Avoid Park with EMH?

[Manapua]

How much of difference in crowds does it make? For example, we plan to start at rope drop on a Monday but will be staying offsite so won't have access to EMH at DCA. If we wanted to hit DCA by lunch time, is it worth while to start at DL and then park hop, or is the the time spent hopping not worth it and should just start at DCA despite it being more crowded at opening? Hope my question makes sense.

 

[jina]

We've done this plenty of times w/o issue - park hopping around lunchtime is really quick - the only time where we had more than a minute or two wait at the gate was when we went a few days before Christmas. If you do park hop to DCA at midday be sure to get whatever your #1 FP choice is ASAP - for example RSR may run out around then. If you have little ones who want to meet A&E that may be your first choice. Another option is once you're through the door at DL, have one person in your party run over w all of your tickets to DCA to grab your first choice FP (for us it's usually RSR), then meet you back at DL. It just means you can't pull a FP at DL until your FP runner is back. I've done a double run - gone through the gates at DL, run to DCA to grab a RSR FP (and WOC FP since it's not connected), then back to DL where I grabbed a FP for something we wanted there, then met up with the family.

If you don't want to do the FP runner thing, starting the day at DCA on a EE day isn't that bad- we will start w/ grabbing a RSR FP, then head over to some of the Paradise Pier attractions which don't open until regular opening - Mickey's Fun Wheel, Goofy's Sky School and so forth so the lines there are pretty short to non existent. Bugs Land and Monsters Inc are usually also very short lines at regular open time even on EE day. The vast majority of folks at DCA open (EE and regular open) will dash to RSR leaving the rest of the park manageable.

But most mornings we want to hit DL first - even on EE days for DL we often go at rope drop and just hit the left side of the park first which is also just opening up at regular open time. And sometimes I'll do the FP runner thing over to DCA.

Have fun!

 

[Manapua]

We've done this plenty of times w/o issue - park hopping around lunchtime is really quick - the only time where we had more than a minute or two wait at the gate was when we went a few days before Christmas. If you do park hop to DCA at midday be sure to get whatever your #1 FP choice is ASAP - for example RSR may run out around then. If you have little ones who want to meet A&E that may be your first choice. Another option is once you're through the door at DL, have one person in your party run over w all of your tickets to DCA to grab your first choice FP (for us it's usually RSR), then meet you back at DL. It just means you can't pull a FP at DL until your FP runner is back. I've done a double run - gone through the gates at DL, run to DCA to grab a RSR FP (and WOC FP since it's not connected), then back to DL where I grabbed a FP for something we wanted there, then met up with the family.

If you don't want to do the FP runner thing, starting the day at DCA on a EE day isn't that bad- we will start w/ grabbing a RSR FP, then head over to some of the Paradise Pier attractions which don't open until regular opening - Mickey's Fun Wheel, Goofy's Sky School and so forth so the lines there are pretty short to non existent. Bugs Land and Monsters Inc are usually also very short lines at regular open time even on EE day. The vast majority of folks at DCA open (EE and regular open) will dash to RSR leaving the rest of the park manageable.

But most mornings we want to hit DL first - even on EE days for DL we often go at rope drop and just hit the left side of the park first which is also just opening up at regular open time. And sometimes I'll do the FP runner thing over to DCA.

Have fun!

Thanks!

 

[figment_jii]

As mentioned, park hoping really isn't a big time sink at DLR. The two parks are only 110 yards apart (you can see the DCA ticket gates from the DL ticket gates and vice-a-versa). My generally sense is the EMH impacts DCA more than it does DL, but the effects of MM/EMH dissipate pretty quickly after the park opens to the general public. The reason that DCA's EMH is a bigger impact is that two of the most popular rides, RSR and TSMM, are open during EMH (along with others), so that by the time the park opens to the general public both of those have fairly substantial lines. They don't start distributing the RSR FPs until the park opens, so that is always an option, along with the Single Rider Line. TSMM doesn't have a SRL or a FP, and that line is fairly consistently 45 minutes to an hour pretty for most of the day. The only caveat I'd mention is that if you don't hop until lunch time, there is a chance that RSR might have already run out of FPs for the day.

Over in DL, I feel that EMH/MM have less of an impact because only Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are open. So as mentioned by jina, it means everyone starts one equal footing for the Adventureland, NOS, Critter Country, and Frontierland attractions. Now, if your main interest were for Fantasyland or Tomorrowland attractions (e.g., Peter Pan, Space Mtn, etc.), then expect to see fairly good sized lines when you are allowed in.