How many utilize emh mornings and nights??

[edk35]

We are doing the morning emh at AK in June. Have only done a few over the years at MK. Can't recall the other parks. Have done several evening ones over the years. Went thru a period of always skipping the parks with the emh as recommended by Tour Guide Mike when he was around. Of course that was under the old fp system too. Times have changed! So what are your thoughts?? Do you think busier times of the year warrant using them? TIA

 

[CAS239]

If I was on site and had park hoppers, I would absolutely do EMH. You can get a lot done early in the morning and late at night. It's the busy time during the day if you're not hopping that would hinder you.

 

[Mom2Stitch]

We usually avoid them, but will be doing AK this trip just because of how our schedule is. The first 2 hours at any park are the best because you will always get more done if you can be there early.

ETA: We have tried PM EMH and not had very good luck with those-people don't mind staying up late it seems.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

I would do EMH regardless of the time of year if you have park hoppers. The parks with EMH probably do get busier as the day goes on because they attract more people who are staying at the park, but those first 2 hours are golden.

 

[shruley]

We've never done evening EMH as our kids were always too young. We typically go during slow periods (late Aug. or Sept so it's hot) and do morning EMH. We are there at rope drop and have always gotten a TON done in that first hour. We always park hop later, though, as it's too hot for us to stay all day. The general consensus seems to be if you will be there at opening for EMH it's worthwhile, especially if you can park hop to a different park once the one you are in gets busy.

 

[TravelDad]

If onsite, we always use them. If staying offsite, we always avoid the parks with EMH

 

[DisneyPups]

My kids have always been early risers, and we always return to the resort for nap, so Yes, we LOVE EMH in the AM. It's so nice to have an hour or two of reasonable crowds, and we start planning our FP+s for about an hour after official park opening. It has worked out well for us...
Also, since you mentioned AK... The morning EMH we headed straight to the safari, b/c it's true what the say... The animals were out and it was our best KS ride ever! Have fun!

 

[BuckeyeBama]

I agree with the PP who said to only use them if you have hoppers. The parks with EMH draw more on-site guests and are especially crowded during the middle of the day. Those guests flood into the park, even when the guests do not arrive early enough to leverage the early EMH, or stay late enough to leverage the late EMH.

Early EMH are great if you can leave the park before noon. Get there early, rope drop, ride for 3 hours or so with very short lines, then grab a late breakfast and leave the park. Your second park for that day would leverage your FP+ reservations and would be one of those predicted to have lower crowds on that day.

Late EMH are really only an advantage during times of the year when the park is already open late (busy times of the year). For instance, if MK is open until midnight and late EMH has it open until 2am, you will have very low crowds for the last 2-3 hours of the night. This is awesome. But when MK closes at 9, a greater percentage of the guests in the park actually stick around for those late hours. The crowds don't thin out nearly as much. Only the last 30-60 minutes sees the parks pretty empty, if that. When we leverage late EMH, we do another park during the day and hop over to the late EMH park in the evening. Avoid the huge crowds - that is the goal.

 

[kmv]

EMH mornings for us! We have 12DD and a 5DD so they don't mind the mornings. We never stay for the nighttime ones tho. We will be doing 4 park days and will only watch the nighttime shows 2 of those days.

 

[Tomh]

When I stayed onsite, I would always take advantage of the evening EMH. Yes, it did seem as though the park would get busier, but toward the middle of the EMH, the crowds would really die down. This was especially useful when they had the 3 hour EMH at MK keeping it open until 1 or 2 in the morning. Most rides were pretty much a walk on for that last hour.

Last summer, and this coming summer, are offsite stays for us, so we are avoiding EMH parks like the plague. In a way, that is still taking advantage of it, just to avoid the higher crowds now, instead of to make use of the extra park time.

 

[NH-to-FL]

When we stayed on site we always used the morning EMH. We would head for the popular rides in the first hour then move to the second tier attractions for the next hour as the new crowd moves in. We would also leave the park around mid day for a break.

Now that we are off site we typically avoid the parks with EMH.

 

[gatorlisa]

We always use the EMH. It's the primary reason for staying on site for us. We always have hoppers, so we tend to start with the park with morning EMH and finish at the park open the latest. The evening EMH were better when it was 3 hours and parks generally had later closing times. The later it gets, the thinner the crowds tend to get. We would be able to ride favorites over and over again, and rides with long lines during the day became nearly walk-ons. Now, I find the evening EMH may not necessarily lead to shorter waits and more rides. However, the morning EMH is still extremely beneficial. You can get so much done in the first couple of hours when starting the day with an EMH and the wait times are usually quite short. Though I am not a morning person, I am happy to get up early for morning EMH and take advantage of the low crowds and short waits.

 

[barbliny]

Always!!

I specifically insist on staying on property because I refuse to give up EMH. I don't bother with the crowd calendars, EMH are what drives our plans - and pretty successfully over many, many trips. Gosh, how I miss $10 E-ticket nights at MK!!

But, as others have said - EMH plans work most successfully with park hoppers. The mid-day break is crucial to avoid the crowd inflation that EMH brings to a park.

