Extra Magic Hours - Evening

[WonderWomanDC]

So someone please help me, I read the following on allears:

You'll need to obtain a wristband at the theme park by presenting a valid Key to the World Card at one of several designated locations no sooner than two hours prior to park close.

Does this mean I have to go to the theme park before normal closing hours to get the wrist band and then come back later? Or can I show up at any time during EMH and show my key card and enter? Sorry, I've never been to any EMH, so I'm confused. It seems to inconvenient to have to go there for the wristband and then return later, but the wording isn't clear to me.

 

[Bev J]

They start passing out the wrist bands 2 hours before the park closes and continue to pass them out, at Epcot it was till 11, the EMH closed at 12. There were several places in the parks to get them, just look for the lines...
Be prepared for HUGE crowds for EMH, oh for the days of E-nights.....

Bev

 

[wdwgoofeeee]

As the previous poster noted, distribution of the wristbands starts 2 hours before EMH. You can arrive anytime after that to get the wristbands BUT a cast member last week said that they sometimes run out so you may not get one if you are late.
On another note........DO NOT GO TO EMH!!!!!
The EMH park gets way too crowded to enjoy. The only good thing about the evening EMH is that they reopen the Fast Pass machines. If you don't grab Fast Passes you will be on VERY long lines for the first hour or two of EMH. It starts thinning out later but by then most people are too tired to stay. As others have suggested on the DIS.....skip EMH and go to another park. Get to whatever park you choose at least 15-30 minutes before opening. The crowds last week were pretty good but this past Tuesday it grew substantially. All the parks were crowded from Tuesday until we left Thursday afternoon. We hopped from park to park but they were all way too crowded to do much except Fast Passes.

 

[Nora94]

I disagree, for us, EMH was the way to go. We went in late April mind you, but we at first were discouraged at magic kingdom. After the 11:00 parade we went to get on Space Mountain and the wait time said 45 minutes. OH, DH was so mad! I took our 2 yr old to the arcade right there and about 20 minutes later my dh and 5 yr old show up ! I thought they had given up, nope, they had gone on the ride. Took our kidswap ticket and the 5 yr old and I went right on with her. We did one more ride together, than split up. DH and 5 yr old got to go on every ride they wanted to with only 5 - 10 minute waits. 2 yr old and I rode the carousel a few times, than went on It's a Small world non stop for an hour. Yep, didn't even get off. We ended up staying till 2 am when the park closed. ((disclaimer - we had taken LATE naps in order for the kids to stay awake that late))

At animal kingdom, same thing. Epcot, same, but we left after only an hour cause we were so exhausted that day. So, every extra magic hour we did worked out to be hopping right on the things we wanted to.

Nora

 

[gepetto]

another vote for DON'T GO. They start checking wristbands at the ride entrance at park closing but they don't clear the non-resort people out the queue lines.


I preferred E-ticket night.

 

[corvair]

Another vote for not going...we were at Disney..june 13 to 20...we did AK on tuesday..it was OK..but could not get near dino land...and they did not have fast pass open....safari and Tough to be a bug were OK..but in general..the park was packed....
Went to MK on friday....they did not have fast pass machines going....very..very crowed....

but MGM was the worst on sunday ..we went about 6:00...people were flooding into the park....it was packed and no fass passes....lines were very long for TOT and RRC

we did get into little mermaid...that was not crowed..
I have learned..for me ...stay away and go to another park ...I think it depends on what time of year you do it.....thanks..amy

 

[natcam1996]

Another "No" vote here. Evening EMH was way too crowded at all parks for DD and me. There 6/12-6/24.

 

[greattenchi]

i am confused! we staying in all-stars movies in september! i believe we have th park-hopper plus 7 days tickets! some sites i have read u have to pay extra to stay in park after they close! Some sites dont say nothing about pay extra! so which is it? do u think in september we have pay extra or not? can anyone help?

 

[Deb & Bill]

i am confused! we staying in all-stars movies in september! i believe we have th park-hopper plus 7 days tickets! some sites i have read u have to pay extra to stay in park after they close! Some sites dont say nothing about pay extra! so which is it? do u think in september we have pay extra or not? can anyone help?

They used to have E-nights where you paid about $12 to stay in the park for up to two or three hours. They only had a limited number of attractions open. The number of tickets sold was limited.

Now they have EMH mornings and evenings. EMH in the morning means the park opens an hour earlier for resort guest. In the evening, the park stays open up to three hours later for resort guests. The only limit is the number of Disney resort guests, so it gets crowded. The people who like to sleep in, do, and then stay late. As the night wears on, the crowds thin out, especially if the later closing time is after midnight.

 

[DebbieB]

another vote for DON'T GO. They start checking wristbands at the ride entrance at park closing but they don't clear the non-resort people out the queue lines.

I preferred E-ticket night.

I thought the rule was if you were in line at parking closing, you were permitted to ride. Why would an EMH night be any different? Why would they make the non-resort guests get out of line?

 

[elosoloco]

Are the morning EMH as crowed as the evening ones?

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

We enjoyed EMH evenings.. we much prefer them over getting up early- we're nightowls.

 

[PixieDust32]

OH MY!

Thanks!

