Leaving on Monday - Need Advice

[*NikkiBell*]

So, I am taking two friends from work down with me for five days. We are staying at OKW in a one bedroom. Lately, the WDW park hours and EMH schedule have been changing quite a bit. I have always done the nighttime EMHs and have loved every second of them. However, there are none scheduled during this trip until (of course) after we leave. This has me concerned.

On Tuesday, I originally planned on having us go to Epcot with ressies at Le Chefs. This is a morning EMH day and we might take advantage of that. On Wednesday, we were going to do DHS in the morning and possibly AK in the afternoo/night with a Boma ressie for dinner. This is also an EMH day.

I'm not sure if we should access the morning EMHs. Are they worth it? I know the nighttime ones during peak seasons always have been, but I've never gone to the morning ones. Any thoughts on this? Or, should I just flip flop the days and ressies (if I can get new ones) and avoid these parks when they have morning EMH.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[PEANUT1]

I'd avoid parks with morning EMH unless you plan to get there by rope drop. If you do, morning EMH have much shorter lines and are very enjoyable as compared to evening EMH. Lately it seems like evening EMH are busier than the regular times at the park.

 

[Carolinagal]

and the parks were AMAZINGLY crowded. "Never seen it that crowded before" crowded. And I have visited on previous Spring breaks, Easter weeks, Christmas weeks, etc.

I think the EMH will be way too crowded to have much fun - you should try zigging when "they" zag and attend other parks, at rope drop.

We did notice that they added additional hours and parades *the same day* while we were there, so don't give up all hope on the evening EMHs.

I hope you all have as much fun as we did!!

Safe travels!

 

[DWFan4Life]

I just wanted to say have a great time, have fun and enjoy in your upcoming trip. Looking forward in hearing more from you after you came back.

Have a nice and safe trip coming.

 

[*NikkiBell*]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am still having a hard time deciding what to do. Now it is between...

A. Changing the days and going to Epcot the day it does not have EMH (a.m.) and DHS/AK the day Epcot does have EMH (a.m.).

or

B. Taking advantage of both EMH at Epcot and DHS.

I'm still at a loss as to what to do so any help would be wonderful!

 

[tinkerbell60]

Do you have park hoppers? We have always found that during busy times park hoppers are really helpful because if a park gets too busy you can easily switch to another park. I agree, if you are going to do am emh, get there early (rope drop).

 

[erogers]

It sounds like you have park hoppers, so I would definitely take advantage of EMH - as long as you can be there at rope drop. You'll get to see and do so much in the first few hours, then when the park starts getting crowded, I would hop to another park for the rest of the day.

Have fun!!!

 

[Dale-Not-Chip]

We always have parkhoppers. We start the day at rope drop on an EMH day. Stay till lunch eat and find a diffrent park to go to for the eve.

Just remember. That people who can not hop tend to all go to a magic hour park all day and thus making them more crowded when added to the standerd crowd.

 

[DavidandLeahZ]

I was there a few weeks back, right when it started to get insane.

My advice:

1) Start early in your desired park (at rope drop)
2) get a FP for your most desired attraction 1st, then ride it
3) ride anything you "have" to get on
4) Once you can get another FP (which should only be a max of 2 hours away from your first FP acquisition) get another

KEY: don't use an FP yet - because within the 1st 2 hours - crowds should still be tolerable

5) keep stocking up FP as long as you can still handle waiting around until your next time zone opens up to get another.

Then - leave and go to another park for the afternoon and ride what has waits you can deal with.

As long as you have all you FP - you can come back to your original park and get on your FP attractions with ease....passing 2 - 2.5 hour lines.

Basically - the first 2-3 hours are the most important, b/c after that - lines start to build. And FPs for big attractions (TSM, Soarin, etc) are normally gone by early afternoon.

Hope that helps/make sense. It worked wonders for me and made my afternoons and evenings much more relaxing. We, like another poster, had never been at a busy time, and were spoiled with early January, early December crowds. This was a shock to the system!

 

[GeorgeAndDiana]

That's a great idea. I never thought of using Morning EMH to stock up Fast passes and then return later after park hopping to a non-EMH park. That way, you get the best of both worlds, as long as you're willing to do the travelling (between parks). It's common to try and avoid the parks with morning EMH, since that usually filters all the on-property guests to flock to that particular park. This way, you get both the benefits of early access to rides and fastpasses, but spend the majority of the day in a less popular park.

 

[Commando2319]

I generally love Morning Extra Magic Hours. I have found them usually with much lighter crowds and shorter lines. Especially in fantasyland.

The frustrating part is that many of the rides are not open.

I found this out the hard way when I went to an Morning Extra Magic Hour in Ecpot. The only thing open was Mission Space and Soaring. As it was just me and my 2 and 3 year old daughters, I spent an hour looking for stuff to do. will

I guess I was able to do Spaceship Earth (cool), but the Character Spot wasn't open. Nemo or Crush wasn't open. Honey I Shrunk the Audience wasn't open. World Showcase wasn't open for a long time.

I will never do another Morning Extra Magic hour again in Epcot. But I will every chance I get in the Magic Kingdom. If you move fast, you can get all of the Fantasyland rides done in an hour.

 

[DavidandLeahZ]

That's a great idea. I never thought of using Morning EMH to stock up Fast passes and then return later after park hopping to a non-EMH park. That way, you get the best of both worlds, as long as you're willing to do the travelling (between parks). It's common to try and avoid the parks with morning EMH, since that usually filters all the on-property guests to flock to that particular park. This way, you get both the benefits of early access to rides and fastpasses, but spend the majority of the day in a less popular park.

It works best starting at DHS.

The unfortunate side effects are: you probably won't be able to get many FP at the 2nd park you visit - but as long as you go in with those expectations - it shouldn't be a big deal (i.e. the CM loading TTA and I got to know each other real well!)