Is Disney more relaxed about herding guests out at closing nowadays?

[kay1864]

The last time we were at AK after closing (9-10 years ago), we left the last show of the Finding Nemo musical, and the park had been closed for about 30 minutes. It was nice to walk out of a nearly empty park, but the CMs were definitely waving bye and “thanks for coming” to encourage us to leave.

This past Saturday, the posted 60 minute wait time for FoP (at 6p) was actually 70 minutes, so we didn’t leave the ride until about 730, again 30 minutes after park close. But lots of guests were still sitting on benches with no CMs hinting for them to leave.

Maybe they think the guests will suddenly jump up and start shopping?

 

[DebbieB]

We had a late Ogas reservation last night, we casually walked out around 9:45. They did direct guests to certain walkways, we couldn‘t walk through Toy Story, we had to exit Batuu by Muppets.

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

It depends. I’ve had trips where I felt like we meandered through long after close. And I also had a trip where they tried to dissuade me from using the bathroom because they were trying to close that area.

 

[Obi-J Kenobi]

A long, long time ago in a WDW world far, far away my DW and I would hang out around the MK very late (after closing) and the CMs would let us know that the park was closed but we told them that we were waiting to see the Kiss Goodnight and each CM said something positive to us and encouraged us to stay to see it and then politely asked to leave afterwards and not to rush our exit. It was really a fun time. Not sure if they still have this "event" at MK though.

 

[parasail_of_congress]

I'm not sure what Disney does specifically, but generally speaking, amusement parks, zoos, etc., usually start their closedown routine at the farthest point from the entrance and work their way forward. That would explain why you were ushered out of Nemo but not FOP, as well as why going to the Toy Story area would be offlimits after park close.