider?
Before we talk about money, let’s touch on a few other things that might play into your After Hours decision.
When do you like to sleep?
Try this on for size: roll out of bed at 11 am, grab lunch, and relax at the pool all afternoon. Head out for an early dinner at some prime location, and then wander over to arrive at a park by 6:30. Ride until 1 am and then head back to your hotel to roll back into bed.
Does this sound like a terrific vacation to you? Then After Hours might be a great fit. But if you’re an early bird who has a hard time staying up past 11, or you have young kids, then your decision might already be over. You could still decide to do an After Hours event and you may have a great time. But unless you’re going to stay to the end and be peppy enough to enjoy it, you likely won’t find it a good trade-off for doing the parks in the daytime.
Do you want to see the park in the daytime?
The vibe of the parks is different in the daytime. In August, you might feel like you prefer to never see the parks before the sun goes down and the temperature drops. But many Disney After Hours events are during the late winter and spring. The parks are usually very pleasant during the day, and could even be cold in the evening during January and February.
On January 6, when After Hours events begin at the Magic Kingdom, sunset is at about 5:45 pm. Civil twilight, when you can still mostly see without artificial lighting, ends at about 6:10 pm. You won’t see the parks in daylight at all with an After Hours ticket. By mid-April, sunset is at 7:50 pm and civil twilight ends just past 8:10 pm. So you’ll get an hour or so of daylight if you’re doing After Hours in the late spring, and even more than that as the year progresses.
How important is food in the parks?
Many (but not all) dining locations close at the end of regular hours, although they’ll be open during the mix-in period. Free popcorn and Mickey bars come with the event. But if grabbing snacks as you go is part of the draw of a day in the park, know that it’s not part of the After Hours experience.
How important is entertainment? Are you just there to ride?
Shows and many entertainment offerings don’t operate during After Hours. At the Magic Kingdom, you’ll be getting the chance to see Disney Enchantment. But if you only go to After Hours you’re giving up the Festival of Fantasy Parade. Popular Meet & Greets are a go, and some After Hours events have rare characters. But street entertainers and theatrical shows are usually done for the day.
Doing some of them during the mix-in is a possibility. But you’ll need to pick and choose and some may be done even before the mix-in starts. Unless you’re that person who disses Animal Kingdom as a half-day park because all you can do there is a half-dozen rides, you’re probably going to feel the trade-off.
How long is your trip?
Park Hopping is often used to turn a 2-day trip into a 3-park visit, or cover all 4 parks in three days. Using an After Hours ticket to roll up two parks in a day can help make your vacation shorter. Or it can help you to get more done during a trip that can’t be made longer. Since After Hours runs after closing time, you’ll get more total hours in a day with a base ticket and an After Hours ticket than by park hopping.
Money, Money, Money
In 2025, a 1-day base ticket to the park of your choice may be about the same price as an After Hours ticket for that same park. Yes, you read that right. On average, an After Hours ticket ranges from a few dollars less to about $10 more than the 1-day base ticket for the same day at the same park. The exception is events at the very end of August and September, where After Hours tickets are $16 more for Hollywood Studios and $26 more for EPCOT. The table below shows the average prices for 1-day tickets and After Hours tickets for each park.
| Park | Avg. 1-day Ticket Price | After Hours Ticket Price |
| Magic Kingdom | $178 | $175-185 |
| Hollywood Studios | $167 | $155-185 |
| EPCOT | $173 | $155-175 |
To be fair, some may argue that in the last two weeks of August, it’s worth the extra money just to avoid daytime temps! But if you were only going to buy a 1-day base ticket, then your decision about whether to do a day ticket or After Hours boils down to which one you think you’ll enjoy more.
Your visit to the park on a regular day ticket will include access to much more food and entertainment. It will also include longer lines, and if you want to avoid them then you’ll need to put a bit more work into strategy. Or a bit more money into Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. Or both.
On the other hand, your After Hours ticket will come with some trade-offs as far as food and entertainment go. But for the attractions that are running, you’ll get to walk around the park and ride at will. Multiple times in a row, with very low effort, if you desire. If past events are anything to go by, lines will be minimal.
Multi-Day Tickets
If you were planning to buy a multi-day ticket, you’ll be paying more to trade away a ticket day and do After Hours instead. How much? From 2-4 days, you’ll be paying less for the extra day on your park ticket. But not so much less that it’s crazy to think about comparing them, especially if you can get a $30 Disney Vacation Club discount on your After Hours ticket.
- The average cost to go from a 1-day ticket (any park) to a 2-day ticket is $151
- The average cost of a 3rd park day is $150
- The average cost of a 4th park day is $130
Beyond that, the cost begins to drop quite sharply, and it’s clear that the extra park days are much, much cheaper than the After Hours ticket. For more details, see Every Regular Disney World Ticket Price in 2025.
Two After Hours In One Trip
Are you all about the rides? Did that thing I said above about rolling out of bed in the late morning perk up your ears? Here are all the dates where you could do two After Hours events within a single 5-day stretch. Who needs Early Entry anyway? Live up the nightlife, get your Dole Whip fix at the Poly, and After Hours your vacation away.
- Magic Kingdom 1/20 | Hollywood Studios 1/22
- Magic Kingdom 1/27 | Hollywood Studios 1/29
- Magic Kingdom 2/10 | Hollywood Studios 2/12
- Magic Kingdom 2/17 | Hollywood Studios 2/19
- Magic Kingdom 2/24 | EPCOT 2/27
- EPCOT 2/27 | Magic Kingdom 3/3
- Magic Kingdom 3/3 | Hollywood Studios 3/5
- Magic Kingdom 3/24 | Hollywood Studios 3/26
- Magic Kingdom 3/31 | Hollywood Studios 4/1
- Magic Kingdom 4/28 | Hollywood Studios 4/30
- Magic Kingdom 5/5 | EPCOT 5/8
- EPCOT 5/8 | Magic Kingdom 5/12
- Magic Kingdom 5/12 | Hollywood Studios 5/14
- Hollywood Studios 5/14 | Magic Kingdom 5/19
- Hollywood Studios 5/28 | EPCOT 5/29
- Hollywood Studios 6/25 | EPCOT 6/26
- Hollywood Studios 7/9 | EPCOT 7/10
- Hollywood Studios 7/23 | EPCOT 7/24
- Hollywood Studios 7/30 | EPCOT 7/31
- Hollywood Studios 8/6 | EPCOT 8/7
- Hollywood Studios 8/20 | EPCOT 8/21
- Hollywood Studios 8/27 | EPCOT 8/28
The Upshot
There are trade-offs to be made, but from a monetary perspective using After Hours to attack a park can be comparable in cost to a day’s regular admission. And it can give you more total time in the parks. If you’ve got a shorter vacation, or you simply prefer the ease of having short lines without having to strategize for them, this option might be for you. Of course, if your vacation is long enough and time and money allow, you don’t have to choose. You can visit the park in the daytime and take advantage of After Hours too.
Would you consider giving up a daytime visit to a park to do After Hours instead? If you’ve done this, how did it work out? Let us know in the comments!
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