Magic Hours - use or avoid?

[NH-to-FL]

When we stayed on site DW and I would plan our park days around morning Extra Magic Hours. But then we are early to bed/early to rise folks.

We would be up early and there for rope drop. You can get so much done in that first hour and be moving to less popular attractions as the crowds build later in the morning. Then we would take a midday break to relax. Park Hoppers or AP's gave us the flexibility for what to do in the evening. I do not recall ever taking advantage of evening EMH.

Now that we are off site we avoid the park with the morning EMH.

 

[Shanti]

I was looking at historic crowds on tourinplans blog and I noticed that during the 14 days I was looking it EMH had no impact, according to their measurements to the crowd levels on most days or had +- 1 difference. This is end of June/July

Do you use or avoid EMH? Did you on your last trip and what was your experience? What are your strategies to make most of them if you use them

So - use or avoid? Great or bad idea?

Use! Especially in summer, when the mid-day weather stinks. EMH have always been helpful to us. Their impact on daytime crowds is exaggerated by crowd calendar creators, who tend to rarely stay onsite themselves.

 

[Shanti]

I actually decided to try to go to the parks with EMH on the next trip to get some more hours in (no hoppers).

Every crowd site I have looked at has all the park days I selected highlighted red with something like "Danger! Danger!" written by it.

It can't be that bad, can it?

No, keep your plans as they are. We always use them (& we don't park hop before or after) and have great trips. The only people who should avoid them are those who stay offsite. They're very helpful.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

We've had really good luck by waiting until later in the day then hopping in to the park that had morning EMH. Those early risers do tire out and leave well before the end of the day.

 

[LilDisHelper]

Yess youse them .. they are really nice to ride rides like EE at AK or for Example BLSRS or SM at MK

 

[Brian Ball]

I am wondering if the AM extra magic hours are worth it? I am working on getting our dining reservation lined up and I don't know if I should trade a better meal reservation with the opportunity to go to HS an hour early.

I heard that it can be better to avoid a park during those early hours because "everybody" goes to that park on those days....

 

[Dracoa Dragoon]

I remember getting my photo taken with Elsa at 1 am! No line up!

In all seriousness the night time ones at Mk are great. But I don't think they go til 2am anymore.

 

[Colleen27]

We used to love evening EMH at MK, but as they've gotten shorter and the park closings earlier they're not what they used to be. The crowds didn't start to thin until after 11 or so and now EMH is over at 10 or 11 for most of the year. I'm a night owl and I really miss the days of super-late EMH - there's really nothing like the MK at 3am!

Even though EMH aren't what they used to be, we still do them every now and then. We usually travel in the winter, and sometimes we're just not in the mood to call it a night after an 8pm park closing since the pools are usually closed by then too. And if we're traveling in the summer, we appreciate more park time after sunset when the temps cool off a bit. The only time I've found it too crowded to be worth doing is during the fall/winter months when the Halloween and Christmas parties further limit the MK operating hours - in December, evening EMH felt like peak season even though the crowd calendars called those days 5 or 6.

ETA: I've never used morning EMH and avoid the parks on those days, only because I am a night owl and never get to the parks early enough to benefit from that extra hour. If I did, I'd probably spend most of it in Starbucks trying to consume enough caffeine to make it enjoyable!

 

[Dan Murphy]

We avoid them. We prefer the lower crowd parks rather than the high crowd one. Park opening at low crowd park works for us.

 

[Haley R]

Last year we went in March and spent a day at AK. We ended up being done at around 1 pm so we headed to MK since we noticed they had EMH at night. That was one of the best experiences I have ever had at Disney! It was just DH and I so no kids, but MK stayed open until 2 am. We were able to ride Thunder Mountain many times at the end of the night. It was also fun to take a picture in front of the castle at 2 am. I don't think hours go quite this late anymore, though and it's kind of sad.

We also did EMH in the morning at MK this year and we really enjoyed that, as well. We were the second ones on 7DMT, rode Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, Winnie the Pooh, and then they opened Frontierland so we were close to first on Thunder Mountain. We typically plan our trips around EMH.

 

[Mom2Kids2003]

We love EMH at Magic Kingdom. We get on so many rides in those two hours that we wouldn't do it any other way. Last year, we rode at least 10 different rides on top of the mine train 2x. While there aren't many food options of character meet n greets open, the rides are totally worth it.

 

[Davey Jones II]

We've had really good luck by waiting until later in the day then hopping in to the park that had morning EMH. Those early risers do tire out and leave well before the end of the day.

That's an interesting contrarian strategy. In your experience, around what time do the crowds start thinning out?

 

[shannonstar]

We use the mornings whenever we can. Then we park hop to another park and utilize FPs there. We tend to only use evenings at MK where there is enough open to disperse large crowds on rides.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

We definitely take advantage of morning EMH several times each trip at MK and AK (had great luck at those two parks) and at least once at DHS. At MK we typically knock out Space Mountain a time or two and Buzz a time or two then we move over to Splash Mtn/Big Thunder when park opens. At AK we typically go first to Safari then ride Everest several times before park opens. At DHS we either ride Toy Story or Rock n Roller Coaster then head to Tower of Terror and ride that a number of times.

Evening EMH we usually only go to MK and have lots of luck there. The park is great at night and the crowd thins significantly as the evening goes on. We've never been when they had evening EMH at AK and don't go to evening EMH at DHS -- there's only a few rides open and the crowds don't thin. Evening EMH at Epcot is the same from a ride perspective -- very few rides and a long wait, but I do enjoy walking around the various countries since the crowds can be pretty low.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

That's an interesting contrarian strategy. In your experience, around what time do the crowds start thinning out?

Here just a sample of what we were able to accomplish in under 4 hours during a recent summer visit on a crowd level 8 day that happened to be an EMH morning at MK. We arrived around 8 pm to find bumper to bumper traffic leaving the park:

Big Thunder 3x
Splash Mtn 2x
Space Mtn 2x
Mine Train (10 min wait right a closing time)
Pirates
Jungle Cruise
Haunted Mansion
Pooh
Peter Pan
Speedway
Barnstormer 2x

We also watched the parade and fireworks and had a couple of Dole Whips.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

That's an interesting contrarian strategy. In your experience, around what time do the crowds start thinning out?

To give proper credit, I should also mention that Robo lists this strategy in his Park Hopping tips.

 

[Elbygrl]

We are commando style, early morning AND late night park goers. We like EMH at MK to beeline for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. We were disappointed that Adventureland wasn't open during EMH but we got on the mine train and Peter Pan without a wait. Evening EMH are usually spent in Tomorrowland because I love that land at night! I have only used EMH in AK once and that was prior to FP+ days. With FP+ I'm less concerned about beating the lines.

 

[W.E.D.]

I agree with those saying use it if you have a hopper.

I'm an early riser so I always hit the AM EMH park each day, head back to the resort when it gets busy, and then hop somewhere else in the evening

 

[PSUGuy]

I'm pretty sure January 2, 2005 was the first day of EMH which replaced Early Entry. Actually it was the first evening since as I recall the was evening EMH in MGM and we went there to see Osborne. Since then we've never used EMH instead hitting a non-EMH park at RD. We benefit from the sleep and the crowds seem low to us. Works for us. Actually this Nov. 2 we land at 8:30 am, we have FP+ choices for Soarin' at 10 am and Epcot is the EMH park that day so I guess our streak on not doing EMH will end.

Bill From PA