Christmas Week Early Entry

[ironband74]

Hi all,

Against my better judgement, I'm taking the family to DLR December 27-29. Normally I'd be confident in my theme-park commando mindset, but reviewing the calendar I see that I'm going to have to contend with Extra Magic Hours/Magic Morning at both parks every day. I've typically avoided the park that has early entry on a given day, but it appears that option is not going to be available to me.

My current plan is to use our Magic Morning at DL our first day (Dec 27). However, I'm not familiar with the logistics of Magic Morning.

I'm figuring on being at security by 0600 and trying to be first in line at one of the gates.

My questions are these:

1. For Magic Morning, is it a mad dash to the attractions (Peter Pan) directly from the gate at 7AM or do they let folks on to Main Street a while beforehand and do a rope-drop at 0700?

2. If it is a mad dash from the gate at 7AM, and I have paper tickets purchased through my employer which need to be exchanged for the cardstock tix, is there anything I can do to speed that process up to ensure we don't fall too far behind the crowd? Can I exchange them at the ticket booth the night before? Scan them into the app? Something else?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Andre

 

[disneychrista]

1. For Magic Morning/Early Entry they general do not allow you into the park before the start time (ie 7am).

2. It if a fairly fast, easy procedure to get your actual tickets. They scan the paper/bar code and the ticket comes out.

 

[katyringo]

Do it on a day of the week they don’t usually offer it. Like a Wednesday. We went this time last year. If you check out our holiday mega thread I have a post on there about managing this time of year.

We used our magic morning on a Wednesday. They don’t heavily advertise that they are offering the magic morning everyday- they just put it out there. We did it on a Wednesday and the park really stayed dead that first hour.

 

[ironband74]

So what I'm hearing is do DCA on Thursday since it will be EMH, but many people won't realize it is EMH, so the crowd won't be quite as bad when we enter at the official opening time. Then do DL on Friday and use our MM when most people don't realize that MM is an option. Saturday is clean-up. I like it.

Now to retool my dining reservations...

 

[theluckyrabbit]

If your paper tickets have a bar code, then, as a pp said, you should be able to go directly to the turnstiles where a CM will scan the bar codes and give you a cardstock ticket. The CM also will take your photo to attach to your ticket. Takes just a minute or two. However, if your tickets do not have bar codes, then you will have to go to Guest Services or a ticket booth to exchange them. If this can be done the night before your first park day, that will save lots of time in the morning.