PM EMH drops from THREE Hours to TWO Hours

[mcd2745]

This bites...even though I would love to see them eliminate EMHs altogether and bring back E-Ride Nights. Best $10 I ever spent at WDW.

 

[gator girl]

This bites...even though I would love to see them eliminate EMHs altogether and bring back E-Ride Nights. Best $10 I ever spent at WDW.

No doubt! And you could stay in the parks late, with small crowds, in combination with cheaping it up at an offsite resort. No wonder they won't let us do that any more...

 

[Mindy5767]

When it first came out, didn't they advertise it as "at least one hour"?

I checked the website, they have already changed it to "up to 2 hours".

for the current EMH or starting in January? Maybe that's why the calendar was off-line the other day. There are still glitches. August 21st read MK closes at 9pm!! 9!! and it says MSEP is at 11!


I am not a DVC sales counselor and I don't play one on TV but this seems to enhance the value of DVC for those of us who bought years ago... the further in the past the better the value... because the amount of points per resort is a fixed amount (per declaration with the state of Florida) they can re-apportion the amount of points per day, but they have to balance out. Those of us who bought, are staying during 2012-2013 prices using yesterday's dollars. For example... if a particular week at Saratoga costs 241 points (my upcoming vacation) it will cost 241 points in 10 years... the dollar cost to stay now...vs later... is what WE members of DVC save!

 

[mcd2745]

No doubt! And you could stay in the parks late, with small crowds, in combination with cheaping it up at an offsite resort. No wonder they won't let us do that any more...

You did need to stay on-site to participate in E-Ride Nights. You had to sign up/pay for it at your resort.

 

[mjallemand]

I'm fine with this. I had a tendency to stick around until midnight but now this means I'll be able to get back to the room earlier and get some sleep for the next day's park activities.

 

[gator girl]

You did need to stay on-site to participate in E-Ride Nights. You had to sign up/pay for it at your resort.

Really? I have a distinct memory of paying to get my bracelet with a long lineup at a table set up underneath that Innoventions walkway through to the Land. Maybe we'd already paid & were just picking it up? I thought we made the decision to stay late on the spur of the moment though.

And back then, we rarely stayed on property, as my sister-in-law lived just off property & we crashed with her most of the time or stayed in roach pits on I Drive and only rarely scraped up the cash for onsite. Idk. I'm confused. Maybe it was one of our onsite nights?

Annnnnyway, back to the moaning over 3 ---> 2.

 

[everythingALICE]

Planning on going in January and am pretty disappointed about the reduction in EMH hours. With hours in January already so short as it is, and having reduced PM EMH hours only three nights a week, it's pretty limiting.

As others have stated, with the closure of Pleasure Island, there aren't a lot of options for things to do at night, which is a bummer when some parks close at 5 or 7 in the evening.

 

[butiflfeet]

Planning on going in January and am pretty disappointed about the reduction in EMH hours. With hours in January already so short as it is, and having reduced PM EMH hours only three nights a week, it's pretty limiting.

As others have stated, with the closure of Pleasure Island, there aren't a lot of options for things to do at night, which is a bummer when some parks close at 5 or 7 in the evening.

I'm with you! HS is only open until 7 so that means EMH is only until 9 in January. And MK will only be open until 10 for EMH while we're there. Major bummer. There is still a chance they'll extend the park hours but I'm not going to count on it.

 

[dvcdisney]

I don't like it either, but not because we go during EMH, but because we don't.

Don't get me wrong, in our past vacations (up until 2 years ago), we would plan to go at all the evening EMH (except MK - just too late). But now, we purposely go to the parks that do not have the EMH on that day. I found them to be less crowded. If guests are disappointed in the EMH hours, they may decide to just go to any park and that means more guests at the other parks.

By the way, I can understand why they are doing it. It makes sense. When we were at the parks during EMH, the longest we would stay is 2 hours. The parks looked like a ghost town by the time we left. But this is great when you are taking bus/monorail/boat transportation because it was never that crowded.

All I can say is that if they are cutting this down, they should add another benefit to staying onsite - possibly the new Xpass for free??????...just a thought.

 

[Hardy]

This is very disappointing news for us. My kids are 8 and 11 and just last year have been able to stay up to the 2 and 3 am max emh closings. One of the benefits of going in the very busy summertime is these great hours, 3 am in August at disney is usually a pretty nice temp! and now we just lost 1/3...not to mention the 3rd hour was the best b/c the most people had left.

