*Rumor* Extra Magic Hours going away

[bellyrunnersix]

Disney might think they can manipulate the FP+ system, favoring onsite guests even more, thus eliminating the necessity of EMH.

Whether or not this turns out to be true, even if Disney doubled the amount of FP+s an onsite resort guest could make it still wouldn't match EMH's value. EMH at night at both Epcot and MK make it possible to ride far more than three rides and rides that I'd never waste a FP on.

I only stay onsite for two reasons. Convenient transportation, especially if I'm at Epcot for the day and decide to have a drink, and the EMH. Without the EMH I'd just save the money, drive/park, and spend less (i.e. consume no alcohol) in the parks. I suppose the latter isn't an issue at MK but it'd kill F&W and F&G for me.

If the spaces are just empty for the moment it could indicate that they are going to be switching up the EMH rather than doing away with it. Changing the times or the day of the week each EMH happens I could see happening.

 

[Goofy2015]

I myself rarely use the morning EMHs. I actually avoid those parks in the morning. However, I do use the evening EMHs because I like staying in the parks later.

With that said, I may not use those EMH, but other paying onsite guests do. Obviously, DVC members such as myself, will still stay on Disney property. However, those are not DVC members will have little incentive to stay on Disney property. Matter of fact, the way Disney is running their business now-a-days, they are gearing towards those first time guests. Those first time guests are now going to have more incentive to stay off Disney property and maybe even at their competitor's property (Universal). Again, this looks like Disney is trying to cut some operation costs or sale a premium for EMH. This may possibly work in the short term, but long term they are just going to lose some of their loyal fanbase and not receive as many future returning guests.

In terms of a business perspective, I get the increased costs for parks, hotels, and high prices on merchandise within the property. However, I hate when management decides to not use their increased profits back on the parks and have to reduce costs.

 

[lugnut33]

Really do believe this is all about differentiating guests by using the FP+ system because it's way cheaper to give an electronic perk than a real hard perk. They pretty spelled it all out years ago when they started developing the whole MME.

 

[Eandbmom]

I just received my booklet for my Aug 2016 trip and it does list EMH as a perk for staying on-site.

 

[circus4u]

http://www.wdwmagic.com/other/extra...d-on-provisional-operating-hours-for-2016.htm

 

[rteetz]

Question: Are EMH extended to resorts like 4 Seasons? I'm guessing not, and if that is the case, this would help explain (partly) why EMH might be going by the wayside. Disney has clearly revealed their hand for long-term hotel plans, and none of them involve more Disney owned/operated resorts. Rather, the plan is more 3rd party operated (i.e. 4 Seasons, Flamingo Crossings, etc.) and DVC (they've already got your money, therefore no need to continue to offer such "perks"...).

Resorts like that have to pay for them. Swan and dolphin pay for the perk it's not just given to certain resorts.

 

[Tigerlulu]

I haven't bought DVC for the reason that I'm not comfortable locking myself into vacations when I don't trust Disney not to change perks and policies on us. Too many possibilities and unknowns for that kind of money.

 

[Greg K.]

It's not as good a perk as it once was. Back in '96, when my wife and I first visited, you could arrive at the MK on a morning in June for EMH and the park was (or at least seemed to be) almost empty. Seriously. Somewhere, I have a picture of my wife standing in the middle of Main Street at 8 am, and there's NO ONE around.

Mind you, that was when the inventory of onsite Disney hotels was much, MUCH smaller. This was before they had built the All Stars, Saratoga Springs, Coronado Springs, the Animal Kingdom Lodge, Bay Lake Tower, the Board Walk, the Beach Club Villas, Pop Century, the Art of Animation, and the villas the Wilderness Lodge and Grand Floridian.

It's amazing how much Disney has built—and how this has changed the dynamic of visiting.

 

[dinolounger]

And now for a somewhat contrarian viewpoint.

If there are any veterans here of Tour Guide Mike (back when he and his site were up and running productively), you likely remember one of his key mantras was to studiously avoid EMH, especially the AM ones.

He usefully pointed out that EMH was in essence Disney waving a big red flag in the face of a bull, the bull being resort guests and the red flag being a large flashing billboard saying "GO TO THIS PARK TODAY." He pointed out the AM EMH brought in large crowds that hung around into the afternoon and that PM ones tended to start crowding parks in the late afternoon/early evening and definitely didn't work well for families with young children.

