Disney World regulars and hotel guests have become experts at Disney’s Extra Magic Hours to have the place to themselves, but why not just rent the whole park?
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Renting A Whole Park
This week, in a Walt Disney World Annual Pass holder group, a member noted that Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando would be closing early – a major tool supply firm had reserved the park from “8:00 pm to Midnight” for its employees. This sparked an interesting conversation and one that may apply to just about anybody, how much does it cost, and why don’t we get a big enough group to make that happen ourselves?
I’ll get to the economics in a separate section, but on the surface it’s a great idea. My family held annual passes and found that we could ride more rides from 9 pm (just after the start of the fireworks) until midnight during Extra Magic Hours than we could if we arrived at 8 am and stayed through the fireworks show. Most of the families with young children clear out of the park and new entrants do not buy tickets after this period so it allows just guests at Disney hotels or Disney Good Neighbor hotels (see this list on the Disney World website) to access the park. We were able to “turnstile” (repeatedly ride with no lines) during those hours and make far better use of our time and maximize our experience.
This group of annual passholders has begun exploring the idea of renting one of the parks from Walt Disney World Resort to essentially create their own private event with little to no lines. For a former travel hacker like myself, this felt like a mistake fare on Flyertalk.
While just Magic Kingdom was discussed in this group (it has the most rides of any Disney property in Florida), ever the mileage junkie, I considered the idea of renting Disney Hollywood Studios in Orlando. The park features a Star Wars-themed land with the nearly impossible to ride, Rise of the Resistance.
Renting out the entire park would all but guarantee a seat on the ride as well as Slinky Dog Dash (a great roller coaster that can have long wait times), the new Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railroad, and the perfect evening experience, the Tower of Terror.
This would allow members who participated to enjoy these extremely exclusive Extra Magic Hours without holding hotel reservations at a Disney World Resort hotel and assumedly the same would be the case for California and its Disneyland Hotel properties.
Universal Offers This Too
After considering this option for some time, another commenter added that Universal Studios in Orlando also rents out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for private events too. My mother-in-law was at a convention that offered this as an after-hours activity but it all seemed too far out of reach at the time.
One complication with Universal over Disney World is that its two parks are connected by a train that runs between the Harry potter worlds split between the parks. I can’t comment on how they segment just those sections from the rest of the park and if it’s one or both sides included in the rental. Disney, in contrast, has four distinct parks all of which are closed from the others.
Economics of a Renting a Theme Park
Let’s treat this like a mistake fare and do some math.
The purported cost of renting Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom for one of these four-hour nighttime events is $180,000 (Universal’s Harry Potter option is rumored to cost $200,000.) That’s a lot of money, but consider that capacity at Magic Kingdom is 90,000 people for the 142-acre park. Even at the height of COVID capacity limits, the park was still able to easily accommodate 22,500 with social distancing requirements and reduced staff and many Annual Passholders that visited during this period loved the short waits for rides. There are 20 rides and dozens of additional attractions.
Current park tickets range from $103-125 depending on the day with half-day tickets available for a slight discount.
- Park rental cost = $180,000
- Divided by the lowest possible full day rate ($103)
- Just 1,748 people could rent the park for the same price as a day admission
- Equal distribution (unlikely but some distribution will happen) puts 87-88 people in each ride line.
- Some rides are constantly moving (Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan for example) which will result in a wait of less than ten minutes. Other rides like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Big Thunder Mountain run 20-30 seats per 3-4 minute ride resulting in a wait of closer to 12-15 minutes.
- With 3,500 people, wait times might double but costs would drop to Florida resident rates of about $50/day
Some might bristle at the late time for the start of the event, but with no annual pass sales permitted at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, there should be a line out the door for this kind of event. It may not come with the passholders’ complimentary magicbands but is a better experience for even the most loyal fans.
Conclusion
There’s no question that selling tickets for this event would break the terms and conditions of the park rental. However, if a properly organized group could begin a members-only co-op with annual dues, I am confident that this could turn from an idea into reality. Who wouldn’t want to have their own semi-private theme park for a night, especially at a rate comparable to what’s available at the gates?
What do you think? Would you want to rent a park out for the night? Who gets to put the charge on their credit card?
I continue to be stunned that adults focus so much on Disney world. Granted I don’t have kids, but even when I was a kid I didn’t find it all that great and seriously can’t imagine planning a whole vacation around that place.
Try Disneyland….the original one that Walt built, and go quickly because the current management team at Disney is determined to destroy it (e.g., Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at the ‘happiest place on earth’??!!). Walt was involved with virtually every detail of Disneyland (the plants selected, the placement of lights, shops, rides, etc.) which created a park experience unlike anything in the world. The magic of Disneyland is how much Walt was able to fit into the original park which is rather small. Walt Disney World is the bloated, obnoxious distant relative of Disneyland built years after Walt’s death, and with NONE of his artistry. I’ve been to both and there is really no comparison. As typical with most things in life, the magic is in the details, and the details must be experienced in person.
The thing about Disney World is that it’s so big that if you want to go and see it fully it usually will require a whole vacation regardless of if you are an adult Disney nut or someone who just wants to take their kids to see it once.Also it’s expensive enough that if you don’t put at least some planning time you are going to end up confused/stuck spending more time then you needed to and your trip will be far less enjoyable.
I typically take a fairly laissiez-faire approach to trips aside from logistics (like figure out a vague outline of things I want to do and anything I need to do in advance in order to do them). To the extent I go to WDW or Disneyland (maybe once every 5-10 years or so) I take a much more aggressive approach to planning because it really makes the difference between a fun trip and a disappointing waste of a lot of money, especially if kids (who don’t have the patience or stamina that adults do) are involved.
Count me in, and I am an AP holder in Michigan.
Even if you were to rent out Hollywood Studios, there’s no way they would operate Rise of the Resistance. That ride is way too expensive and staff-heavy to operate for such a small group, even if they are paying $180k. Plus given its frequent breakdowns, it probably needs more downtime than the average ride. They aren’t going to run it for a private group and increase the risk of it having operational issues when the park is open to the public.
Disney parks used to offer a 11pm – 6 am product only for high school seniors graduating classes. Super fun when my class flew SFO – SNA for this, over 500 of us. Some brave boys went prior and hid booze. They had a couple live bands as well.
Wow! That’s superb! I wish I could afford my private evening with my beloved ones at Disney one day 🙂
See, I can’t do this. Because the way my bank account is set up, I have a checking and a savings, and all my money is in my savings…
My husband had a convention at Disney a few years ago and a company rented out a portion of Epcot for the evening which I think is even cheaper. It got me thinking about the exact idea you pose. If you got a group together, you could potentially even undercut pricing for park tickets(though not by too much because the point is low wait times).
I personally think this is an amazing idea to try. Whether Disney would let you is a whole other thing, especially as they try to have more and more add on events like the Halloween and Christmas parties.
Kyle, you forgot to take into account the number of trains on something like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Yes there are 20-30 people per train, but if you send out 1 train per minute which is probably the average, you can have 3 trains swapping through in the 3 minutes it takes to make each train make one ride and move 60-90 people through in 3 minutes. At 60 people every 3 minutes (1200/hour) all ~1800 guests could ride in an hour and a half.
You must be amazing at roller coaster tycoon!