A lot of nights not a lot of theme parks are open past, say, 7 or 8 (especially if you don't have hopper or equivalent). Dinner and a movie is something to do, whole family together for once, other main option is sitting around your hotel room. Similar to mini golf, I imagine--I think most towns have at least one putt putt course, but people just seemed more inclined to slow down and indulge in it while on vacation.
Also Disney Springs offers low prices to 60k CMs plus however many thousand APs, Universal does same for the many Uni APs around town, and offer plenty to do before/after. They do pull a fair amount of locals in the 24th largest metro area in the country.