Disney4me Posted Sunday at 04:00 PM Report Posted Sunday at 04:00 PM There are plenty of reasons to buy a ticket to EPCOT After Hours. Shorter waits for rides? Yes. Fewer people standing between us and another spin on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind? Absolutely. Included Mickey Bars? We have never been known to turn down ice cream. But if you’re planning to attend EPCOT After Hours, there’s one reservation we’re making before we start strategizing our ride order. France Pavilion Dinner. At 7 PM. That might seem like a strange way to begin an event that’s largely about squeezing as much as possible into a few very expensive hours. But hear us out, because eating dinner right when you enter EPCOT might actually help you get MORE out of your After Hours ticket. You Can Enter EPCOT at 7 PM EPCOT After Hours officially runs from 9:30 PM to 12:30 AM on select nights in 2026. However, your After Hours ticket gets you into EPCOT beginning at 7 PM, and you don’t need separate park admission or a park reservation if you’re entering at or after that time. That gives you two and a half hours before the actual event begins. Regular EPCOT guests are still in the park during this period, so this isn’t necessarily when we’re trying to speed-run every attraction. Instead, we’re using that overlap time for the things we’d rather NOT spend our limited After Hours window doing. Namely, dinner. Presentation is stunning If we can get into EPCOT at 7 PM, head directly to a restaurant, eat a proper meal, and finish up before 9 PM or so, we’re fed, caffeinated if necessary, and ready to go when the park starts clearing out. Now our three official After Hours hours belong to Guardians, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, Test Track, and, obviously, Living with the Land. Living with the Land The Free Snacks Are Great, But They Aren’t Dinner One of the perks included with EPCOT After Hours is unlimited access to select snacks and drinks at participating carts. Disney currently lists popcorn, ice cream novelties, and select bottled beverages among the included options. We enjoy all three. We also do not want to discover at 11:17 PM that our dinner consisted of Diet Coke, popcorn, and two Mickey Premium Bars. After Hours Snacks! The included snacks are excellent for keeping you going throughout the event. Grab some popcorn on the way from Spaceship Earth to Cosmic Rewind. Pick up an ice cream sandwich after Frozen Ever After. Take a bottled drink for the hike across World Showcase. But we’d think of them as snacks, not a replacement for an actual meal. Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich After Hours runs until 12:30 AM. If you arrive at 7 PM and haven’t eaten dinner beforehand, that’s a long night to power entirely with frozen novelties. We Don’t Want To Waste the Short Lines This is really the deciding factor for us, and there’s another wrinkle here that makes that 7 PM dinner reservation even smarter. A lot of EPCOT’s dining options aren’t sticking around for the entire After Hours event. Much of World Showcase operates on regular park hours, which means plenty of restaurants, food booths, and other spots will begin closing as the park shuts down to daytime guests. By the time After Hours officially kicks off, your dinner choices are considerably slimmer than they were a few hours earlier. And that’s a shame because World Showcase is where some of EPCOT’s most appealing dinner options live. Via Napoli in EPCOT’s Italy pavilion If we’re entering with our After Hours ticket at 7 PM, we’d rather use that early-entry window to take advantage of the full EPCOT dining lineup while it’s still available. Have dinner in World Showcase, grab that meal you were actually looking forward to, and get it handled before the park starts transitioning into the special event. Then, when After Hours begins, food is no longer competing with ride time. Sauce Flight That matters because EPCOT After Hours tickets aren’t cheap, and the biggest perk is the limited capacity and resulting shorter waits at popular attractions. We don’t want to spend 30, 45, or 60 minutes of that precious event window hunting for something substantial to eat, especially when many of the restaurants we’d actually choose have already closed. We want those hours for as many attractions as we can cram into the night. Wagyu Tataki So, the strategy is pretty simple: eat at 7 PM when all of EPCOT is still your dining oyster. Ride after 9:30 PM when the shorter waits become the main attraction. The complimentary popcorn and Mickey Bars can keep us fueled from there. There Is One Catch A 7 PM dinner reservation does require a little restraint. EPCOT has some excellent table-service restaurants, and it is VERY easy for dinner to turn into a two-hour production. If our reservation isn’t until 7:45 PM, the restaurant is running behind, and we’re lingering over dessert at 9:30 PM, we’ve defeated our own strategy. Monsieur Paul For an After Hours night, we’re looking for something relatively efficient. We’d aim for a reservation as close to 7 PM as possible, arrive at EPCOT right when event guests are allowed inside, and avoid turning dinner into the main event. There’s another option, too. You could grab a substantial quick-service meal instead and skip the reservation entirely. La Poutinerie The goal is the same: eat before After Hours starts. Our EPCOT After Hours Game Plan If we’re buying an EPCOT After Hours ticket, this is how we’re approaching the night. Enter EPCOT at 7 PM. Eat dinner. Wander World Showcase or knock out something low priority while regular park crowds are still around. Maybe catch the Luminous fireworks show if that’s important to your group. Disney specifically notes that early-entry guests can see EPCOT’s nighttime spectacular before After Hours begins. After Hours Fireworks Then, when 9:30 PM arrives? We ride. The popcorn can come with us. EPCOT After Hours is expensive, so we want those three limited-capacity hours doing the things that make the ticket worth buying in the first place. For us, that means shorter attraction waits, a delightfully uncrowded EPCOT, and as many rides as our increasingly confused inner ears will permit. Cosmic Rewind Dinner can have the 7 PM slot. So, we can make sure we get one more ride on Guardians at 9:30 PM. Stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog for more Disney tips and tricks! I’m About to Cancel ALL of My EPCOT Restaurant Reservations for One Critical Reason Read More About Disney After Hours Events I Tried After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and There Are Two Things I’d Do Differently Next TimeHURRY! Our Favorite Way to Skip the Lines in Disney World Is Selling OutCONFIRMED: Disney World’s Best Hotel Perk Is Returning on These 9 August DaysThe One EPCOT Trick That Will Always Get You on More Rides10 Major Changes Coming to Disney World in August Join the DFB Newsletter to get all the breaking news right in your inbox! Click here to Subscribe! WE KNOW DISNEY. YOU CAN, TOO. Oh boy, planning a Disney trip can be quite the adventure, and we totally get it! But fear not, dear friends, we compiled EVERYTHING you need (and the things to avoid!) to plan the ULTIMATE Disney vacation. Whether you're a rookie or a seasoned pro, our insider tips and tricks will have you exploring the parks like never before. So come along with us, and get planning your most magical vacation ever! GET YOUR GUIDE NOW How do you tackle your After Hours priorities? Let us know in the comments below! View the full article Quote
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