We ropedrop the EMH morning park. No fastpasses - we plan on leaving sometime around noon, sometimes even earlier depending on which park, how the crowds and wait times are building, and everyone's mood.

We go back to the hotel and decompress - and if the weather is good, that's done in the pool.

We go back to a different park in the evening (the time usually depends on what time the park closes) - the 2nd park of the day, is the one where we scheduled our fastpasses - this works whether we are going to a EMH night park or not.

If going to an EMH night park, in my opinion to make it work, you MUST NOT use your FP+ in the morning, but have them scheduled for the 3-hours prior to the start of EMH night hours. This ensures that even if the crowds are on the unmanageable side, you experienced 3 attractions that were on your list.

If there is no EMH night in a park, we select our nightly park by eliminating the park that had EMH morning and favoring a park that had EMH the prior day (and if that perfect pairing exists, we may take a chance and not go with fastpasses for the night).

The later EMH night starts, the less crowded it is.
The earlier EMH morning starts, the less crowded it is.
And who knows what the effect of Pandora is going to have on AK EMH - morning or night. At least the morning EMH in the summer is starting at 7:00, less early-birds at the gates.

 

[willmccready]

We have young kids and are up early anyway, so we did two AM EMHs last year and REALLY loved it. We got a ton done before 10am and were able to have shorter park days those days allowing the kids some extra rest time. This year it worked out that we will have AM EMH 4 out of 6 days for our trip so we're hoping to be able to take advantage of that to enjoy some extra hotel time.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

My kids LOVE to sleep but they get up for AM EMH. We go in August so midday breaks are a must in that heat. We always have hoppers so we do AM EMH, midday break by the pool and then our PM park (sometimes it's PM EMH) with FP+. We don't do AM and PM EMH everyday and especially not back to back but we try to hit a few of them. Especially MK. We really enjoyed DHS since my kids love ToT and RnRC. AK is great to beat that August heat.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

I have always done EMH (Morning and evening). I always get everything that I want to done during that time, but I always plan 2 rides to do during that time. If I'm able to get in more, I always enjoy that. Now with AK, usually the two rides people have gone to first have been the Safari and Expedition Everest. Since you are going in June, it's hard to tell if those attractions will be a priority if Pandora opens up for early EMH which I'm sure it will.

 

[chiisai]

We have visited twice now and both times use Morning emh. The 7am MK starts are rough, but worth it to us.

We do fast passes for 10, 11, and noon, and then either eat then go home, or go home and then eat. We use the extra time between fp for sorcerers, frontier shooting, or shops.

We don't usually park hop; two or so nights we will go somewhere for dinner or a dessert party, but we are all too tired for lines or even just more walking.

Afternoons are at the pool or napping or relaxing on balcony.

 

[IrishNYC]

I like AM EMH at AK. It's not crowded and rather peaceful. I think that will change with pandora, but we'll see. I still plan on it for September. We're also doing DHS EMH to get to Jedi signup. I could go either way in Epcot but we're avoiding this next trip. I always MK AM EMH because we love BOG PPO.

 

[edk35]

Always!!

I specifically insist on staying on property because I refuse to give up EMH. I don't bother with the crowd calendars, EMH are what drives our plans - and pretty successfully over many, many trips. Gosh, how I miss $10 E-ticket nights at MK!!

But, as others have said - EMH plans work most successfully with park hoppers. The mid-day break is crucial to avoid the crowd inflation that EMH brings to a park.

We ropedrop the EMH morning park. No fastpasses - we plan on leaving sometime around noon, sometimes even earlier depending on which park, how the crowds and wait times are building, and everyone's mood.

We go back to the hotel and decompress - and if the weather is good, that's done in the pool.

We go back to a different park in the evening (the time usually depends on what time the park closes) - the 2nd park of the day, is the one where we scheduled our fastpasses - this works whether we are going to a EMH night park or not.

If going to an EMH night park, in my opinion to make it work, you MUST NOT use your FP+ in the morning, but have them scheduled for the 3-hours prior to the start of EMH night hours. This ensures that even if the crowds are on the unmanageable side, you experienced 3 attractions that were on your list.

If there is no EMH night in a park, we select our nightly park by eliminating the park that had EMH morning and favoring a park that had EMH the prior day (and if that perfect pairing exists, we may take a chance and not go with fastpasses for the night).

The later EMH night starts, the less crowded it is.
The earlier EMH morning starts, the less crowded it is.
And who knows what the effect of Pandora is going to have on AK EMH - morning or night. At least the morning EMH in the summer is starting at 7:00, less early-birds at the gates.

Very good advice!!

 

[Shanti]

We are doing the morning emh at AK in June. Have only done a few over the years at MK. Can't recall the other parks. Have done several evening ones over the years. Went thru a period of always skipping the parks with the emh as recommended by Tour Guide Mike when he was around. Of course that was under the old fp system too. Times have changed! So what are your thoughts?? Do you think busier times of the year warrant using them? TIA

Yes! They're awesome.