Crowds at evening magic hours

[musicmom3]

How have the crowds been at the evening magic hour parks? Just wondering how that is working out, since it's a new feature. Thanks for any comments!

 

[Laz]

I would like this info as well!

 

[kirbsam]

There was a post earlier about sundays MGM EMH. I think most of us are waiting until after tonight and we can hear how the MK EMH went. I have not heard how tuesday nights went at AK, i believe.

 

[SeeDisney]

Yes, please do report. We're leaving in 15 days. We're definately planning on doing the late hours at Magic Kingdom on Wednesday nights.

 

[tcb2317]

I'm curious to see how this is going to play out. On our trips we've always avoided the "early entry" park on a given day, and it has always worked well for us. We always buy tickets for the "E" nights. It looks like they are trying to phase out the "E" nights in favor of the nighttime EMH. The "E" nights were great, because they weren't widely known about, they only sold a limited number of tix, and they were an additional price (vacationers on a budget might not have wanted to spend the extra few bucks). We never attended one of these nights where there was more than a 10 minute wait for anything. I'm guessing that the new nighttime EMH is going to be packed on a regular basis.

 

[Teris]

I am curious too. We have always avoided the early morning extra hour as well, out of concern of the funneling of guests into one park, making that one park extremely busy. I love e-ride nights,, so they are totally gone then? The extra hours in the evenings, will be a free treat for resorts guests?

 

[fdecker]

I think it works great. It is definitely better than when the parks are open during the regular hours. The last 3 hours are almost like the last hour on a normal night. Haven't heard about the MK night yet, but especially during this slow time, I'll bet it will be a good report. We felt like the 4th and the 5th the parks were almost empty anyway, but especially during EMH.

-f

 

[Claudia1]

We were at the first EMH at MGM and wasn't impressed at all. We did Fantasmic and stayed until 9pm. Even at 9pm, there were still lots of guests walking around without wristbands. They could not ride any rides but they could still shop, etc... Our impression may not be in agreement with others, though. It was also the last night for the Osbourne Lights and that place was packed with people without wristbands at 8:30pm.

I agree with another poster on a different thread to avoid Fanstasmic on an EMH night. Do the rides!

I'm really not sure how Disney will empty the parks of non-resort guests. In all the parks, the shops are open after closing, so guests always stay after the posted closing time. I suspect it will be the same with EMH nights. For E-nights at the MK, you have a very small number of guests with the wristbands. For EMH, you have the potential of thousands of guests. Much harder to handle, IMHO.

I will probably like the program when I learn how to use it to its fullest advantage. We just felt like we were in a huge crowd with not much to do if you didn't have a FastPass. I anticipated a smaller crowd but it didn't happen for us.