Anyone else miss E-Ride nights??

[CaptainJackNO]

I used to love E-ride nights, when you would pay 10 bucks extra and get the park, basically, to yourself. I loved that. Anyone else miss it?

 

[the-reason14]

I never got to do it. I remember being envious of those who did back in the day, but I never experienced it. I'm sure it was cool, but emh are ok for the most part so Ill take that as a "substitute."

 

[Figment82]

I loved E-Ride Nights - it felt like you were part of a secret club. I remember being able to stay on Splash Mountain and ride it over and over again. We would just run from one mountain to the next. It was totally worth the extra $10.

 

[GenerationX]

E-Ride nights were definitely worth the extra $$. The lines were much shorter than during EMH nights at the MK now.

 

[rodserling27]

I've never heard of this....details!!! Was it like EMH? Did you have to stay on property?

 

[DizneyPryncess]

I've never heard of this....details!!! Was it like EMH? Did you have to stay on property?

I never got to do it, but a few friends of mine were just telling me about it and said they miss it. I believe e-ticket attractions remained open for a few hours after the normal park closing time. You had to buy the pass beforehand, and there were a limited amount of them. They said the lines were really short.

 

[LudwigVonDrake]

I miss those days. If there was no line you could keep riding. I did that a lot on Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Bring it back!!

 

[Testtrack321]

I've never heard of this....details!!! Was it like EMH? Did you have to stay on property?

It was EMH back when it was only the surprise mornings or whatever they used to call it. It was a program for only when the parks were crowded and was then ONLY available for MK. For $10-15 you paid to get a wristband if you stayed on site. Then you were allowed to run around a pretty much deserted park for 3 hours!

The program from the start suffered from poor advertising, and Disney eventually caught on, realizing that instead of having ETicket night go from like 11-2am, they could cut MK hours, have the new EMH hours go 10-1am, and make more money.

In the end, it was the last hour of extra magic hour, only for all 3 hours.

 

[Kiff]

Some of my best memories from MK were from those E-Ride nights. Not that I have anything against kids (comes with the territory in the world), but the E-Ride nights seemed to attract mostly young adults. My wife and I would meet some other random people early in the night and stick together on the rides into the wee hours.

It was also the only time I had interaction with the characters. They would occasionally hang out in font of the castle. No lines, so some easy pics and the occasional case of Chip and Dale hitting on my wife. :lookaroun

 

[WDW Vacationer]

I never experienced E-Ride nights,but they sound fun. They are also extremely similar to EMH,which is great. Low crowds,low waits!:sohappy:

 

[Yensid40]

Oh wow. That's a blast from the past. E-Ride nights were awesome. That was what like 2000 or so and earlier?

 

[urbanvegan]

Those were great! I had completely forgotten them!

Such a simpler time... :lol:

 

[rodserling27]

Thanks for the explanation! Sounds like it was a pretty sweet deal. My parents never did this with us when I was a kid, obviously, or I would have remembered it :lol:

 

[Nosmo King]

E-ride nights were the bomb! I think it was $12 when I went in '99.

 

[Ziffell]

I might be remembering this incorrectly, but I believe the criteria was that you had to be staying on property and also you had to have already purchased a multi-day pass. If you met both of those conditions then you were eligible to purchase the E-Ride Nights pass. It was absolutely worth it! If I recall correctly, it seems as though one or two restaurants also were open, as well as a couple of shops. I would imagine that Disney probably didn't make as much money on that as they had hoped. I know that on the two times that I did it, I never bought any food or souvenirs because I wanted to maximize riding time. If most other people did that (which I imagine a lot did), then it probably didn't turn out to be all that cost effective for Disney. It was great though because they drastically limited the tickets and you had to jump on it first thing in the morning. It really did feel like only a handful of people were in the park.

 

[GenerationX]

We were lucky enough to hit the last (8/11/2004) or next-to-last (8/9/2004) E-Ride night. They were only at the MK, and they were on select nights - mostly in the summer - but occasionally during other busy times.

 

[marni1971]

They were great fun. I recall riding BTM 3 times without getting off, then hitting Splash twice in a row. Let me see...

You`d buy a ticket for $10+tax from your resort front desk. You`d then swap it for a wristband after 4pm. Once the park closed you`d have 3 hours to ride all 3 Mountains, Buzz, the HM, AE, Astro Orbiter, Timekeeper and the CBJ. Adland, Frland and Toontown were closed. Characters would be out for photos - some rare ones and the chance to get Mickey and Minnie in the same photo, you could shop at Emporium and Merchants of Venus, and eat at the Main St Bake shop, Plaza Ice Cream, Casey's, Pecos Bills and the Lunching Pad.

The park would be virtually deserted - remember we`re talking peak season - and it was like a special private party as mentioned above.

Main

 

[DrummerAlly]

I did the EMH twice. The first time the park was absolutely deserted - If I remember correctly we were told that something like only 3,000 passes (??) were sold. The second time we did it, two years later there was noticeably more people in the park, similar to EMH today so it wasn't quite as awesome.

Either way, it was a blast and totally worth the extra money. I, too, have memories of riding splash mountain more than once without having to exit my log.

 

[paul436]

E-Ride nights were a lot of fun. We did them at every opportunity. Well worth the extra few bucks!

 

[ABigBrassBand]

Damn, I wish my family did this when I was younger.