"Disney After Hours"...for the low price of $149/person...

In this case, no. Again, I'm playing into a broader stereotype, which you're free to agree with or not.

Yeah, it seems to play into the whole "white privilege" crap, which I think is BS. And when most of us universally agree that stereotyping based on race is bad, this somehow being ok doesn't make sense to me.

The fellow over at The Disney Blog suggests the Disney After Hours ticket might be a better value. Interesting point.

Our entire election cycle is based on this. "White privilege" strikes me as more divisive than "white victimhood," but I suppose both are pretty toxic. Regardless, there is a broad cultural phenomenon, both right and left, that is hell bent on believing that cultural and economic forces are dooming white people. I find that to be ridiculous.

I'm with Vater on this one. I read the blog entry and couldn't even figure out how you deduced the guy was white in the first place. Then I went to the homepage and saw his picture. But still his complaining, however silly, has no reference to race. I'm not sure the benefit of bringing that into the discussion.

And this entire election cycle to date has been the color of stupid. ;-)

It has, sure. I didn't make politics about race, but I'm not going to pretend it isn't an issue either. So if it was a foul to bring it to this discussion, sorry. The dude represents everything I don't like about the world right now.

Mouseplanet is saying cast members are saying DAH will be limited to around 500 people per night.

Dare I say it - that almost may make it "too quiet" for me. You could easily do a couple thousand and still have walk ons for every attraction.

Walk ons are one thing, but only 500 people in the park? It would remind me of those days at Geauga Lake in the final years where the employees outnumbered the guests.

I'd agree, 500 sounds low. It hardly seems worth doing for that.
One time I went to Circus World in Haines City, Fl, and I was one of 58 customers that passed through the gate that day. (I kid you not, I asked on my way out.) It was awesome to have rides on everything as many times as I could handle, but at the same time it was a little creepy. Or sad, or something. So I think it's important to have other people around (not too many) enjoying the park at the same time, otherwise the fun gets sucked out of it.

I've felt that way back when CP used to open on the Friday between Labor Day and HalloWeekends. While it was fun for practically everything to be a walk-on, it was at times a little too deserted. It made me realize that being around other people having fun, was also part of the fun. Plus, a coaster with a full train runs faster!

This guy disagrees:

It also reminds me of visits I have taken to Lakemont Park in Altoona, PA and Delgrosso's in Tipton, PA where I was one of probably a dozen or two people in the park. The ride ops would have to run the rides just for me, which left me feeling more than a little awkward. Not that you would get that same vibe from Disney at all, but still. The question also becomes - are they limiting it to 500 or is 500 all they are able to get?

Still, $74,500 sounds like a pretty good amount of money to add to the park's bottom line just to stay open for a few more hours, especially when you consider that you don't need as much staff to keep everything running. Why not allow 1000, or more, to purchase the after hours ticket and double the money? At those numbers, practically everything after operating costs is profit. 1000 tickets sold would bring in almost $150,000. That's awesome!

I wonder with a park the size of Magic Kingdom, what the lowest number of guests would be before people would have to wait in any kind of significant lines? I would guess that number would be even more than 1000.

CoasterBuzz thinking... They will be leaving money on the table. :)

Double post... sorry. Totally different tangent.

Lakemont park was mentioned... Lakemont Park is desolate sometimes. I mean, i could be one of a dozen people there. I have no idea how they stay in business, or even why they stay in business. People don't seem to care about the park nowadays like they used to.

DelGrosso's is a different story though. It's not always busy, but it's more frequented than Lakemont. That is strange because Lakemont is in the city, while DelGrosso's is about 15 or 20 minutes outside of the city.

I have an awesome memory of Lakemont Park that somewhat relates to this topic. My high school, Altoona Area High School, paid to have the park open after our senior prom in 1993 (a hundred years ago.) The prom was at "The Casino" which is right next door to the park. Lakemont Park stayed open from midnight to 6am. We had 3000 in our graduating class (unbelievable, but true.) I don't know how many people attended the Lakemont Park after hours event, but it was so much fun! I still remember it fondly as one of the greatest get-togethers I have ever been to. I don't know how many people were there, but there had to be at least a thousand, probably a lot more, and the lines were just fine.

I linked to a piece upthread regarding how Disney offered a similar event 1997-2004. I Googled the name of that event and read a couple of articles. They were saying Disney was selling 3,000-5,000 tickets. So I thought the 500 guests number (if true -- it is, what, third hand information?) was extremely low.

I was at Cedar Point years ago when a major mid-afternoon storm cleared the park out. (My mother being in Fascination and my brother in the arcade, the Noggin family stayed in the park.)

Walking around the park after the storm had cleared there were times when I was the only guest I could see on the Midway. It was a little creepy.

LostKause said:

Still, $74,500 sounds like a pretty good amount of money

I have to imagine that's pocket change for the parks. Like, I bet they sell more in balloons on an average day. That said, I totally agree that the number is bordering on creepy low. I bet they have about 500 attraction seats across the park between all the trains on all the coasters, and theater style sit down attractions (like the Tiki Room).

500 doesn't even come close to the number of attraction seats at the park. Splash Mountain alone has 440 seats with 55 boats in operation. I find it really hard to believe that the 500 number is correct. The park would still feel empty even with 5,000 in attendance.

Perhaps the source mis-heard the number? 500 guests would make sense to me if, say, Big Thunder and Splash, a Frontierland eatery and shop were open -- limited operations in one area of the park, in other words.

I've been to events where different groups had separate areas of the park. Had that happen at Knott's, when a friend managed to get "lost" and found a group of cheerleaders in another section of the park. Still not convinced that was an accident...

The annual average IAAPA November park buyout event hovers around 4000-5000. And those events are pretty much attraction walk ons, even when only a section of a park is in play.

I'm guessing that the MK can host a good 7,500-10,000 guests before having any significant attraction lines.