Extra Magic Hours are they worth it?

[biondagirl]

We love evening EMH. There's nothing like MK at night with very few people left.

 

[Baptist]

I'm on the fence with EMH. Extra hours are good, but they tend to be more crowded. Last November we were in Epcot for evening EMH and it was packed. In the two hours, we rode two rides (Soarin and Test Track of course).

For morning EMH, you need to be there at rope drop. If not, you will enter a crowded park. It's happened to us and it's disappointing. I asked myself, how could all these people be staying at a Disney hotel?

Overall, it's extra park time (crowded or not). So, that has got to be a good thing.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

The answer is, it depends, primarily on the park but our experience is that EMH is a great use of time. But we ALWAYS have park hoppers and always leave whatever park we are at by noon for a pool/meal break so we avoid the really heavy midday crowds. Here's our experience and a bit of explanation:

Magic Kingdom - morning EMH is great. If you are there at rope drop you can get a lot done (though 7 Dwarfs is still tough unless you are at the front). In October for morning EMH we walked on Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear. We were going to try to do 7 Dwarfs but got held up at the gate due to ticket issues and didn't get in until about 20 minutes after park opening. Keep in mind that Frontierland is NOT open during morning EMH. We ride what we are interested in at Tomorrowland and/or Fantasyland then immediately head over to Frontierland and ride Splash and Big Thunder. Evening EMH is also very good. We love Magic Kingdom at night and the later you stay the more you can get done. However, the most popular rides (think Big Thunder, Space Mtn and 7 Dwarfs) can still have long waits but for most you can walk on. We've been on Splash Mtn a number of times late at night when we were literally the only people in line and stayed on for a 2d trip through.

Animal Kingdom - we've never been to an evening EMH at Animal Kingdom (do they even have those?). We've had GREAT success at morning EMH though. In October we rode Safari and then Everest 3-4 times all before the park opened. Highly recommended. We do take advantage of single rider line at Everest.

Epcot - morning EMH is good here but you need to head right to Test Track/Soarin' if you plan on riding those. Otherwise you can hit the less popular rides with little to no wait. Evening EMH is more popular and the rides can have long waits, primarily because there are so few rides at Epcot.

Hollywood Studios - similar to Epcot. We find evening EMH really busy (usually because it isn't really that late, say 7-9 p.m. or something similar) and the lack of rides lead to long waits. Morning EMH is good here depending on what you want to do. We don't even bother trying to ride Toy Story but instead go to Rock n Roller Coaster first thing then Tower of Terror. This last trip we walked on Rock n Roller Coaster then rode ToT I believe 3 times before park opening.

Morning EMH almost always has lower crowds than evening EMH because people don't get up early on vacation. You also need to think about lack of sleep -- it is tough to stay at one park late at night and then get up early the next morning for EMH so we stagger it a bit.