Extra magic hours - to do or not to do???

[DisneyJo]

I am planning our August trip of 14 nights with dining and want to know everyones opinion on whether to go for EMH or not when booking my meals? Do the parks with EMH get busier than normal? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[harleyquinn]

It's honestly a crap shoot. Some nights it will be fantastic and some it'll be more crowded than it was during the day. I think that every park's EMH is worth at least trying...wait are we talking morning EMH or evening?

I skip the morning EMH parks, but an early breakfast would be fine if you plan to leave that park.

Will you have hoppers? Cuz if you go to evening EMH and it's too busy you could go somewhere else.

August EMHs are good because the parks are open late already, so by midnight the parks will empty out a bit.

If you are going to schedule an ADR just do it and leave after if it's too busy. if it's too busy before the ADR you'll have more of a problem...

Okay...I don't think I helped at all...

 

[rkandmjsmommy]

We are going in June, HOPEFULLY, and we plan to do the park that had EMH's the day before, so for instance Sun are MK and Epcot EMH, so on Monday we are doing MK and hopping to Epcot if not too hot etc. I have heard this is a good way to go

 

[mysparky]

We just came back from a Thanksgiving trip (Sat before to Fri after) and we also followed the strategy of going to the park that had their morning EMH the day before. This strategy, combined with getting there when the park opened, worked very well for us. It was a busy week at the parks, but with this strategy and use of fastpasses, we rarely waited in line for more than 10 mins any of the mornings (however, the parks in all cases really started to fill up around 11).

However, we are planning a trip in Aug 2007 and I may rethink this strategy. It may be better for us to be at the parks at 8am, rather than 9, due to the heat. But won't everybody be following this same plan?!

 

[loralie]

I like the morning EMH and I am going to try to make all of them for my trip in May. It's only one hour vs. 3 for the evening but when you get there in the morning you can basically walk on all the rides with little or no wait at all. When you go at night it is already crowded to begin with. I am sure that by the end of EMH it clears out but by them we are all too tired because we like to get up early.


I have another question re: EMH...If I do go to the morning hours and then go back to the same park in the evening where there will NOT be evening EMH, do you think it will be crowded at night?

TIA,

Loralie

 

[I'mNoPrince]

We hit them . Love the exrta time in the parks . We also Hop a bunch but thats just how we like to do the parks break them up. We have always gotten done what we set out to do without a problem.

 

[PKWallaby]

Of course you will get varied answers to this question, however I can give my honest opinion based on our experience last March:
1) If you are willing to get up early, the morning EMHs work great...simply leave that park when it gets busy, take a break and go to different park at night.
2)Go later in the day to a park with evening EMH. It may seem busy at first, but as the night goes on, you will definitely notice a difference and may be able to get on a lot of rides in a short amount of time. MK and AK worked well with this plan. Epcot did not. I suspect the fact they have fewer "Big ticket" rides was the cause of this...we went to a Friday night EMH at Epcot and then left after seeing longer wait lines for Soarin' and Testtrack than we had seen anytime all week. Thus, we plan to visit other parks on the nights Epcot has EMH during our next trip.

Again, just my 2 cents...take it for what it's worth!!

 

[Susiesnowflake]

The EMH mornings always work for us, during our Nov & Feb trips. However, even if a park doesn't have an EMH morning opening, we have just as much success if we arrive for park opening. We never wait more than 10 mins for the attractions we want to see. I find the pm EMH much more crowded! At the MK especially. I think I'll avoid that one in the future.

 

[loopner67]

We just went last March, during a moderate time, and really enjoyed the late hours in MK one night. It *really* weeded out after 9pm and we got on a ton of rides. My DH still talks about how it was worth staying late that night. We took a break at the hotel pool that afternoon and went back to the park around 7pm. Worth it!

One day, we made the mistake of going to MGM on an early opening day, but we didn't get there until around 11am. The park was NUTS and it wasn't a super busy time. We tried to get fast passes to the Rock N Rollercoaster and they were for FIVE hours later. Ack! My point, only go to parks on early hour day if you can get there really early and enjoy the benefits. Then, I'd probably leave that park and go somewhere else when it gets busy.

Have a great trip!

 

[DisneyJo]

Thanks all, I'm still not sure what to do! We have 14 day ultimate tickets so can go anywhere for the whole holiday and park hop too. So I might schedule my ADRs so some are EMH and some not!

 

[1Prince2Princesses]

That's probably your best bet... counting on it being one way or the other might be a bad idea. If I've learned one thing from years and years of frequenting the parks, is that if you expect the crowds to be a certain way, you might just get dissapointed!

Best thing you can do is to prepare for anything. Have a fantastic vacation!

 

[karibritt01]

We loved the evening EMH in MK and AK. My kids did more in those 3 hours than they did all day! The park had about 20% of the crowd from the daytime, so we had little or no wait for most things. MGM was hit or miss on the ride lines, but many things did not stay open for EMH, so plan that in advance. Epcot was not good for the big ticket rides, and fast pas is not available during EMH, so fastpass those early in the day. Use the EMH for things like Turtle Talk, Mission Space, etc.

 

[Dznypal]

we were this Aug (8-8 thru 12) and we used the day after straergy (sp)

we got there on Tues which EPCOT was late nite EMH so we went to epcot wed am.

we didnt get there till about 10:30 so there were no lines at security--we must have been inbetween crowds since the lnongest line we had was for soarin which was 45min (we got in line at 1045 the fastpass return was 1130 usually the time is shorter then posted not this time 45min on the head!!!!

we did all of epcot in that one day getting back to CBR about 930 it was a fantasic day

we did the day after emh the time we were there and it worked great--


after that first day--whatever park had lat nite we would start there that nite and then go back in the am

this worked for us and it was great

 

[Miss Jessr!ca]

EMH are amazing
the only thing is, is that sorin acctually gets WORSE (yeah hard to belive, but true)
but on everything else it helps alot
me nad my brother wanted to go on the river rapids in AK bu the wait time was like 2 hours so we just waited to go during the EMH and then we were able to get in there 5 times in like no time! there was no line at all!
its was AMAZING!

 

[Miss Jessr!ca]

We loved the evening EMH in MK and AK. My kids did more in those 3 hours than they did all day! The park had about 20% of the crowd from the daytime, so we had little or no wait for most things. MGM was hit or miss on the ride lines, but many things did not stay open for EMH, so plan that in advance. Epcot was not good for the big ticket rides, and fast pas is not available during EMH, so fastpass those early in the day. Use the EMH for things like Turtle Talk, Mission Space, etc.

i found out that fast passes can also be used after the time it says
liek if it says to come back between noon and 1..you can go any time after 1 as well i was pretty happy

 

[snowy76]

We use a couple of strategies together.

Morning EMH is great for us... we go to the morning EMH park and then hop elsewhere by lunchtime.

We see which parks have evening EMH and we go to those parks the day AFTER evening EMH. Nice and quiet.

Since you have hopping already, you have lots of options! I just wish I was going with you for two whole weeks!