On March 23rd, Disney announced a new event dubbed “Disney After Hours:”

Many scoffed at the price point. And perhaps for good reason as it would cost a family of four $634.74 with tax to spend three hours at Magic Kingdom much later than most people are usually awake.

Literally two days ago, some number of Disney Vacation Club members received an email that they could attend the event for “free.” One assumes that the event ended up selling poorly:

I would be somewhat dismayed to find out that hundreds of people were admitted to the event at no cost if I was paying $149.

But by all accounts, there were very few people at the event with those attending putting the total number somewhere under 2,000 guests. The event officially “sold out.” Guests spending the $149 (or otherwise receiving the invite) were able to enter the Park as early as 7pm, so your money does buy you a total of seven hours and offers the opportunity to see both Main Street Electrical Parade and Wishes.

Here are the posted wait times from the first event with the 7pm and 11pm hours highlighted:

Larger: https://i2.wp.com/easywdw.com/reports13/mk_after_hours_wait_times_disney.jpg

As you can see, everything from Seven Dwarfs Mine Train to Peter Pan’s Flight to Dumbo the Flying Elephant is basically or entirely a walk-on during the entire event.

While the price point is undeniably high, one might find some value in it if they only had one evening to spend at Walt Disney World. Instead of buying a $115 1-day ticket, you could purchase the $149 event-ticket and probably experience more attractions in a shorter period of time. Yesterday I wrote a post about how the total wait for just Peter Pan’s Flight, Mine Train, and Space Mountain was a combined six hours in the afternoon last week. Here, you would wait a total of 20 minutes based on the posted waits. And the actual wait is likely just as long as it takes you to walk the queue. They might not even make you leave the vehicle and walk the line again if nobody is waiting.

The event is otherwise offered on just six more nights moving forward. I don’t see Disney giving the event away to Vacation Club members as a particularly strong incentive for others to purchase tickets, but it’s here if you want it.