first time hopping, AK with am EMH question

[Herding_Cats]

I can plan full, one-park-per-day no problem. BUT. This year we are going for a much more relaxed, less park days, hit our highlights trip, and have 2-day hoppers.

We are planning on taking advantage of 3/25 am EMH at AK. Everyone in our family is an early bird, so being there at 7am isn't a problem. Touring Plans is predicting a "6" for this date.

In a perfect world, we would get there at 7am, do FoP, NRJ, and then go to KS and get out of the park by 11am and I could save our fastpasses for Epcot (test track specifically). HOWEVER. TP shows a 76min wait for FoP (arrival at 8:10), a 61min wait for NRJ (a 9:30 arrival, EMH would be over), and a 52min wait for KS (a 10:50 arrival.)

Is this accurate??? I know I've read a lot of stuff about people getting there an hour before "open" and being off FoP before official park hours and pretty much walking on NRJ, but I don't know how the EMH would affect this.

I'm pretty confident that I won't be able to get same-day TT FPs for lunchtime-ish, so I'd really like to NOT have to book any for AK.


(My full theoretical plan is AK: FoP, NRJ, KS, hop to Epcot (have 2 morning dummy FPs that will just expire while we are at AK) and ride TT, eat lunch around the world, hop to MK and watch the parade. Ride whatever mountains I can get FPs for, watch the fireworks.)


If this plan is total crap, and highly unlikely to work, I would work on getting DH on board for EMM at HS/TSL on this day, and get FPs for FoP and KS. But that's $400 I'd rather not spend.

 

[pitpat]

if you are willing to get there early, you can accomplish your plan. None of those wait times will be near accurate if you are there before 7.

 

[kdisser]

I would not trust anything stating what a future date will be like wait time wise in the park. Meaning if they project ___ minute wait at an exact time for a future date....that's what I would not trust.

We are early risers because of rides. The earlier the better, to get on rides from our experience. Last trip I planned for EMH at AK granted we repeated rides. But we managed to do triceratops spin, Dinosaur (3 times), head over and did EE right at opening and did KS as a walk on/15 minute wait at around 10 am. We went in September.

I have gotten in the habit of printing off and looking at maps when planning our park days, to avoid back tracking. I stuck to that method last year and we managed 15 rides in MK before 1 o'clock! I plan ahead quite a bit and my family knows the plan well before hand so we can make changes and all that. Overall have a plan in place and make sure everyone knows it. Have fun and tackle the day!!

 

[kdisser]

In a perfect world, we would get there at 7am, do FoP, NRJ, and then go to KS and get out of the park by 11am and I could save our fastpasses for Epcot (test track specifically).

Are you driving or using the bus system?
Get there before 7 so you can be in line and ready to go towards Pandora. Honestly I strongly believe this plan is doable. Also if your party doesn't mind (as long as it's possible) you could do the single rider option at TT if you can't get a FP for it or if you want to use it elsewhere.

 

[Turk February]

If you get to AK an hour before EMH starts you should have no problem accomplishing your plan and keeping your fastpasses for Epcot.

You *should* be off FoP by 8:20, and even with a long wait for both NRJ and KS, 2 1/2 hours should be enough to do those.

 

[3princesshome]

We were just at AK on Dec 29th which was during the busiest week of the year. The wait times for FoP were as high at 5 hours during the day. The park had EMH from 7-8am before the park opened at 8am. We drove to the park from Art of Animation and arrived at the security check at 6:15am. There was no line up for that. We were at the turnstiles at 6:17am and there were about 15 people in line in front of each turnstile. They started letting people through the turnstiles around 6:35/6:40ish and everyone made the mad dash to FoP. We definitely weren't at the front of the line because I can only 'speed walk' so fast but we only waited about 5 minutes then we were on the ride. We walked off of FoP at 7:05 (they did open the ride early so it pays to be there early) and as we walked off the ride I COULD NOT BELIEVE how long the line up had gotten in such a short time. You literally end up waiting hours even if you arrive right on time for EMH. I read it on here multiple times and now I truly am a believer - you HAVE to get to the park 45 min to an hour BEFORE EMH starts in order to get the benefit of no wait for FoP. I had an 8:15 FP for Navi (or else we would have just rode it them - wait time was not bad at all) so we rode EE twice, hopped to Dinoland and rode PW and then went and rode the Safari. All done before 8am.
So it's doable - and this was during a really busy week. At 8am, the wait time for Safari was 85 minutes and the wait time for FoP ballooned to 5 hours. We walked past the Disney CM holding an 'end of line for FoP starts here' sign (since the line wove through the park it was so long) and overheard him telling people to make sure they realized that they were getting in line at 8am but would not be riding the ride until 1:30/2:00 that afternoon. Crazy!

 

[Herding_Cats]

OH yeah. we've been to disney during christmas week 2x in the last 4 years so i know EXACTLY how crazy busy that week is.

Good to know that just getting there extra early should make things doable. I'm so glad this forum is here to bounce ideas off of and get confirmation for touring ideas. Thanks for all the help!