Hey there, Jason! Thanks for visiting us here at planDisney with your question.
I'm so excited that you'll be attending
Disney's Very Merriest After Hours event on your upcoming Walt Disney World vacation, Jason. I've seen a lot of reviews of the party already and everyone is loving it! Disney's Very Merriest After Hours event actually kicks off starting at 9:00 p.m. Your after-hours party ticket does allow you early entry into Magic Kingdom Park two hours before the party starts at 7:00 p.m.
If you were to make a dining reservation at 6:00 p.m. at a restaurant inside of Magic Kingdom Park, you would need to purchase a standard theme park ticket and have a park pass reservation to be able to enter early enough for your dining reservation. If you have your heart set on eating somewhere inside of Magic Kingdom Park, your dinner reservation would need to be for sometime after 7:00 p.m. if you wanted to use your after-hours event ticket only.
There are some really great places to have dinner at the resorts around Magic Kingdom Park. You could look for a reservation at Disney's Contemporary Resort, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, Disney Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, Disney's Polynesian Village Resort or at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort. All of those resorts provide really quick access over to Magic Kingdom Park when it is time for the party.
If you are looking for a nice sit-down dinner, right now I am loving
Steakhouse 71 at Disney's Contemporary Resort. It just opened in October and it is delicious. I've actually sampled every single dinner menu item and I can tell you that everything is really good plus I feel like the pricing is really fair for it being a steakhouse. The restaurant tells a story from start to finish from the decor around the restaurant to the menu items and it's fun to hear from your servers about it. I highly recommend giving it a try.
I hope this helps you plan your evening, Jason. If you have any other questions, please feel free to stop back by and
ask me. I'm happy to help. Have fun and enjoy!