best use of EMH?

[HappyGrape]

we plan to use morning EMH this summer. Any tips or plans about how to make most of it? Any plans for EMH days? I can't seem to find any on Easywdw guide book or Touringplans subscription.

 

[Robo]

Generically speaking, use AM EMH to experience attractions during a time that sees fewer guests than will be in the park later in the day.

Also, the earlier the AM EMH, the fewer are the guests that will arrive at that early hour.

It is important to know that there are only specific attractions open during EMH.
Of those attractions, the ones that are most popular during regular hours will be the primary focus of the majority of guests attending AM EMH.

 

[sjlogghe]

I've been doing some research on this as well. It all depends on what you already have fast passes for, what your "must sees" are, and how popular those must sees are normally. I've read that AM EMH at AK, majority of people go to Avatar rides. So we are planning to go to the Safari. AM EMH at EPCOT, most go for the 3 Tier 1 attractions - FEA, TT, and Soarin.

This will be my first trip doing the AM EMH, so I'm not really sure what to expect. In the past, we have done all of the PM EMH - which is wonderful. Normally the park clears out pretty good, and majority of rides have significantly less wait times! We've ridden SM at MK 3 times in a row before during PM EMH. Same with Soarin. And RnRc at HS. I would personally choose PM EMH over AM - but that's our family. We tend to roll into the parks later and we're night owls!

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Get there on time to make the most of it. Don't plan to show up at 7:45 for 8 am opening and then run late and arrive at 8:30-9 am. That defeats the purpose. If you don't think you can get there on time just go to a park without EMH and enjoy lower crowds at park opening.

We've done AM EMH on our August trips just because it's soooo hot and getting that jump start in the parks when it's not so hot is amazing. In MK we would get so much done! DHS we rode RnRC and ToT numerous times over and over again.

 

[Lovetherodent]

I've been doing some research on this as well. It all depends on what you already have fast passes for, what your "must sees" are, and how popular those must sees are normally. I've read that AM EMH at AK, majority of people go to Avatar rides. So we are planning to go to the Safari. AM EMH at EPCOT, most go for the 3 Tier 1 attractions - FEA, TT, and Soarin.

This will be my first trip doing the AM EMH, so I'm not really sure what to expect. In the past, we have done all of the PM EMH - which is wonderful. Normally the park clears out pretty good, and majority of rides have significantly less wait times! We've ridden SM at MK 3 times in a row before during PM EMH. Same with Soarin. And RnRc at HS. I would personally choose PM EMH over AM - but that's our family. We tend to roll into the parks later and we're night owls!

Be sure to check the safari opening time for your day. During my March visit, AK opened at 8, but the safari didn't start running until 9.

 

[tlmadden73]

I think it depends on what park you want to go to.
At MK, Morning EMH is a no-brainer. You can get a ton done in that first hour or so with minimal crowds.

The morning EMH IS nice during the summer though as it is significantly cooler that first hour (though still humid).

The other parks? They have so few "ride" attractions that sometimes morning EMH isn't worth the hassle. I went to a morning EMH at DHS a year ago and while Star Tours was a walk-on, TSMM, was still a 20-30 minute wait at 8:30 AM, that was a bit shocking to me. So, in all that early morning, we got on two (of the 4) rides. The line for Jedi Training was still long and took my other friends most of the EMH just to get through it -- basically they just used it to get that out of the way without cutting into the normal park hours.

I would gather that AK would have the same issue, with everyone just running for FOP but in general only a few "rides" being open.

Epcot may be better .. a good way to hit a Tier 1 attraction like Soarin or Test Track before the park opens to the general public.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

I love the PM EMH, but if you’re gonna do the am, arrive on time as PP said, enjoy the lower waits. I would stay in that park til about 11:00, then hop elsewhere. The parks with EMH tend to be more crowded.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I love the PM EMH, but if you’re gonna do the am, arrive on time as PP said, enjoy the lower waits. I would stay in that park til about 11:00, then hop elsewhere. The parks with EMH tend to be more crowded.

I definitely agree with this. Get PH's. We leave the AM EMH park by 11-12, take a midday break and then go to another park for the later afternoon and evening. We would avoid EMH if we didn't have PH's.

 

[HappyGrape]

we have park hoppers!

 

[sjlogghe]

Be sure to check the safari opening time for your day. During my March visit, AK opened at 8, but the safari didn't start running until 9.

Ooh, good to know! Didn't realize that! Heading to check now, thanks!

 

[slpeters]

We did EMH every day of our trip this last November (5 AMs and 2 PMs) and loved them all. I will say we thought the AM ones were much more "useful" than the PM ones. The PM ones seemed more about it being cool to be in the parks late than any kind of advantage due to low crowds. The way we did them was to avoid the absolute headliners. You should still have FPs for those. We had park hoppers and did two parks a day with a nap in between and thought it was perfect. We made sure we had an evening in each park and at least one day in each where we had FPs for that park that day. That enabled us to not do anything during EMH that would still have a line--SDMT, PP, FEA, FOP, TSMM. That way we didn't have to worry about being at the front of the crowd because we weren't going where they were going anyway. We sort of mentally divided the attractions into say five tiers and EMH sort of allowed us to stay a tier or two ahead of the crowds all morning long. During EMH everyone runs to tier one, you do tier 2. About the time those people are moving on to tier 2 and the regular guests arrive for tier 1, you're on to tier 3 and so on until it's 11 and you start your FPs (the tier 1s) and in between get lunch and do the shows. Then it's time for a nap.

