Top 5 Disneyland After Dark Tips

Disneyland After Dark events give you the unique opportunity to enjoy themed entertainment and foods, encounter rare characters, and ride favorite attractions in the evening after the park closes for the day. These separately ticketed events come in a variety of themes like the popular Star Wars Nite, the returning Pride Nite, and more.

We will take you through our top 5 tips for enjoying the Disneyland After Dark offerings at Disneyland so that you can make the most of your experience!

1. Take the day off from the parks if you are attending a Disneyland After Dark party during a multi-day trip. The events will take place in the late evenings after the park closes, and in order to stay energized, we recommend taking the day to sleep in, relax at your hotel near Disneyland (see the best ones near Disneyland here), and prepare for the night.

If you drain your energy running around the parks during the day, you may be exhausted by the time the event starts and not be able to enjoy it as much as you’d like. Remember that you will be getting pre-event mix-in hours to enjoy the parks before the event starts as well!

2. Look ahead at the event offerings to plan your priorities and use party hours strategically. When the offerings are announced for each event, see which ones interest you the most and make a list of your priorities. The evening will go by fast at these after-hours events, and you want to make sure you are able to fit in as many experiences as possible. We recommend noting what you want to do that is not on the list of attractions and experiences available during the party and making use of the mix-in hours to check those things off your list. You can see the individual party offerings linked in our guides below.

3. Make sure you arrive early. Because you will only get a limited amount of time for the pre-party mix-in (3 hours before the party begins), you’ll want to make sure you arrive early so that you aren’t stuck waiting in line. You don’t want to arrive right when the mix-in time starts and lose valuable time standing in line for entry, so we recommend arriving at least 30 minutes early so you can check into the event and be ready to make the most of the mix-in hours. This is similar to our morning rope drop strategy advice.

4. Take advantage of the special entertainment offered. One of the most unique parts of the Disneyland After Dark events is the themed entertainment that you can enjoy. These special experiences are the highlights of the event and what makes it unique from a regular day in the park. While you can often ride attractions with much lower wait times during the parties, you also want to make sure you’re taking advantage of the unique offerings you’ll only find at the event.

5. Mobile order your food early. During our recent experience at Sweethearts Nite, one of our top tips was to make sure to place your order as early as 7 am and select a pick up time of 8 pm or later so that you can secure the exclusive snacks offered at the event and dodge the long food lines that will build up later in the night. This will save you lots of time that you can spend enjoying the event’s offerings. See everything you need to know about mobile ordering at Disneyland in our guide!

You can see our full guide to Disneyland After Dark for everything you need to know about the themes this year and their offerings. Be sure to see our guides to Disney Channel Nite and Star Wars Nite which are both coming up soon!

At Mickey Visit, we share the most important tips for planning your trips to Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Universal, and beyond. Each week, we’ll share some of our top tips here on Laughing Place.