2024 EPCOT Disney After Hours Preview & Expectations

The first Disney After Hours event of the year at EPCOT is tonight, and we’re getting ready by previewing the event and setting expectations after what was a pretty rough 2023 debut event. In this article, we’ll cover what you need to know about the event as well as provide some insight into our expectations for this year’s event with some commentary sprinkled throughout. Let’s dive in!

EPCOT After Hours 2024 Dates & Prices

Disney After Hours at EPCOT takes place on select nights from February 2 through July 18, 2024.

On January 18th, Disney World announced that it would be adding more dates for Disney After Hours events at all three of the participating theme parks. At the time, two Magic Kingdom After Hours events and only one Hollywood Studios After Hours events had taken place. Obviously, no EPCOT After Hours events had taken place before Disney more than doubled the number of events on the calendar.

I’m not quite sure whether or not it was a confident move or a desperate move to add more After Hours dates, but one thing we can be sure of is that Disney World is not operating these events at a loss. Interestingly, not a single date has sold out so far. Without any insight into internal metrics, we can’t say for certain that this is because of a higher event capacity or lower-than-expected interest, but Disney saw something that made them want to add dates.

Ticket prices vary based on date:

Event DatePrice (Excludes Tax)Price for Passholders
and DVC Members (Excludes Tax)
Friday, February 2$149$119
Thursday, February 8$149$119
Thursday, February 15$159$129
Thursday, March 7$159$129
Thursday, March 28$159$129
Thursday, April 4$159$129
Thursday, April 25 (NEW)$159$129
Thursday, May 9 (NEW)$159$129
Thursday, May 23 (NEW)$159$129
Thursday, May 30 (NEW)$159$129
Thursday, June 6 (NEW)$149$119
Thursday, June 20 (NEW)$149$119
Thursday, July 18 (NEW)$149$119

EPCOT After Hours 2024 Event Hours

Event Times
This event takes place from 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM. You can get a head start on the fun by entering the park at 7:00 PM—a few hours before the event officially begins.

If you plan to arrive earlier than 7:00 PM, valid theme park admission will be required. A theme park reservation for EPCOT may also be required.

When you arrive early, you’ll have extra time to enjoy attractions and entertainment. Plus, you can witness the wonder of Luminous The Symphony of Us, the new nighttime spectacular at EPCOT!

Check the My Disney Experience app for showtimes on the day of your visit. Outdoor shows are subject to cancellation due to inclement weather.

EPCOT After Hours 2024 Attractions

Experience some popular attractions—with lower wait times!

  • Frozen Ever After
  • Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros
  • Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
  • Living with the Land
  • Mission: SPACE
  • Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
  • The Seas with Nemo & Friends
  • Soarin’ Around the World
  • Spaceship Earth
  • Test Track Presented by Chevrolet®

EPCOT After Hours 2024 Sips & Snacks

Indulge in snacks and beverages throughout the evening.

What’s Included?
Delight in ice cream novelties, popcorn and select bottled beverages—all included in the cost of this ticketed event—available at the following locations:

  • Mission: SPACE Cart
  • Imagination Cart
  • Connections Cart
  • Fountain Popcorn Cart

EPCOT After Hours 2023 Review & Recap

Before we get into our expectations for this year, I want to talk about some of the key takeaways from the 2023 event. If you’d like to read our full review from 2023, I’ll include a link at the end of this section.

At a high level, we experienced wait times higher than we had hoped for. The event was sold out, and we seemed to run into crowds just about wherever we went throughout the night. We did have some wins, such as riding Cosmic Rewind twice during the “buffer hour”. Other than that, finding posted wait times of 35 minutes at Frozen Ever After and 45 minutes at Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure was less than ideal.

We also found that Disney was not operating the attractions at full capacity, with Remy and Guardians operating at half capacity, and Soarin only running one of three theaters during the event. That’s something that we’ll keep an eye on when we return to the 2024 version of the event next week.

2024 EPCOT After Hours Expectations

We’re skipping the debut event tonight and instead planning on attending the February 8th event instead. This is partially due to a scheduling conflict and partially due to a desire to try and not attend an opening night event and present it as reality. We’ve been burned a bit in the past with attending opening night events, and while it’s “necessary” for larger events like Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, or even the cluster that was opening night for Disney Jollywood Nights, there’s nothing announced to be “new” at EPCOT After Hours tonight, so we’re going to skip it and try a report and review of the second event date of the year instead of the first.

That said, we still have expectations and they are certainly higher than they might otherwise be after a disappointing 2023 event. First, here’s a look back at the average wait times during the 2023 opening night event that we attended:

AttractionDisney After Hours
Average Wait
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind57 minutes
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure23 minutes
Frozen Ever After17 minutes
Test Track Presented by Chevrolet22 minutes
Soarin’ Around the World10 minutes
Mission: SPACE10 minutes
Spaceship Earth5 minutes
The Seas with Nemo and Friends5 minutes
Gran Fiesta Tour5 minutes
Living with the Land5 minutes

In total, our expectation is that most of those wait times are cut in half. Guardians shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes, Remy should be closer to 15 minutes, and Frozen shouldn’t be much more than 10 minutes. If the wait times are higher than that, you can simply skip Disney After Hours and put together a good rope drop or late-night plan where you take advantage of the normal ebb and flow of crowds.

Beyond attractions, we would love to see some rare characters. Disney Hollywood Studios really did it right this year with an impressive lineup of characters that guests can easily meet during the event (Character lineup/After Hours event review). With no exclusive fireworks show (like Magic Kingdom After Hours), we hope that the event team is looking to somehow add an extra bit of flair to the EPCOT After Hours event via rare characters or other unique experiences. It’s worth noting that there were some characters during the 2023 event, but we didn’t see anyone that would be classified as “rare” when we attended.

A sort of nice-to-have would be the inclusion of the Luminous barges to flood the sky with light like Disney did during the New Year’s Eve celebration at EPCOT. We expect there to be a DJ for the EPCOT event (like last year), and keeping the barges out for a few more hours to supplement the event seems like a no-brainer.

Overall, a party atmosphere, low wait times, and some unique character experiences would be a win for this year’s event. We’ll keep an eye on tonight’s debut event from afar, and have a full report/review after attending the February 8th event!

As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!

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