Do you seek out or avoid parks with EMH?

[iujen94]

I'm working on planning our visit over Presidents' Day week (the latter half of that week - Wednesday through Sunday). I had our schedule planned, but now I'm totally second-guessing myself and thinking of making some changes. We always stay onsite, so we can do EMH if we want. In the good old paper FP days, we avoided EMH parks like the plague, because they were generally more crowded, and we could use the old FP system to get in tons of rides at a non-EMH park. With the new FP+ system, and the inability to stockpile FPs for the end of the day (yes, I know, I know - we were THAT family), we started using EMH - especially morning EMH. Now I'm questioning if that's the best plan, or if we're better off sticking with non-EMH parks and avoiding the crowds that are attracted to the EMH park.

So I'm curious - do you seek out or avoid parks with EMH? Do you have different opinions if its morning vs afternoon EMH? And do you have different opinions on EMH at different parks? Would love to hear your thoughts!

 

[Alesia]

If you don't have park hoppers, avoid the parks with EMH.

 

[Mousetopia]

I seek them out. Plan for fastpasses to start about 2 hours after park open..the first hour or so cant be beat!! sometimes early open Park does get really busy midday so usually if we're doing early entry we have a plan to hop somewhere as a flexible option. in fact my longtime friend I go to Disney with last trip was very resistant too early magic hours and had a memory of them not being worth it. after last trip last year she was totally sold.
Our upcoming trip we want to build resting midday into our trip..so we will get in at rope drop or take advantage of early entry and then be out of the first park by 12 or 1
take a break then head to another later.

 

[gap2368]

I seek them out I love them I will say I am an AP and go about once a month for between 1 and 7 days so it is not like I have to do XYZ because I will not be back for a long time.

I think if you have park hoper it is a good idea to go to an to go to another park if you do PM hours may be your fire I would go to the park at RD and then go back to your hotel or DS latter in the day and rest swim shop then go back to the park latter In the day.

 

[AshleeH]

I avoid them, unless it works out that I can go for just the EMH time period. We stay at MK hotels, so if we call it an early night and MK has EMH later, we'll get out and go to just that.

 

[TexasKiwiPrincess]

We avoid EMH mostly because the girls are younger and hopping is too time consuming.
I think the new Express Transportation option may change our touring style.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/express-transportation-options/

 

[disneygrl704]

We do EMh. Early emh is the best because for the most part you can walk on rides. We schedule our fast passes for after lunch and are able to do everything we want. We have been during mid summer when it's really busy and still are able to take advantage of EMH.

 

[Accident]

I've seen emh be the best and the worst time to be at any park. You can't really predict what the crowd is going to do and you should schedule your park days for what works for your family and how you normally wake up. Just plan that emh might be the biggest crowd of the day and be ready to call it a night early and consider it a time to get a few extra rides in that aren't the populars and you'll do just fine.

However, there are signs of when it will be bad.

First is morning emh, almost always a good idea if your family is morning people.
Evening EMH when there is a fireworks right at the start, will be busier but probably end very empty.
Evening EMH when no other park is opened will start less crowded then when it ends.
Evening EMH at epcot is strange, nobody really stays but the beer muscles come out which tends to end up with illness on mission space and smelly loud bus mates on the ride back to the resort. Also most of world showcase is not opened so you want to look at what will be and plan your showcase around most of it being closed when illuminations starts. It is an amazing time for night empty park photos and just being there..

There is 1 things I've been speculating for the last couple years and it's just been too busy to really figure out if it happens. What I've noticed is when it really is a lower crowd (2-4 on crowd calendars), most of the people at WDW are disney experts and they all rope drop. It makes an interesting effect that morning EMH and rope drop is actually the worst time to be in the parks and about 1pm everyone disappears and makes it a dream crowd the rest of the day until they return for dinner and night entertainment. again that is specualation on my part and disney just doesn't get that empty anymore to try to test my theory.

 

[MartDM]

Generally, we avoid it but we don't visit during peak weeks. In your case, given the crowds, I think you'd be wise to make use of morning and later evening EMH hours to avoid the longest waits. You can always hop to a non-EMH park or enjoy your resort during the peak hours in between.

 

[BigredNole]

The answer to that depends on our plans. If we are staying onsite, we definitely go to morning EMH. We can hammer out so much of the busy parts of the park in that hour it is not even funny. For MK, we FP 7DMT later in the morning. Hit PP first and pretty much walk on everything because the herds are in 7DMT and PP. That leaves everything else pretty much a walk on. With Frontierland and Adventureland staggered opening, you get to hop over there for that rope drop and hammer out those big rides too.

