Epcot After 4: Hey, Disney, You’re Leaving Money On The Table

You have two options when deciding which Walt Disney World park ticket to buy. You can get a date-specific ticket that provides access to the parks for a specific number of days at a specific time, or you can buy an Annual Pass. I mean, yes, there are various add-ons and tiers you can play with to customize your experience, but broadly speaking those are the options.

It wasn’t always this way. Back, back, over the falls in the halcyon days before the pandemic, there was another option.

Have you ever wished you could pay a reduced rate for a partial park day? Once upon a time, you could! I give you: The Epcot After 4 Pass.

WHAT IS THE EPCOT AFTER 4 PASS?

The Epcot After 4 Pass was a form of ticket wherein you were only allowed into Epcot after 4pm. Research suggests it came in a couple of guises.

First there was the Florida-exclusive Epcot After 4 Annual Pass, which was exactly what it sounds like: one year of admission to only Epcot, only after 4pm. There weren’t any block out dates, per this archived thread:

Price listed is from 2005. Per this Reddit thread, it was still a thing in 2019. And according to this page, the price in February 2020 was $319. By Disney standards, downright austere! Although that’s a 184% price increase…

There were also Epcot After 4 individual tickets exclusive to convention attendees, although it may not have been called that? This source suggest it might have been after 2, and only some places had it, not necessarily even Disney resorts. The above Reddit thread mentions that this ticket type continues to be offered to Orlando convention attendees, but as far as I’m aware it’s never been publicly available.

IS DISNEY GOING TO BRING IT BACK?

I’m not the only one who remembers. Multiple planDisney Q&As from as recently as January 2023 and March 2024 ask about the return of the Epcot After 4 pass. Alas, in both cases the planDisney panelist gave a vague “not as far as I know but never say never” sort of answer.

You might take this as a solid sign that Disney has no plans to bring back the ticket option any time soon if ever… except for one funny little website quirk I discovered. Take a gander:

That’s right – the Epcot After 4 option is still listed on the Annual Pass admission calendar! [As of Sept 5, 2024.] Of course, when you select it, you get a completely blocked out calendar, but it’s there. Disney wouldn’t leave it there if they didn’t mean to use it again in the reasonably near future, right?! I mean, they wouldn’t make such a silly website oversight, would they???

Well, knowing Disney tech… they might. 😅 All the same, I would argue that they SHOULD bring back… and make it more broadly available, too.

WHY DISNEY SHOULD BRING EPCOT AFTER 4 BACK – FOR EVERYONE

Okay, on the surface, I understand Disney’s reluctance to reinstate the Epcot After 4 pass for anybody. They don’t want you to spend less money. Disney figures by the time you make it to property, they have you on the hook. If you want to enter a park, you’ll pony up the $100+ to do it. If you want to come several times a year, you’ll drop the cool $1K+ for an Annual Pass. And Floridians, I’m sure by their way of thinking, should be grateful to receiving any kind of discount at all.

However, I don’t think this is as cut and dry as Disney might assume, and I can use myself as an example. I have been an Annual Passholder on many occasions, but rarely in consecutive years. I let my Annual Pass expire in 2022, and I just let it expire this year.

Why? Not exactly because it’s expensive, although it sure as heck is and that’s a factor. However, it’s less about the expense in and of itself and more about whether I anticipate getting a full year’s worth of value out of the expense. I know you’re tired of my refrain by now, but say it with me anyway: Value. Is. Subjective.

In this particular case, while I will be at WDW for Dopey, I don’t plan on doing theme parks during this already mentally and physically demanding time. I’ll also be doing Princess Half Marathon Weekend, but at that point, it still makes sense for me to buy a single day ticket if anything at all.

If an Epcot After 4 Annual Pass were available – and in this example we’re imagining anyone can have it, not just Floridians – for a reasonable price, I would seriously consider it, even if I were uncertain of my Disney-centric plans for the year. At a lower price point, I’m willing to take a higher risk.

And if there were a single day Epcot After 4 ticket? That would become my go-to evening activity on race weekends when I might otherwise skip tickets entirely. By the time you’ve run a half or full marathon and taken a well-deserved nap, there’s not a lot of day left; I’ve made increasingly frequent parkless race weekend trips. A reasonably priced Epcot After 4 ticket would net Disney more of my money than they would otherwise receive.

IT’S TIT FOR TAT, ANYWAY

Which leads us to what Disney would consider the most compelling part of my thesis: they benefit from this arrangement. As I say, they now have some of my money, which is better than none of my money, which is what they were going to get in the ticket column of my budget without Epcot After 4. Not to mention the money they’ll make on merch, food, and souvenirs – is that not what they’re after anyway?

Another thing to note is that people with Annual Passes, understandably, tend to make more trips. Without an Annual Pass, I am unlikely to add an extra Disney weekend to my schedule. But if I have an Epcot After 4 Annual Pass, why not drop in on each festival?

One last point and then we can move on to my final category, but ALSO: Epcot is capable of handling bigger crowds than any other park. It also has more shopping and dining options and fewer attractions with high operation costs. If you’re going to move a portion of your day’s population somewhere, doesn’t Epcot make sense?

THERE ARE WAYS DISNEY COULD MAKE AN EPCOT AFTER 4 LESS SCARY

All right, you say, I get it. But Disney is going to be nervous about the possibility that people who might’ve otherwise purchased regular, full day tickets will eschew them in favor of this Epcot After 4 option.

That’s okay, we can mitigate that problem!

For the Epcot After 4 Annual Pass edition, maybe it’s not blatantly advertised. Maybe you have to call. Maybe you have to be in the know. Perhaps they send out periodic offer emails to frequent resort hotel guests who don’t buy tickets. Given how My Disney Experience works, they definitely have that data. Or it’s only an option for people who elect not to renew an existing Annual Pass.

And for the single day version: make them rush tickets, where you don’t even have the option to purchase until, say, 2pm that day.

And/or make them only purchasable at ticket kiosks at the front and back (at the International Gateway) of the park.

If you’re really feeling nervous, single day Epcot After 4 tickets can be a moving target. Maybe they’re not guaranteed. Maybe Disney decides whether they’ll be offering it that day based on crowd levels.

Disney’s bread-and-butter groups – once-in-a-lifetime family trips and international visitors – would never tolerate that kind of risk, and would continue to purchase full price tickets. A more reasonably priced “taster” ticket would appeal to a completely different audience. Heck, it might draw some people to try Disney who otherwise wouldn’t!

IN CONCLUSION

I don’t know; I feel like I have a pretty solid argument here. Not that I necessarily think Disney is listening to me. But if they are: bring back the Epcot After 4 ticket option, Disney! And Magical Express! And while we’re here, the pawprint brownie. But mostly the Epcot After 4 ticket. I think it would be mutually beneficial. Fan service that helps the bottom line – how can you resist?

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