Extra Magic Hours Christmas Week

[100acreHiker]

WDW vet here—said I'd never go Christmas week, but here I am eating crow. We're planning a mostly resort-focused getaway from 12/26-31 at Wilderness Lodge. I do have 2-day PH passes, mostly because I can't help myself. Can someone tell me about EMH during Christmas week? Do they rotate or do most parks offer them each day? Morning and night? Are they super early and super late? What should I expect crowds to feel like during extra magic hours? I am thinking we will go in only during those hours, perhaps. Between the dates of evening of Thurs 26th and night of Monday the 30th, are there any days or times you think are strategically the best, or should I just expect mass chaos? If I hold off to go in for PM EMH, is there a likelihood that I will be denied entry due to capacity or is that not an issue with EMH for resort guests? TIA!

 

[GADisneyDad14]

WDW vet here—said I'd never go Christmas week, but here I am eating crow. We're planning a mostly resort-focused getaway from 12/26-31 at Wilderness Lodge. I do have 2-day PH passes, mostly because I can't help myself. Can someone tell me about EMH during Christmas week? Do they rotate or do most parks offer them each day? Morning and night? Are they super early and super late? What should I expect crowds to feel like during extra magic hours? I am thinking we will go in only during those hours, perhaps. Between the dates of evening of Thurs 26th and night of Monday the 30th, are there any days or times you think are strategically the best, or should I just expect mass chaos? If I hold off to go in for PM EMH, is there a likelihood that I will be denied entry due to capacity or is that not an issue with EMH for resort guests? TIA!

I’ll answer the EMH part in the context of how that week looked last year for those dates:

MK
AM - Daily 7am-8am
PM - 12/30 12am-2am

The other parks roughly follow their normal EMH rotation: Epcot: Tuesday PM / Thursday AM; DHS: Sunday AM; DAK: Saturday & Monday AM. BUT (big but), you can see the exact days shift around depending on where Christmas/NYE falls in the calendar, so we won’t know for certain until the parks calendar comes out.

Also big caveat as to what they may do with SWGE this year and adding more EMHs into the rotation during the busy holidays. I suspect you may see more special runs like they are doing 8/29-11/2, but that’s just a guess on my part.