Ugh, so sad...this cut really hurts for us We love Disney, and love DVC and staying onsite, but it's tough to swallow cut after cut of benefits when prices keep rising considerably.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

This is very disappointing news for us. My kids are 8 and 11 and just last year have been able to stay up to the 2 and 3 am max emh closings. One of the benefits of going in the very busy summertime is these great hours, 3 am in August at disney is usually a pretty nice temp! and now we just lost 1/3...not to mention the 3rd hour was the best b/c the most people had left.

Ugh, so sad...this cut really hurts for us We love Disney, and love DVC and staying onsite, but it's tough to swallow cut after cut of benefits when prices keep rising considerably.

This August we already lost the 3am EMH nights for 2am EMH nights (park closes at 11 not midnight). Next year it would be 1am

If the late nights are going away permanently, we may consider staying off site. I have always wanted to try the new Waldorf Astoria anyway...

 

[hakepb]

That's disappointing, but overall it was more of a nice luxury that Disney offered than something I used.

I did always feel sorry for the CM's that had to work until 3 or 4 am and the bus drivers that worked until 4 or 5 am.

 

[disneydee6]

This stinks!! Not ok disney!!

 

[Mindy5767]

That's disappointing, but overall it was more of a nice luxury that Disney offered than something I used.

I did always feel sorry for the CM's that had to work until 3 or 4 am and the bus drivers that worked until 4 or 5 am.

The CM's that work that late don't come in that day at 7am though. Its just a shift of shift work. Its when they come to work and find out that they have to work an extra hour with no advance notice that I feel sorry for them. When I checked in at OKW on June 27th, they told us that they'd gotten a bulletin that morning that MK would be open til 11 instead of 10. The printed weekly park Times Guides said 10. They changed it that morning.

I took a look at October... and most of November (except Thanksgiving week) and AK is only open until 5pm. Boy DTD Marketplace is sure going to be crowded when nobody has anywhere else to go.

 

[buckeev]

I am definitely disappointed in this change. I find the 1st hour is always supercrowded and really only find a benefit in the last 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

X2...We love being at DHS & EPCOT at midnight or MK at 3AM!!! Crowds aren't bad at all. (I guess that's why they figure they can cut more services.)

 

[famsen]

Paying more and getting less. This sucks and I for one am going to write Disney telling them that they will lose me as a frequent guest who spends thousands of dollars a year at Disney parks vacations.
This is the final straw for me.

 

[btuftee]

There's nothing quite like being at the MK at midnight, without a crowd, but you really did have to wait sometimes until the third hour of EMH before the place emptied out. I can still remember on my last trip that Peter Pan had a 20-30 minute wait, a good two hours into the EMH!

I can't imagine Disney won't do something to take advantage of late nights and tourists willing to spend their cash. An E-Ride night program could be an add-on perk for Xpass. The first step for Disney to turn this back into a special event is to draw down the current evening EMH program. Or, maybe they'll switch things up, and have the reduced 2-hour EMH on some nights (free to resort guests), mixed with other nights of the week where you have a special ticketed EMH that you have to pay extra for. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Mindy5767]

Paying more and getting less. This sucks and I for one am going to write Disney telling them that they will lose me as a frequent guest who spends thousands of dollars a year at Disney parks vacations.
This is the final straw for me.

I just don't think that as DVC owners, they'll actually believe our outrage!! As long as we keep our contracts, we're coming back! They know it. They're counting on it with the sales of GF villas.

 

[larryz]

EMH+ or XMH perhaps? Now you can pay us for what you used to be able to do for free*!

*Technically, we never gave it to you for free, it was rolled in with your resort stay, so now, for convenience, you can now decide to pay to use this perk or not pay to not use it. Of course, we're not lowering costs even though you no longer have access to it, we spent it on Mickey Bars and Dave's new hat, sorry. (And for us, not you!)

EMH was the prem-ear perk of staying onsite. Now that NexPass is coming, THAT will be the prem-ear perk.

When is that EMH reduction taking place again? Next January?

That's a good guess for when NexPass is going to roll out...

 

[andyman8]

Not saying I don't trust Robo and CF, but I called up WDW Guests Services to confirm and spoke to a women (god darnet; I can't remember her name). She said that there will be a change to Extra Magic Hours effective January 2013.

I asked, specifically about the cutback, and she said that she cannot comment on specifics, so that is, in corporate language a "yes."

Going to do a bit more investigating and write a blog on this. Stay tuned.