So he almost always recommended going to a non EMH park. We followed that advice and I can remember how comparatively quiet his recommended non EMH parks were, especially in the AM scenario.

So if the rumor of EMH being "sunsetted" is accurate, it's actually not just a loss for those who liked using it, it's also a loss for those who liked using them to plan (to use TGM terminology) when to "zig" when most of the crowds were "zagging."

And now that I think of it, taking EMH away will be just another loss of something that allowed guests who did their homework and took initiative to gain an advantage over the masses. The big example of that was when Disney ended the ability to use Fastpasses after their official expiration time. That removed the benefit that the "smart money" had been employing, specifically:

• Arriving at the parks at opening and planning the park tour route to facilitate accumulating as many fastpasses as possible in first few hours of the morning when the return windows were short.
• Then leaving the park mid-day to take a break and returning later in the day or in the evening to use the fastpasses accumulated that morning. I can remember scores of those return visits where we smiled as we hit all the E tickets while walking past huge standby lines. I even remember one time at the MK when we had multiple fastpasses from that morning for BTM and the CM at the FP return entrance said "you again!?!" when we we made three subsequent back-to-back entries.

Ah, the good old days......

 

[JohnDaleswife]

Really do believe this is all about differentiating guests by using the FP+ system because it's way cheaper to give an electronic perk than a real hard perk. They pretty spelled it all out years ago when they started developing the whole MME.

Eventually its going to go this way. FPs for resort guest. Either more of them or just for them. I still see resort teiring as a possibility as well.

 

[Quellman]

Could be it disappearing during slower periods of the year and then reemerge when the occupancy picks up again. It is easier to cancel EMH if they aren't making attendance estimates than it is to close a park early.

 

[dinolounger]

Eventually its going to go this way. FPs for resort guest. Either more of them or just for them. I still see resort teiring as a possibility as well.

I agree, and the really sad thing being the ultimate goal here is to ration FPs across all segments, as a means to maximize park capacity. Disney wants to have every attraction, show, restaurant and shop running at exactly 100%. Given every attraction, show, restaurant and shop is not at the same level of quality/interest to guests, FP will be used as a way to incentivize (read: push) guests to experience a range of all offerings, not just the "good stuff."

And as many here are aware, this is already starting to happen. Anyone who has used MDE in the last year or so when planning trips already knows the fastpass "bundles" that are being offered when you do advance bookings are already employing a "tiered" approach, where the bundle includes two "A" attractions along with another much less attractive "B" offering.

 

[JohnDaleswife]

Oh my gosh, dinolounger has my cat in their signature!

 

[mcd2745]

If eliminating EMH paved the way for the return of the old E-Ride nights ...than I support it.

For anyone unfamiliar with the old E-Ride nights (I believe they had them from around 1997-2004), it was sort of like a hard ticket party. However, it was only open to WDW resort guests (similar to EMH) who had multi-day tickets. You paid $10 (later raised to $12) per person and got to stay in the MK for a few hours after closing. There was a limit on the tickets sold,and I'm sure it was much lower then the amount of tickets they sell for the Hallowen & Christams parties - some reports said the limit was 5,000. They didn't have every ride open (Adventureland and Fantasyland rides were usually not open), but most of the remaining headliners were open. Pretty much all of Tomorrowland & Fronteirland were open. We would ride each of the 3 mountains, Haunted Mansion, and others multiple times in a row without ever getting off.

All that said, I believe if they did bring back the E-ride nights it would probably be very different than it was originally. They'll probaby charge $40-$50. The limit on tickets sold would probably be 20,000 (or more), and the number of attractions open would be even fewer.

 

[gamerlovesdisney]

Wow...No EMH. I would be so upset. I love early mornings and always got a park hopper so that I could go to the early open park until it got crowded and then go to a different park for the reminder of the day. With no EMH and with the adoption of FP+, I really don't see any need of the Park Hopper anymore - it would be just a waste of money. So far, I haven't been impressed with any of Disney's latest "enhancements".

This would probably be the last straw for me and Disney. For decades, I've been going to the World in October, but after my last trip in October 2013, I was so disappointed in so many things, I stopped going. Nothing new, fewer attractions, terrible food and FP+. Also, the number of evening parties caused the non-party nights at MK to be so crowded that it was impossible to enjoy anything. But I was beginning to miss it, so I was planning a trip in Feb/March 2016 but if EMH is now on the chopping block, I think I will plan something else. So sad. (Why do they keep messing with something that was so wonderful just a few years ago?)

