Extra Magic Hours - yay or nay?!

[once_uponadream]

I love the EMH - Mornings. If you get up early enough, you can definitely get to go on the rides you want with little to practically no wait.

I've never really tried the EMH - Evenings, but I'd love to the next time I go to Disney, especially the one at MK where it's open until like 1 am. I've read on here that if you stay late for that one, it's almost like having the park to yourselves and that there are very little waits.

 

[Jaxbelle]

The evening EMH at the Magic Kingdom are magical

 

[JHM]

We have had good luck going to a park(early- rope drop) the day after it had PM EMH - seems to be a little less crowded than normal. Or maybe it is just getting there early??

 

[loafskier]

ok, thanks. We're early birds anyways, so not a big deal getting up early. BTW, we are also "north of Boston"

We are in Ipswich, most people can relate to "north of Boston" but not many would know where the heck Ipswich, MA is located. How about you, where do you live? When are you going?

The last day of school was announced as June 18th in early April and Disney was making some offers we just couldn't refuse So, we booked a trip to start on June 19th. The kids have a whole new reason to look forward to the last day of school this year We haven't been in the summer yet so we are planning a lot more indoor meals and pool time. We New Englanders aren't used to that kind of heat

 

[mjp12831]

Took advantage of most am and pm emh last year. AM emh are awesome - grab a quick FP, then walk on to many rides (did almost all of Fantasyland in about an hour and a half). When lines start getting long, time to use the FP, get another, and you've done a bunch of the park already!

PM were a mixed bag - some nights they worked well to get on rides, some nights not as well. Still nice and would advise taking advangage of them both.

 

[lamb616]

We are in Ipswich, most people can relate to "north of Boston" but not many would know where the heck Ipswich, MA is located. How about you, where do you live? When are you going?

The last day of school was announced as June 18th in early April and Disney was making some offers we just couldn't refuse So, we booked a trip to start on June 19th. The kids have a whole new reason to look forward to the last day of school this year We haven't been in the summer yet so we are planning a lot more indoor meals and pool time. We New Englanders aren't used to that kind of heat

Sorry I never saw this. We're in Wilmington. I know exactly where Ipswich is. We were in that neck of the woods (Rockport) last weekend.

We're going next April/May.

 

[dmccarty]

We plan on going to the park with morning EMH. The earlier the better! Some of the Spring Break trips we were at Rope Drop at 0700! We miss 0700 Rope Drops. Some of the fall trips have NO morning EMH on some days. Horrible!

We don't stay all day in the parks. We get in early, ride what we want and when the crowd builds up around lunch time we return to the resort. Even at Spring Break we have been able to walk on rides with no wait times. Early in the morning.

If you want to stay in a park all day then I would park hop around lunch time to a non EMH park to try to avoid the crowds.

Morning EMH helps you avoid the crowds not only from the obvious that it is early in the morning. But by the time you get hungry it will be early in the day. You will want to eat lunch before the people hitting the parks at 9:00 or 10:00. More likely you will be eating lunch before or just at noon. You avoid the lunch crunch because the late arrivals are not going to eat until later in the afternoon.

Since you got on the rides you wanted in the morning when the late morning crowd arrives they head to the big rides you have already ridden or have FPs. So the second tier rides are pretty empty.

Also morning EMH helps beat the heat and somewhat the humidity. In the summer with afternoon showers the chances of getting hit by rain is minimized.

Our trips this century with young kids meant we had to do morning EMH. The kids could not stay up very late. They also would tire out around lunch time. They are older now and we will still go to morning EMH for all of the previously listed reasons. But next trip there is an evening EMH at MK we are going to try on our last night. The next day is a drive home day so we can sleep in a bit late.

As a kid we would get to rope drop at 0900 and stay all day. I can remember waiting in LONG LONG lines to get on SM and POTC. Long meaning when you walked into the tunnel at SM the end of the line was at the steps.

I don't think we have waited in line more than 30 minutes on any or our trips. Usually 15-20 minutes.

Later,
Dan

 

[Eeyore's Pal]

We never go to morning EMH -- we are not morning people. Even when our kids were little, they were not early risers, but could keep going and going to all hours of the night.

We always do evening EMH. We love the parks at night! Many of the outdoor rides are so different in the evening and all the parks seem cozier when only lit artificially.

We usually avoid whatever park is having morning EMH because that park generally starts off as being very crowded for that day. However we've found that by 2-3 PM the excess crowd has sloughed off and it no longer matters.

Evening EMH parks are busy in late afternoon/early evening, as well as the first hour or so of EMH. But the last 60-90 minutes generally slow down and you can walk-on nearly anything, over and over.

