Busy Days at the Disney Parks & the Brits Guide Light/Heavy chart

[Flo_and_co]

Hi all

I'm trying to set up my trip itinerary (I know from past experience how important it is to plan an Orlando vacation like a military operation!!)

In the past I've always bought the excellent Brits guide and used the light/heavy days chart at the back of the book to plan my park days - to great effect.

I remember one year going to Busch Gardens on a Thursday, as then recommended, and it was empty - we just walked onto the rides. But we then took advantage of their 'come back tomorrow for free' thing and went back on the Friday - a 'heavy' day - and it was horrendous - hour long queues for everything! So the chart really does work.

However, this year I'm a bit worried that the changing about of the Extra Magic Hours will have thrown the whole chart out of sync.

For example, in the 2005 edition of the book Simon says that Extra Magic Hour day at Magic Kingodm is Sunday, and the lightest days are weds and Friday. However - looking eslewhere on this site it appears that the Extra Magic Hour days have now moved TO Weds & Friday, so I'm assuming they now become days to avoid.

This presumably will raise crowd levels at other parks on days when previously people might have been going to MK instead.

Same is true for the other Disney parks.

All very confusing - and now I don't know how to start my planning!

Does anyone know of the existence of a revised Light/Heavy chart taking into account the change in the EMHs?

Yous hopefully!

Flo

 

[KayleeUK]

Flo

The EMH are still up in the air at the moment as they are testing different patterns for January and February. So I haven't got a clue what the best days would be

 

[Flo_and_co]

oh dear - guess I'll have to leave my planning till nearer the time (I have until October after all) - just feels weird as I've usually got it all mapped out to the last detail by now lol

(Control freak? me? never!)

 

[steve_rob]

Is it definate that they are just testing different patterns and will eventually settle on the best one, or will it end up like park hours and you'll have to wait until a few months before you go to find out what are the early / late days while you're there?

 

[MazdaUK]

Now I'm worried, as I based my planning on the Brits Guide too and I'm going in March.

Simon, can you give us an online update around end of Feb please??

Thanks!!

 

[KayleeUK]

For the EMH keep checking Here

 

[MazdaUK]

Yes I found that but I wondered if it would affect the "heavy/light" predictions - at the moment I have based my outline itinerary on going to parks which are less busy, using EMH (according to the "old" plan - will obviously need updating now!) and avoiding heavy days at any parks. So if the changed EMH means, say, Epcot is now busy on a Wednesday where it would once be a quieter day, then it would be helpful to know this before we leave for Florida.

I'll keep an eye on the revised/revising EMH (and later openings) but if anyone goes before Easter and finds this is having a knock-on event I'm sure it would be useful to other users of these boards to know.

Just when I thought I'd got everything worked out!

BTW will Small World have reopened by Easter? I know the projection is "Spring 2005" but that is quite a wide date spread.

Thanks

( I love these boards!! )

 

[Bexx]

BTW will Small World have reopened by Easter? I know the projection is "Spring 2005" but that is quite a wide date spread.

According to MousePlanet it's closed until (and including) March 18th. So all being well it should be open for Easter.

As for the new EMHs, we will probably just avoid whichever park is doing it that day, though I wouldn't mind trying one of the evening ones if we get the chance. Otherwise, if the park we're visiting gets busy anyway, we'll hop to another! Call me crazy, but I have no plan or itinerary - this is going to be a VERY relaxed visit!