We found that the whole one step ahead thing was the real benefit of AM EMH. We hardly ever waited for anything in our morning park all week--and our week varied from 7s to 10s. Frankly we never waited for anything longer than 30 minutes all week and only over 15 a handful of times despite the crowds. The other thing I would say, particularly if you have multiple mornings in a park, is think a little outside the box about where the lines are that you will encounter that day and how you can change up the schedule to avoid them. We did Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell one morning with absolutely no one in front of us at all and we didn't arrive early at all. It just didn't occur to people to stop there--when we turned off to go to town square theater there was such a surge of people moving towards the castle that my husband actually said "no I think we're supposed to go that way." Wherever it feels like you're "supposed" to go, don't go there. Same thing for the Star Wars characters in DHS. We actually arrived a little late that day and still got the free photo for being the first people to meet Chewbacca. In AK we arrived about 10 minutes late one morning and still walked on to Na'vi (we of course had FP for FOP a couple different days) and the rest of the park was just empty for a good hour and a half. Again, it's obvious watching the crowds where you're supposed to go (FOP). Just don't go there and you'll have an amazing morning.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We did EMH every day of our trip this last November (5 AMs and 2 PMs) and loved them all. I will say we thought the AM ones were much more "useful" than the PM ones. The PM ones seemed more about it being cool to be in the parks late than any kind of advantage due to low crowds. The way we did them was to avoid the absolute headliners. You should still have FPs for those. We had park hoppers and did two parks a day with a nap in between and thought it was perfect. We made sure we had an evening in each park and at least one day in each where we had FPs for that park that day. That enabled us to not do anything during EMH that would still have a line--SDMT, PP, FEA, FOP, TSMM. That way we didn't have to worry about being at the front of the crowd because we weren't going where they were going anyway. We sort of mentally divided the attractions into say five tiers and EMH sort of allowed us to stay a tier or two ahead of the crowds all morning long. During EMH everyone runs to tier one, you do tier 2. About the time those people are moving on to tier 2 and the regular guests arrive for tier 1, you're on to tier 3 and so on until it's 11 and you start your FPs (the tier 1s) and in between get lunch and do the shows. Then it's time for a nap.

We found that the whole one step ahead thing was the real benefit of AM EMH. We hardly ever waited for anything in our morning park all week--and our week varied from 7s to 10s. Frankly we never waited for anything longer than 30 minutes all week and only over 15 a handful of times despite the crowds. The other thing I would say, particularly if you have multiple mornings in a park, is think a little outside the box about where the lines are that you will encounter that day and how you can change up the schedule to avoid them. We did Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell one morning with absolutely no one in front of us at all and we didn't arrive early at all. It just didn't occur to people to stop there--when we turned off to go to town square theater there was such a surge of people moving towards the castle that my husband actually said "no I think we're supposed to go that way." Wherever it feels like you're "supposed" to go, don't go there. Same thing for the Star Wars characters in DHS. We actually arrived a little late that day and still got the free photo for being the first people to meet Chewbacca. In AK we arrived about 10 minutes late one morning and still walked on to Na'vi (we of course had FP for FOP a couple different days) and the rest of the park was just empty for a good hour and a half. Again, it's obvious watching the crowds where you're supposed to go (FOP). Just don't go there and you'll have an amazing morning.

What week in November did you go?

I agree with this. We do the same thing. RD, midday break and PM park. We also don't RD what most everyone else is RDing. No running to 7DMT. We go the opposite way and hit up Splash. Or if it's AM EMH we will space. I won't be doing the mad dash for FOP. I have our one morning there going to EE first. I'll go to Pandora later that morning and another night we have planned at AK. At DHS we go to RnRC and ToT. For Epcot it's a bit harder but we just plan separate days there to get it all done.

It really does make for smoother mornings.

 

[tbre1982]

We went last week to MK EMH.


At MK only fantasyland and tomorrowland are open during am EMH. Most people head to SDMT, Peter Pan or space mountain.

We avoided the huge headliners and hit a few second tier rides right away -- buzz, tomorrowland speedway, Pooh and dumbo -- all as walk ons by around 830. By that time lines had started to build even at those rides so we hit barnstormer x2, teacups x2, under the sea, carousel in rapid succession by about 915. Break for breakfst then used FP at 10, 11, 12 for the more popular rides (SDMT, BTMRR and splash). Got 4th FP for haunted mansion and pirates later in day.

 

[Haley R]

I think we have only done morning emh at mk and we went straight to 7dmt and were second on the ride. We then went to Peter Pan and walked on that. We did the majority of fantasyland and then waited over by liberty square for them to open that section. We fast walked to btmr and had done a vast majority of the park by 10 am.

 

[mastermind307]

We plan to hit MK for EMH on June 1. The park hours changed from a 9am opening to an 8am opening, pushing the EMH to 7am! It will be an early morning, but we'll be able to get so much accomplished in a short amount of time. Our plans include riding Buzz a couple times, hitting a few fantasyland rides (not 7DMT or PP, we have FP+ for those on another day), and being over by Frontierland at 8:00 to ride BTMRR and Splash. My touring plan has us done by 9:00.