Does anyone NOT take advantage of EMH?

[brack]

Is this a mistake? Am I crazy to NOT to take advantage of the EMH? ..... Is it worth it to take advantage of the morning EMH?

We take as much advantage of the park hours as possible. You can always sleep when you get back home from vacation but while on vacation .... vacation hard!

 

[stacy347]

We are planning all of our days so that we miss EMH at each park.
Hopefully we'll miss some of the bigger crowds

 

[SqueakyMouse]

We tried out EMH during our May, July, and October trips this year. Sadly, we did NOT experience low crowd levels at any of them. While we try out some evening and morning EMH at the beginning of each trip, we generally end up avoiding them by the end of our visits. The one exception is AKL evening -- not to ride anything but to see the park at night. I just love it!

 

[BigD1813]

I avoid EMH in the morning at all costs. People act like they get so much more done, but my family has always found that the park with morning EMH is always the most crowded throughout the day. I prefer to get the extra hour of sleep and get just as much done at another park. Just my opinion though.

 

[Tigger2252]

On our last vacations, we always tried to take advantage of the EMHs. But, this year I think we will skip it in the morning and go for the evening. This year we decided to be less commando and relax a bit more. So, I'm gonna sleep in if I can. I'm an early riser but the rest of the clan will probably enjoy a more leisurely pace in the morning.

 

[melomouse]

... nope.. never ever got up that early on any WDW trip.Before our first trip, I read all the planning books that said you ought to be there for EMH when offered. I did not immediately factor in who my family is and how we operate! I also found out some things about myself -

If not getting up early means missing some things, so be it. If there are crowds later, we'll do a bit, THEN return to our resort or move to another park. I learned early on that for us, we need at least 5/6 park days and flexibility of admission media. Having time and money issues leads to value issues leads to commando thinking, which I don't personality-wise or physically pack the gear for.

That said, we've gone a couple of times with my best friend and her family. She's hi-energy and I will never know how she does 12 park hours at a clip with relatively young kids. God Bless her...

Also depends on park hours. Whenever MK is open late, we are there. And I can't burn the candle at both ends. The next day it catches up with a vengeance - and that is never fun!

melomouse

 

[VSL]

Interesting thread - and useful as I'm planning my itinerary as we 'speak'.

I don't think I'll be bothering with the EMH's at all (maybe AK evening).

 

[poohangel]

We tried for the first time last year and we wont be doing it this year. We just did not want to get up that early.

 

[james15]

Not any more.Are trip first week of october we hit mk late afternoon for emh and really the only wait we had was for splash.After 9pm emh every thing was walk on talked to a family back at the resort that said mk that am was packed but cleared out buy 4pm when we arrived.

 

[heidica]

For our family, it depends on the time of year. When we went this June we avoided both morning and evening EMH and avoided those parks on each day. We got to do pretty much 99% of everthing we wanted by doing this and getting to our park of choice at opening, being flexable and park hopping. As an illustration, after we got home we found out that some family had been at WDW during the exact same time as we had (wish we had known at the time) but when I asked how their trip was, they said horrible. That did EMH and didn't get to do nearly all that they wanted to. It was really crowded, the most crowded I had ever seen, but I think our strategy worked out better than our relatives and we had a really great time. One of our best trips ever.

During off season (which becomes smaller and smaller each year) but basically the times when the parks aren't open as long, taking advantage of EMH can actually help add a few hours park time and more time to see stuff. During the summer everything already opened early and closed late, so it would have been near impossible to drag our butts out of bed any earlier than we already did.

Have fun no matter what you do!

 

[henrylovespooh]

We always use the MK morning EMH and love it. We don't do any evening ones because we have young kids and I think they are more crowded.

Early morning is my favorite times in the parks because the crowds are always low, and the extra hour makes them more enjoyable.

 

[iliketoby]

I love the Early-Entry hours , but not the Late-Stay ones. There are just too many people there at night for me. Plus, it is difficult to take advantage of both. We'd get too tired.

I go to the EE park if there is one, and then hop to a park without LS hours.

 

[GarrettJD]

I think I'll do a little analysis here. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It looks like many of the people who use EMH regularly also go regularly in the off-season. Therefore, even though the EMH park is more crowded than the others, it still isn't as crowded as the peak spring break, summer, and holiday periods.

Unfortunately, I've never had the privilege of taking a trip during the off-season-- all of our three trips have been in June. (You know, with the DGF being a teacher and all. Each time we've been to EMH in June, the parks have been packed to gridlock.

I guess what it boils down to is, using EMH helps during the off-season because you get more touring time when the parks are open for less hours. However, with the parks staying open later during the summer and holidays, you don't really need the extra hour, and in fact lose more time because of the heavy crowds at the EMH parks.

So that's my theory. Anyone want to pay for a trip for us during the off-season so I can test my hypothesis?

 

[tidoublegger]

Anyone want to pay for a trip for us during the off-season so I can test my hypothesis?

Thanks for all your input everyone!