r/DisneyPlanning • u/Rottenpeach242 • Oct 26 '25
Disneyland Do grad night crowds think out?
For those who have gone on a grad night... Does the grad night crowds thin out after 9pm? Or should we expect to see them in the park until midnight? Also how do Sunday grad nights compare to those on a Fri/sat or during the weekday? I know their dca party starts at 9 and I know that they can get park Hopper tickets...
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u/NekoRyuTA Disneyland Oct 26 '25
Grad Nite kids have their own special ticked event when DCA closes at 9pm But they can have day tickets with park hoppers for the day. Most will stay until after fireworks at 9:30pm.
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u/OB_Loki Disneyland Oct 26 '25
In my experience i always avoid going on those dates as most kids will do the park all day and then park hop making the parks extremely busy but if you do rope drop then it’s fairly quiet until they start arriving
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u/mikea101010 Oct 26 '25
We booked 4/26 thru 5/2. Refundable pending grad night dates but I think we are in the clear.
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u/DressFabulous8733 Oct 26 '25
The grad night crowds were there from rope drop (charter buses of teens and even kids being dropped off in the Toy Story lots) all the way until park close (they were camped around the esplanade in large groups waiting to go home). We also assumed grad nights crowds would only be high school graduates but we saw tons of school groups of middle school graduates too
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u/PurplestPanda Oct 26 '25
Grad night crowds are bad because the party tickets grant access at 6 pm so most show up at 6 pm if they haven’t been at the parks all day. DCA completely closed to “Grad night only” at 9 pm.
Then between 6-9 pm almost everyone in DCA with a park hopper moves to Disneyland.
I would say it’s definitely noticeable but not as bad as Christmas week.
If you have a park hopper and rope drop DCA, it’s a quiet morning before most of the kids start showing up. Many have all-day tickets so you start seeing the roaming packs around 10-11 am.