Free Dining's effect on EMH - yikes!

[NotUrsula]

Just back from a weekend trip -- every place we went was oddly slow on Saturday. When we were having lunch at MGM on Sat., the waiter commented that they were enjoying the lull and bracing for the madness starting Sunday because of Free Dining. Yikes, was he ever right.

Last night's EMH at the MK was the worst I've ever seen it, and that was with no parades. It was absolutely wall-to-wall, all the way until 12:40 am when we left. The kicker is that there were thunderstorms that closed all of the outdoor rides from about 7 to 9:30, but no one was leaving; they just all huddled indoors or beelined it for Tomorrowland and FantasyLand (and Pirates). By 11 pm almost everyone we saw was braceleted, but the crowds were still very heavy. Wait times of nearly an hour were all over the park until at least 12:15am.

We were at Epcot earlier in the day, and the lines there were pretty awful, too, but nothing like the EMH park. I talked to some CM's while we stood around waiting out the rain, and they told me that the combination of free dining and no-hopping tickets was expected to make night EMH absolutely crazy all over the place, especially in these first few weeks when some kids are still out of school. If you are planning a trip anytime soon, brace yourself, because it's rough.

 

[hercamore]

I'm coming down on the 26th. Debating wherther or not to do EMH. Maybe not, LOL.


herc.

 

[bbump]

We are going to EMH at the MK on our arrival day 8/27 (w/free dining)
I guess I will be planning on joining the zoo of people.
I am expecting Sunday to be the busiest day of our trip.
Oh well, I can't complain because even a crazy day at DWorld is better than a normal day here. We went to MK during spring break, so maybe we won't be too shock.
(This will be our 1st time EVER doing a EMH, because we have always stayed offsite...perhaps this will be a new adventure for us to conquer)

Thanks for the heads up, we will brace ourselves.

 

[I Love Pluto]

Crowds were high in July. EMHs were crowded. We chose to go to parks each day that DIDN'T have EMH just to beat the crowds. And - this was not during free dining. (Another good reason for Hopper tickets. It would have been testy if we had to remain in the crowded parks.)

 

[BeckWhy]

I think the evening EMHs would be a lot more crowded than morning ones. Especially since it's a lot easier to stay awake later than it is to wake up early (for most people at least).

My idea is to attempt the evening EMHs and if they are too crowded, we will just leave and go back to our room and go to bed early or something.

For anyone else who is doing evening EMHs, let me know how they turn out!

 

[Kteacher]

When we were there last summer we found the same thing to be true- the evening EMH parks were ridiculously crowded. We stopped going to them after the 2nd attempt. This is one of the reasons we like park hoppers-if a park is too crowded we can go to a different park. We ended up going to the park that had previous night EMH in the morning. We're not planning on doing any EMH next week - I think with the free dining package these will be the busiest parks.

 

[matt&jakesmom]

We head down in a couple of weeks and hoping that it won't be too bad because most kids will be back in school. Sept 3 is MK's EMH and we plan on being there, however, if it wall to wall people we will leave. We'll just play it by ear. Thanks for the heads up on the crowds.

 

[Jages16]

I agree with Matt&Jake's Mom. We arrive on 9/2 and fully expect the emptiness that September brings. We realize it could be a little busier with free dining, but of course these next couple weeks are swamped. It's still family vacation time, plus with free dining, I'm sure many families waited until now for their vacation. No matter what Disney says, it doesn't slow down until right before Labor Day. Most New England schools don't go back until then, and they are usually the last to go back.

 

[disneywithfive]

We were at MK on Saturday morning and the park was so empty. We got to ride everything we wanted within 3 hours and we saw all the characters in Toon Town. And that was with three small children. We walked on to every ride with no wait. The MK had EMH the night before until 1am and one CM said that was the reason for the lack of people Sat. morning. Worked out great for us!!!

 

[NotUrsula]

I meant to mention this last night, but I forgot. A big part of the crowd at the moment is British. Most of the schools in the UK don't resume until September 4th, but Australian Spring Break falls in the free dining period; it is the last week of September through the first week of October. IME, overseas guests usually tend to stay off property, but the free dining thing seems to be prompting a lot more of them than usual to splurge for an onsite stay.

Also, as DH pointed out, there are not so many school-aged kids there right now; the crowds we saw were composed almost completely of adults. It appears that foodies are out in force. I got the definite impression from the CM's that they expect crowds to be really heavy at least until the end of the week following Labor Day, and to pick up again during the last two weeks of the promotion.