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

am- yay!
pm- no WAY!

This was first time we ever made am EMH and it was well worth it, we will do it again in the future. We never find pm EMH crowds to be worth the extra time unless the hours extend past midnight in the MK, then we will go b/c little ones can't stay up that late and the park clears out around midnight.

 

[lamb616]

thanks for the replies. I think we will do the morning EMH parks. Upon further research, I've read that you should avoid those parks during peak times, and if you're staying off property - neither of which apply to us. We plan on taking naps/breaks after lunch each day so we'll be at the park first thing in the a.m. and see as much as we can 'til noonish, then head back or go to a different park after nap time.

We definitely won't be doing any evening EMH as we have a 3 year old who normally goes to bed at 7:00. However, she's up at 5:00 which works out well for us to be there bright and early!

 

[Kingman1283]

The extra magic hour parks are always crowded during the day....but when it gets to the actual extended hours it dies down.

 

[bookgirl2632]

I like the evening EMH hours more than the morning. In the evening you get three extra hours. This is well worth it to me. And since we go in September now, we haven't noticed it being too crowded.

 

[Andrea73]

I did MK until 3am with my 8 year old last Sat and loved it. BUT, the crowds did not really drop until after 1am. Peter Pan was still 40 minutes at 1:30am. We did Splash 6 times after 1:30, 3 times without getting off. Then we did BTMR twice before it closed.

We went to DHS for PM EMH and when we got there at 6:30 ToT was posted as 10 minutes but it was more like a walk in. RnR was 20 minutes. By 7:30 the waits had more than doubled. Then we high tailed it out when a huge storm came in. It was fine because the point was for DD to ride ToT again and we did RnR twice while DH took my 4 year old on TSM which was 40 minutes. Not a bad wait for that ride. I am sure those who stayed through the storm had no waits after a while, but it was a really bad one, not a normal evening shower for sure.

Our 1st day we showed up at MK on an AM EMH day but we missed the EMH hour. It was miserably crowded& hot and we hopped to Epcot.

Yesterday we went to MK late afternoon on an AM EMH day and it was the lightest MK crowd we saw, BUT it was after another one of the really heavy rain showers we had every day of our trip.

 

[Coach81]

If you want to go, GO.. we've seen it both ways.. sometimes it's quite busy.. others everything is a walk on...

 

[2DisPrincesses]

We usually take advantage of the EMH but only during the actual hours themselves (the hour before or three hours after). During the regular park hours we go to a different park. Since many people don't have park hoppers they often stay in the park that has the EMH making that park more crowded, in my opinion any ways.

This is my thought exactly.

 

[arielmomma]

It really depends on your family. When it was just DH and I, we definitely did the evening EMH. With our small children, we tend to not get park hoppers so we avoid the EMH to help keep them on a decent schedule. However, when we go this July, we intend to purchase AP's which will give us the PH option, so with the heat, we will probably go back to taking advantage of evening EMH, but only during the EMH times. We never get up early enough for the AM hours.

EMH are pretty quiet. You can get onto the rides w/o hardly any wait. The hours themselves are great, but during the day the parks can be more crowded. A lot depends on when you are going. Figure out what is best for your family and go for it!

 

[cpate]

We will be staying on property for the first time on our next trip and would like to take advantage of EMH. We are also planning on making several ADR and I was wondering when Disney puts out their EMH schedule months in advance is that schedule pretty much set or is it likely to change?

 

[vincev33]

We avoid EMH and enjoy the line free attractions at a different park that day. We usually stick to tour guide Mike's and touring plans best days which tend to avoid EMH parks and the crowds at those parks.

 

[Dan Murphy]

.....Head to whichever park is NOT having EMH....

Pretty much so. I prefer the low crowd park/s each day and night, more relaxing, a vacation, not a mission. Emh tend to be a crowd magnet, I generally go elsewhere, where the crowds are not.

 

[lamb616]

We usually take advantage of the EMH but only during the actual hours themselves (the hour before or three hours after). During the regular park hours we go to a different park. Since many people don't have park hoppers they often stay in the park that has the EMH making that park more crowded, in my opinion any ways.

Oh, excellent idea. Since we're early birds and planned to take a break/nap after lunch (have a 3 year old), I think we'll do the EMH park for the morning, go take a nap and then go back to a *different* park (not one that has evening EMH) for the late afternoon/early evening.

Ok, I'm all ready to go, lol! I keep making calendars and writing in which parks we'll do when, erasing and starting over and last night DH was like "Put the pen down, and step AWAY from the Disney books" lol.