 

[lilfroggie]

We were also at AK on Tuesday June 14th for EMH. We thought it was wonderful!! We got on Dinosaur with a 20 minute wait...Dino land was no problem at all. It was really nice in the Dig area (not as hot and not as many kids!). We rode Kali River Rapids three times in a row!! We were not near the Safari or ITTBAB, though. In comparison to the other three parks, we thought AK's EMH was WONDERFUL! I would, however, avoid MK's EMH! And only go to Epcot if you are planning to enjoy the World Showcase.

 

[gepetto]

Why would they make the non-resort guests get out of line?

I never said they should. I merely stated why the lines were still very long. (over 90 minutes at Soarin and 60 minutes at Test Track)

 

[minijeanie]

another NO vote for EMH.....
parks were packed.
still feel go to different park
we were there from June 16-23

at one time 2 hr wait for soaring

mgm had massive crowds as well
although we did get into fantasmic first showing and only showed up 30 minutes ahead of time

 

[wdwgoofeeee]

We just returned and can absolutely say NO to the evening EMH. After reading the horror stories here we only tried the Studios on Sunday night. It was a complete mob scene. The wait at TOT was 85 minutes as soon as the EMH started. We overheard a CM tell someone that the FP machines would reopen when EMH started so we grabbed ours and were able to ride once. After we got off the clock for the FP was like 1 1/2 hours and everything else on the board showed very long waits. We gave up and went back to the hotel. I can honestly say there are much less people early in the morning (EMH or not) than for the evening EMH. Although for the early EMH you need to exit after a couple of hours because when you add in the "regular" crowd and the EMH crowd it gets crazy.
Note that we were in the MK the evening they had the EMH. It was like 6:30pm and we were not planning on staying for the EMH. It was SO crowded that we only did Pirates and left.

 

[goofy4tink]

Just got home last night. I really wasn't planning on doing any EMH nights based on what I had read here. We did do AK on Tues. night and it wasn't too bad. It was crowded and hot/humid. We did do a few things. But I really wanted to see what it looked like after dark with the lighs all on. It really was beautiful. We did MK on Friday night. We got there about 8:00. It truly was crowded. But we didn't have to wait too long for most stuff. They did finally open Space Mt FP around 11 or so, but with lines at all the machines, which were not working, we finally found out that they were only operating one machine!! Dd said they needed a FP for the FP machines! No way were we waiting in a line for a FP...not behind about 40 people anyway. Then the TTA broke down and never restarted. That was pretty strange. I think we left MK about 12:45ish. We did do some stuff but not as much as we wanted to. But dd did have fun staying up that late and we did get a nice photo done in front of the lit Castle...too bad it was in the red mode, the blue/purple would have looked so much nicer.

Would I do EMH at night again? Don't think so. Just too much aggravation.

 

[coachman]

I was at the MK on Wed afternoon, 6/22, which was early magic hour that day and the park was absolutely PACKED until 8 pm. After that the lines slowly became somewhat manageable.

We did the Epcot EMH the next day. We were in the Fastpass line for Soarin at 8:30 -- the machines opened up at 9 pm -- and all fastpasses were gone in about 15 minutes. We were able to ride Soarin at around 10:30 -- what a terrific experience!!! A must do. We walked right on to Spaceship Earth and the other attraction in the Land Pavilion.

On Friday night we did the EMH at MK. I was expecting horrible crowds but I think we did quite well. We got a FP for Big thunder mountain railroad during the first parade and then waited about 10 minutes on the regular ride. When we got back on around 10 pm, we saw the fireworks from the ride -- how wonderful!! We then went to Space Mountain around 10:30 and waited in line around 25 minutes. We then waited only 2 minutes to get on Buzz Lightyear ride, 2 minute wait for Pooh, 15 minute wait for Peter Pan (they opened FP for that ride), no wait for Alladin's magic ride, no wait for Pirates nor Jungle cruise, either. Dumbo was very crowded. Oh, we walked right on Mickey's Philharmagic. We left the park around 1:00 am so I think we did very well. I think most of the crowds were by the Mountains or by Dumbo.

 

[PixieDust32]

I was at the MK on Wed afternoon, 6/22, which was early magic hour that day and the park was absolutely PACKED until 8 pm. After that the lines slowly became somewhat manageable.

We did the Epcot EMH the next day. We were in the Fastpass line for Soarin at 8:30 -- the machines opened up at 9 pm -- and all fastpasses were gone in about 15 minutes. We were able to ride Soarin at around 10:30 -- what a terrific experience!!! A must do. We walked right on to Spaceship Earth and the other attraction in the Land Pavilion.

On Friday night we did the EMH at MK. I was expecting horrible crowds but I think we did quite well. We got a FP for Big thunder mountain railroad during the first parade and then waited about 10 minutes on the regular ride. When we got back on around 10 pm, we saw the fireworks from the ride -- how wonderful!! We then went to Space Mountain around 10:30 and waited in line around 25 minutes. We then waited only 2 minutes to get on Buzz Lightyear ride, 2 minute wait for Pooh, 15 minute wait for Peter Pan (they opened FP for that ride), no wait for Alladin's magic ride, no wait for Pirates nor Jungle cruise, either. Dumbo was very crowded. Oh, we walked right on Mickey's Philharmagic. We left the park around 1:00 am so I think we did very well. I think most of the crowds were by the Mountains or by Dumbo.

WOW!

I think you guys did pretty good!!!

Thanks for the info!!