AK early opening not Extra magic hours?

[cterral]

I've heard rumors of AK opening early to accommodate crowds. I'm not talking about extra magic hours. Can anyone confirm or deny these rumors. Long ago when Toy Story Mania first opened they would open HS 15-30 minutes early and made for a great start to the day. We are here now and going to AK on Friday.

 

[slpeters]

My understanding is that they will definitely let you into the park early, especially on a 9am opening--maybe as much as 30-60 minutes. As far as actually starting to load rides before the opening time... I think they do that as well, but not quite as early (maybe 10-20 minutes).

 

[CAS239]

It's not uncommon for parks to fully open 15-20ish min early. Which is a reason PPO adrs can be risky.

But another thing the parks usually do is allow you into the first part of the park into a holding area prior to opening. So for instance at Epcot you can scan for entrance usually about 45-60 min prior to opening, then you're held near spaceship earth until the park opens.

You won't know how early they might actually fully open the park until they open it that day.

 

[Disnsyncey]

We went from Oct 19-24....

we did the EMH on Saturday, and they let us in around 7:30ish, then held us for about 5-10 min at the bridge to Discovery Island....then we moved onto the bridge to Pandora and were held there until sometime around 7:45ish.....then let in.....\

but then we did EMH on Monday, which they let us in at 7:30, and we went straight to the ride, no waiting anywhere.....so weird....