 

[anna samantha]

The answer to that depends on our plans. If we are staying onsite, we definitely go to morning EMH. We can hammer out so much of the busy parts of the park in that hour it is not even funny. For MK, we FP 7DMT later in the morning. Hit PP first and pretty much walk on everything because the herds are in 7DMT and PP. That leaves everything else pretty much a walk on. With Frontierland and Adventureland staggered opening, you get to hop over there for that rope drop and hammer out those big rides too.

I like your strategy! That is exactly how I approach PP and 7DMT. It seems to work every time! Now, shhhhh... lets not tell anyone!

 

[Cindylieu]

The answer to that depends on our plans. If we are staying onsite, we definitely go to morning EMH. We can hammer out so much of the busy parts of the park in that hour it is not even funny. For MK, we FP 7DMT later in the morning. Hit PP first and pretty much walk on everything because the herds are in 7DMT and PP. That leaves everything else pretty much a walk on. With Frontierland and Adventureland staggered opening, you get to hop over there for that rope drop and hammer out those big rides too.

What is this "Frontierland and Adventureland staggered opening" you speak of?? This may change my plans.

 

[Pacolovestacos]

Before FP+, use to go all the time. Now I skip entirely but I may head over to Magic for Late EMH (but I would only go for the EMH part). FP+ has killed everything good.

 

[BigredNole]

When I was there last time, MK EMH is only Fantasyland. We did all of that and Tomorrowland opened a little before 9AM. We did Buzz and Space Mtn then walked over to Frontierland. They held everyone back and walked us in to Splash and BTMRR. It was after 9AM (maybe 9:15). Not sure if it has changed. That was my experience on the 2 MK EMH mornings when we were there. It let us kill all of Fantasyland except 7DMT, the big rides in Tomorrowland, loop through the big rides in Frontierland multiple times, then PotC, then loop back to HM and 7DMT FP. Worked out perfect for our plans for the day.

 

[Dan Murphy]

We avoid. We prefer the lower crowd parks to the higher crowd ones, get more done, more easily.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Neither. We do them if they make sense and if we aren't going to make use of them we avoid. March 2015 we went to one day. Last May we didn't do any (actually we were there on an MK PM EMH day but no way for our kids to stay up that late). This May we have 3 EMH days planned.

 

[ArielSRL]

We are planning the Friday AM EMH at MK in June. Last year they opened the MK at 8 most days to the general public but Friday was 8am just for resort guests...so we decided to go with it thinking that IF they open at 8 to everyone most of the other days, we'll do the one where it's just resort resorts at 8. I also asked around for personal experiences of those being there multiple days that week (I was told no noticeable differences) and we do midday breaks so we will head to 'Ohana for a late morning ressie and be out of MK by 11, back later on to finish the night.

 

[skuttle]

We try to do morning EMH if at all possible. We get so much done in those morning hours, and that frees up FP's for other big rides later in the day, especially at MK. We usually try to do two morning EMH at MK. One we use to knock out TOmorrowland, and the other to knock out most of Fantasyland. We tend to avoid evening EMH since those tend to be more crowded unless they are the really late MK ones, and my younger two kids couldn't hang that long so we avoid that for now.

 

[MNAdam]

I was wondering the same thing....

Have a rather spontaneous solo trip planned for 3/5-10 so I can hit both Flower and Garden and a MK After Hours event. Two of the days that I'm there, 3/7 and 3/8, Epcot and MK each have a 2-hour night EMH. I think they're both 9-11p. I was thinking, from past experience as an off-site visitor, that once the fireworks go off, it's a mad rush for the gates for a good portion of the crowds. I was thinking the night time EMH would be relatively quiet. I did some research on Google today and saw a few recommendations of "do not go! it's a zoo!" - basically

Currently, I was planning on being in each of those parks the day when they had the night EMH since most of the time we stay off-resort so it's not an option. I've never done any kind of EMH, which is also why the MK After Hours event seemed a bit extra appealing to me. I'm more of a night owl, so that, coupled with my initial thinking of it maybe being quieter due to night time EMH instead of morning seemed like a good idea. When I'm there with the rest of the group and we stay off-site, we do our best to avoid any parks with EMH. So, now I'm doubting my plans a bit, and I'm able to set up my FPs Wed. morning.

Any insight would be most appreciated!

 

[Lothlórien]

We avoid. Mostly because of the design for FP+, though. Hate the 1-park limitation on reservations. So...sometimes we may venture to EPCOT in the evening for EMH to catch Soarin' or Test Track, but for all others we skip it.