It’s time, everyone, it’s time!

Many of the Disney World parks have started offering After Hours events, which are separately ticketed events that offer guests access to the park after most guests are gone. This means low wait times, free snacks, and the ability to feel like you have the park nearly to yourself. Now it’s time for EPCOT to join the After Hours party!

One of the biggest reasons to attend an After Hours event is the LOW wait times and crowd levels. Walk-on rides and a practically empty park?! Sign us up. Come with us to see how the crowds were during the first-ever EPCOT After Hours event.

As of June 1st, EPCOT’s After Hours events have begun, and there are still tickets left for you to enjoy the party.

Tickets are currently still available for all the dates listed below, but we suggest grabbing those tickets fast if you’re interested:

• Thursday, June 1st — $139 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, June 15th — $129 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, June 22nd — $129 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, June 29th — $139 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, July 6th — $139 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Wednesday, July 12th — $139 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, July 20th — $139 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, July 27th — $129 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, August 3rd — $139 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, August 10th — $129 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, August 17th — $129 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)
• Thursday, August 24th — $129 (Annual Passholders and DVC Members: $99)

Buy your tickets here!

Several attractions will be available during After Hours including:

• Frozen Ever After
• Gran Fiesta Tour
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
• Living with the Land
• Mission: SPACE
• Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends
• Soarin’
• Spaceship Earth
• Test Track

You can see why for those who love rides, this is the perfect time to visit EPCOT.

There is not really specific entertainment for After Hours in EPCOT; however, you can enter the park as early as 7PM (the event officially runs from 10PM to 1AM). This means you can catch a showing of EPCOT Forever to get your Disney fireworks fix!

Check the My Disney Experience App for the most up-to-date showtimes on the day of your visit.

Crowds Before the Event Officially Begins

You can enter the EPCOT at 7PM with an After Hours ticket, but the party doesn’t officially start til 10PM. Since EPCOT doesn’t close to daytime guests until 9PM, that means there are still some decent crowds for the first little while.

We can’t wait to see the park nearly empty, but since the daytime crowds were still there for the fireworks show, World Showcase wasn’t quite people-free yet.

Although it didn’t feel super crowded, the pinch-points were still a struggle to get through.

Parts of the park were already feeling fairly empty, even before the event’s start at 10PM, like around Mission: SPACE.

Here’s a look at the wait times around 8:20PM (keep in mind this is BEFORE the daytime crowds leave):

Frozen Ever After is at 55 minutes, Gran Fiesta Tour is at 15 minutes…

…Test Track is at 60 minutes, Turtle Talk with Crush is at 15 minutes…

…Nemo is at 10 minutes, Soarin’ is at 20 minutes (not too bad!), Spaceship Earth is at 10 minutes…

…Mission: SPACE is also at 10 minutes, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is at 70 minutes (we’ll wait until the crowds leave to hit that attraction)…

..Figment is at 5 minutes, Living with the Land is at 15 minutes…

…and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is unavailable except to guests who already have a Virtual Queue reservation or Lightning Lane. This ride will open up its standby line at 10PM when the After Hours event begins.

We stopped by Club Cool for a drink and found a few more crowds over here!

It’s getting closer to 9PM, when the daytime crowds will leave the park!

Crowds Once the Event Began

We headed over towards Cosmic Rewind around 9PM to try to get on the popular coaster ASAP. When we got there a little bit early (around 8:50PM), a Cast Member told everyone there that they could NOT form a line yet.

However, once 9PM hit, everyone with a wristband was permitted into the standby line. We walked right on the ride, straight through to the pre-show room! Once we were outside again, we saw that the standby line was at 15 minutes.

Over at Test Track, the wait was only 10 minutes! That’s practically unheard of during the day.

And at Mission: SPACE, the waits were 5 minutes for green and 10 minutes for orange.

After stopping by the rides in World Discovery, we took a walk around World Showcase to check out the crowd levels. And we found practically nobody at all! Seriously, EPCOT feels EMPTY.

Crowds? What are they? 😉 They don’t exist at EPCOT After Hours! pic.twitter.com/QdggInmm4B

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) June 2, 2023

Here’s a full look at the ride wait times around 10:30PM:

As we mentioned before, Test Track was at 10 minutes…

…Nemo was at 5 minutes, Soarin at 10 minutes, and Spaceship Earth at 5 minutes…

…Mission: SPACE was at 10 minutes, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure was temporarily closed…

…and Living with the Land was at 5 minutes.

Aside from the Remy closure (which was definitely a bummer), those ride wait times are looking pretty good! UPDATE: Remy’s reopened shortly after the closure, so we were still able to ride!

And the crowd levels support those wait times — there was hardly anyone walking around World Showcase.

We could definitely get used to having EPCOT to ourselves!

We headed over towards the France pavilion to check on Remy’s next.

The ride was just a 15-minute wait!

Overall, EPCOT seriously felt empty at this event. It was super fun to walk around with practically no one in the park, but we really wish there were more dining options available throughout the event.

Don’t forget that Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom have After Hours events you can experience as well, and stay tuned to Disney Food Blog for all the latest Disney news!

So what’s the difference between holiday parties and after-hours events? We’ve got all the answers right here.

What’s your favorite part about an After Hours event? Tell us in the comments!