Throughout the year, Disney offers Disney Vacation Club (DVC) (their version of a timeshare program) members the opportunity to visit one of their four parks or a selected waterpark after it closes for the day to the general public (usually around 9pm). The events are free and this year they offered members and their guests free snacks, a popcorn bucket, and special character meet-and-greets (we'll talk about all those in a bit).
First, the DVC members has to register for the event. In order to register, the member must have a valid Disney-owned Resort reservation for that day. All guests staying with the member are eligible to join. Children under 3 do not need to be listed. Keep in mind, if you cancel your resort registration, your event registration will be cancelled as well (this is to keep down the amount of fraudulent registrations). Registration is done through a link found in an email the company sends out. When you click the link, you are placed into a virtual queue and you will wait (sometimes hours) until it's your turn to register for the event or until you get a nasty-gram that the event has reached capacity and sold out. Boo!
The best part is you don't need a park ticket or a park reservation to attend. If you do have a ticket already (like AP'ers) you will need to get a wrist band to stay after the park closes.
So for this review, our family attended the Hollywood Studios Moonlight Magic event on July 14th.
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Here's the brochure they handed to us at the gate. We had to wait in a special event line, show them our registration confirmation and member ID. They then give each person in your party a wrist band (which you will show cast members throughout the night).
Each member of our party received a special trio of certificates. The first certificate was good for either a popcorn bucket or a snack. The last two were good for snacks. The back of the certificate sheet listed the locations where you could redeem popcorn bucket or snacks. It was vital to note that some locations closed early! And a lot of locations did not list out what snacks were available. You had to wait in line to find out which was a little frustrating.
Important tip - snack lines got longer towards the end of the evening and, yes, things sold out.
Here's a photo of the free member popcorn bucket. It came with a plastic lid that attaches to the handle. It also came with a separate box of popcorn if you preferred not to dump it in the bucket.
Important tip - don't stock up on popcorn boxes to save for later. The popcorn was very stale by the next day. Yuck!
Here are two snacks we got in Star Wars land - Hyperiod Popcorn for flavored popcorn (the line was very long and slow) and a special chocolate dessert at the Docking Bay 7 (which the kids did not like).
The best part, IMO, are the free ice cream bars (Chocolate-covered Mickey-shaped bar or a strawberry-flavored popsicle). You don't need to use snack certificates for those, but they closed down early. Boo hoo!
The event also had two DJ-led dance parties which the younger kids loved. One was held in the main stage area (in the center of Hollywood) and the other was inside the Disney Junior theatre. Rare characters Scrooge McDuck and Launchpad were wandering around the Disney Junior theatre taking photos with families. Goofy and his son Max were dancing on the main stage for a short time.
Just outside the Indiana Jones area, there was a socially-distanced meet-and-greet with rare characters Monterey Jack and Fat Cat from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. They switched out with the Rescue Rangers (who wore Indiana-Jones type gear). The lines were pretty long for either and they went on long breaks so the opportunity to meet was limited. If you see rare characters, always stand in the long line! They might not come back out as we found out with the Chip and Dale characters. Boo hoo!
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Some other characters - Chewie and R2D2 in Star Wars land (a lot of people had brought glow-in-the-dark props or lit up their lightsabers for cool photos), Woody and Jessie at Toy Story land (outside the 3D ride), Kylo Ren and storm troopers wandering around Star Wars land interacting with guests, and Darth Vader on the stage just next to the Star Tours ride (he wasn't there very long either).
One of the nice things about Moonlight Magic or any after-hours party is the chance to wait in shorter lines for rides, especially more popular rides. We did find ourselves waiting forever in a broke-down Mickey and Minnie Railway (we ent the older kids off to get on other rides).
In summary, if you are a DVC member and are able to join, try to attend! I wish I could attend all the parties, but since I live so far away and have other obligations, we cannot. Hopefully they continue to offer these through the upcoming year. It's fun. Plus, how else can you stuff your mouth on free Mickey-shaped ice cream bars?
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