 

[TigerLaw]

Maybe its just me wanting this to be true for my last sept. trip, but if the dining plan SO packed in the crowds, why did they offer AP and FL resident discounts for the same period?

Also, do you all really think people who were not otherwise going to go, said "hey this plan is too good to pass up, let's go?" I would think the more likly version was people who were going got the plan and will be altering their eating habits to take advantage of the plan. (I could be wrong of course, but I don't think people go/don't go based on a few hundred dollars worth of savings).

 

[BostonTink85]

Also, do you all really think people who were not otherwise going to go, said "hey this plan is too good to pass up, let's go?" I would think the more likly version was people who were going got the plan and will be altering their eating habits to take advantage of the plan. (I could be wrong of course, but I don't think people go/don't go based on a few hundred dollars worth of savings).

I'm one of those people who chose to go because of the free dining. It's me and my three friends (all in college). We weren't going to go on a trip this summer but then this came up and really worked out well with airline prices, etc. So in our situation a few hundred dollars to a bunch of college kids is definately a savings. I do realize what you are saying though and don't think that the free dining plan is what the majority of people at WDW based their vacation plans on. We went this time last year on AP rate, family trip, and the crowds didn't seem too unbearable so we'll have to see what this trip brings.

 

[dreamergirl78]

Maybe its just me wanting this to be true for my last sept. trip, but if the dining plan SO packed in the crowds, why did they offer AP and FL resident discounts for the same period?

Also, do you all really think people who were not otherwise going to go, said "hey this plan is too good to pass up, let's go?" I would think the more likly version was people who were going got the plan and will be altering their eating habits to take advantage of the plan. (I could be wrong of course, but I don't think people go/don't go based on a few hundred dollars worth of savings).

I was planning on taking my son to WDW anyway, but I did rearrange our dates so we could take advantage of free dining. A couple hundred bucks is huge when you live on a military salary!
I guess whatever happens with the crowds will happen. We have hoppers and will go where we are most comfortable. I can't wait!!!

 

[Allison]

Maybe its just me wanting this to be true for my last sept. trip, but if the dining plan SO packed in the crowds, why did they offer AP and FL resident discounts for the same period?

Also, do you all really think people who were not otherwise going to go, said "hey this plan is too good to pass up, let's go?" I would think the more likly version was people who were going got the plan and will be altering their eating habits to take advantage of the plan. (I could be wrong of course, but I don't think people go/don't go based on a few hundred dollars worth of savings).

I have to disagree with this. I have seen plenty of posts from people who decided to go because of free dining or changed their dates because of it.

 

[Friendly Frog]

What can I say? Add us to the list that decided to go because of free dinning. It does seem to add to the crowd, be we avoid EMH for the most part.

 

[TigerLaw]

for the record, my point was not to try to offend plan members (we looked into and we saved more w. the AP discount, but to each their own). Do I think the plan increased people going? of course. do I think that its going to make off season unbearable- aaah, that's the question. It obviously didn't do what disney wanted (like what happened in june), or there would be no need for other room discounts. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

[mking624]

I wouldn't necessarily attribute all the crowds to free dining. There's way too many other factors to take into consideration...
1. Many kids have not started school yet so many families are going for their final summer trips
2. It was EMH night (free dining or not, you can't predict crowd levels of EMH)
3. It's still regular season...value season hasn't kicked in yet (at least not for the value and mod resorts)

I do think crowds will be a little bigger due to free dining, but I don't think the busyness of the parks can be solely attributed to that.

 

[StacyPop]

It could also have been crowded because of school starting this week in Broward County????

 

[brerrabbit]

I'll throw in my two cents here as well. EMH evenings are crowded period. We were there in July and the wait times in MK for EMH were worse than they were during the day. Same was true for MGM. As far as free dinning causing it to be crowded well sorry for asking but wasn't that the point? I mean Disney looks at attendence every bit as much as all the travel guides do and as much as we here on the DIS do. When you are researching a time to go don't you look at all the advice for least crowded times of the year? Disney is merely trying to fill up rooms and parks during those times when they have historically been not as crowded and one of the ways they are doing it is by offering free dinning.

 

[flortlebap]

August is the most popular time for UK families to travel to WDW, too. I guess that's another contributing factor!