Just Back - Two Pieces of Advice...

[BAST]

We just got back from our most recent trip to WDW (with a four day trip to Universal as well). We were at WDW from August 9 through August 17.

Two pieces of advice:

1) GO EARLY. Everyone says it, but it is true. We arrived at each park about thirty minutes prior to opening and were among the first people in the parks. We were able to go on every 'long-line' ride without waiting and then could slow down and enjoy the day. If you get to the parks early, you can always be ahead of the herd.

2) AVOID EMH. We used the 'next day' strategy - go to the park that had an EMH (preferably evening EMH) the day before. Crowds were light in the morning and never got very heavy until late in the day/ early evening. The one day we went to an EMH park - MK on the 17th - the crowds were light in the early morning but by noon were huge (30 and 40 minute waits on rides like POC and HM with hour plus for Space Mountain). Some of this was caused by Splash Mountain being down all day but we could really tell that the EMH had an effect.

Any questions - I will try to respond.

 

[Okiemom]

I am still trying to figure the best time to do each park. We will for sure be there at park opening, but we are going over Thanksgiving so I know it will be crowded for sure. But since Thanksgiving is a Holiday, even though it would be the park to do after EMH that Wed. night, I am banking it would be the park to avoid. Or at least it was the last time we went several years ago, so I am hoping they will change the EMH schedule since it is a Holiday weekend. Its crazy, so I am booking several places to eat and then will cancel some of them , once the hours come out.If I wait, LeCellier, LLT, will be gone for sure. Crazy>>>>>>

 

[joece]

We just came back from 8 days at WL and found this:


Go to a park that had EMH in the morning or evening the day before!

We went to Evening EMH almost every night but did not go until it was at least 1 hour underway and did all of our major rides during EMH!

MUCH LARGER STAND BY WAIT TIMES ARE POSTED THAN ACTUAL

DURING EVENING EMH STAND BY DISPLAYED WAITS THAT WERE 10 TIMES
THE ACTUAL WAIT!

GO TO MK ON A SUNDAY!

DO NOT WAKE UP IN THE MORNING IT IS NOT WORTH IT JUST GO DURING EVENING EMH AND LEARN ABOUT FALSE DISPLAYED LINE TIMES!

WE NEVER USED FASTPASS OR TOURS ETC!

 

[Muffy]

I know EMH evening is very crowded. We used the next day strategy too. Good advice, thanks!

 

[pooh2001]

EMH - means the extra hours at the park for WDW resort guests - correct ? Like EE - early entry ?

Then for 4th of July (at least this year) STUDIOS was AM EMH and AK was PM EMH -
If the same is true next year - we should do EPCOT on 4th of July (avoid MK)
then on 5th of July ( MK was PM EMH) we could do MK in the morning and pool in the afternoon.
And on 6th of July (EPCOT was PM EMH) -we could do MK in the morning again and do STUDIOS or pool in the afternoon
And on 7th of July (MK was AM EMH) do EPCOT or do MK till 10 am and then go to EPCOT.

We'll be at the WL. Boat/bus to MK. We could boat to CR and monorail to EPCOT.

 

[nutsforgolf]

Do you think this strategy is need for a late September trip, or only during peak times?

 

[joece]

Evening Emh Is Not Crowded This Stuff Is All False! I Could Not Believe It Either! Evening Emh Was Disney At Its Best!

 

[Cinderella822]

Evening Emh Is Not Crowded This Stuff Is All False! I Could Not Believe It Either! Evening Emh Was Disney At Its Best!

I was there a few weeks ago and tried one evening EMH at Epcot and it was so crowded I ended up very frustrated and left. Maybe if you go later into it, the crowds get less, but that's certainly not what I found early in the evening. Couldn't get on the major rides at all.

Not sure how you were able to do all the major rides without using FP either. We relied heavily on it when we were there. Never waited more than 20 minutes to get on a ride that way.

I strongly believe in going early and going on the day after the evening EMH. Worked great for us!

 

[BAST]

We relied on FP to be able to ride major attractions a second time. We did this for TT, Soarin, TOT, Splash and Space Mtn. This worked great.

The problem (I think) with the EMH is that WDW now offers people the option NOT to have park hopping (for a family of four, it adds $140 to tickets). Therefore, resort guests who want to do EMH and do not have park hopping must go to that park during the day. This creates a captive audience that cannot go anywhere else and causes the crowds to increase for the whole day. Maybe if you park hop and just do the EMH (we could have but did not), the crowds may not be as bad, but it sure looked to me like the crowds were quite large on EMH days.

 

[Mrs.D]

Evening Emh Is Not Crowded This Stuff Is All False! I Could Not Believe It Either! Evening Emh Was Disney At Its Best!

We went to an EMH a few weeks ago, and it was horrible. At 1:00 am there were still a LOT of people.

 

[mking624]

I went to every evening EMH while we were there (August 3-8) and the only park that was really busy was MGM...otherwise everything else was fine (and just about everything was walk on, in spite of wait times posted). I couldn't figure out what all the complaining was about.

Also, we never entered the parks until around 11am or so as we like to sleep in (we do this every time we go)...and didn't have a problem with insanely long lines or anything. In fact, there were very few things we even bothered getting a fastpass for since the standby wait time was not that long, and in fact, many ridees had much shorter wait times than it actually said.