I do have a week long vacation scheduled for this October at Universal Orlando! Can't wait!

 

[ChipnDale79]

That's the reason we to stay onsite, no reason to anymore.

Thank you again Bob Iger, you greedy troll.

 

[peg110]

And now for a somewhat contrarian viewpoint.

If there are any veterans here of Tour Guide Mike (back when he and his site were up and running productively), you likely remember one of his key mantras was to studiously avoid EMH, especially the AM ones.

He usefully pointed out that EMH was in essence Disney waving a big red flag in the face of a bull, the bull being resort guests and the red flag being a large flashing billboard saying "GO TO THIS PARK TODAY." He pointed out the AM EMH brought in large crowds that hung around into the afternoon and that PM ones tended to start crowding parks in the late afternoon/early evening and definitely didn't work well for families with young children.

So he almost always recommended going to a non EMH park. We followed that advice and I can remember how comparatively quiet his recommended non EMH parks were, especially in the AM scenario.

So if the rumor of EMH being "sunsetted" is accurate, it's actually not just a loss for those who liked using it, it's also a loss for those who liked using them to plan (to use TGM terminology) when to "zig" when most of the crowds were "zagging."

And now that I think of it, taking EMH away will be just another loss of something that allowed guests who did their homework and took initiative to gain an advantage over the masses. The big example of that was when Disney ended the ability to use Fastpasses after their official expiration time. That removed the benefit that the "smart money" had been employing, specifically:

• Arriving at the parks at opening and planning the park tour route to facilitate accumulating as many fastpasses as possible in first few hours of the morning when the return windows were short.
• Then leaving the park mid-day to take a break and returning later in the day or in the evening to use the fastpasses accumulated that morning. I can remember scores of those return visits where we smiled as we hit all the E tickets while walking past huge standby lines. I even remember one time at the MK when we had multiple fastpasses from that morning for BTM and the CM at the FP return entrance said "you again!?!" when we we made three subsequent back-to-back entries.

Ah, the good old days......

and to take this plan a step further, not only AVOID the EMH Parks, but to go to the Park that had EMH the day before. Why? Because most people don't tend to do the same park 2 days in a row, so the "Crowd" that did EMH at Magic Kingdom on Monday will likely do the EMH at Epcot (for example) on Tuesday, thus leaving MK Less crowded on Tuesday and that would be our park of choice.

So yeah, although we rarely used the EMH, we definitely used it to "Schedule".

 

[rteetz]

and to take this plan a step further, not only AVOID the EMH Parks, but to go to the Park that had EMH the day before. Why? Because most people don't tend to do the same park 2 days in a row, so the "Crowd" that did EMH at Magic Kingdom on Monday will likely do the EMH at Epcot (for example) on Tuesday, thus leaving MK Less crowded on Tuesday and that would be our park of choice.

So yeah, although we rarely used the EMH, we definitely used it to "Schedule".

I believe Touring Plans still uses this strategy

 

[Greg K.]

Ah, E-nights! Loved them. You could stay in the Magic Kingdom late, and the crowds disappeared, and there were characters EVERYWHERE. Many of the big ticket rides were walk-ons. It was great! I guess it didn't generate enough money, though.

As attendance increases, and The World becomes more crowded—wait until they finish Disney Springs, and begin feeding traffic directly off I-4 into the parking lot—wouldn't it make sense to EXPAND EMHs? Instead of offering them at select parks on select days, maybe offer them at multiple parks or even all the parks, every day for resort guests?

 

[HarvardAce]

So yeah, although we rarely used the EMH, we definitely used it to "Schedule".

Same here. We plan our days to avoid EMH parks, especially the AM ones. The EMH doesn't save you from crowds as the crowd for an AM EMH is not too different from one at rope drop normally, and then as others have said, it usually is more crowded than normal. All you end up getting is an extra hour at the park (and that's only if you stay open to close)...which you probably lose most of due to the larger crowds. The PM ones are somewhat useful, if you can stay out that late (difficult to do with small children!). To take advantage of those, however, we usually do a different park for the morning and even afternoon, and only hit up the park around the time that EMH starts. We're going in August and staying at BLT, so a few of the adults may duck out after bedtime for the kids to hit up the MK EMH from 12-2 one night...but we'll probably regret it the next morning when we try to make rope drop for whatever park is on our schedule that day...

So while a removal of EMH won't have a great direct impact on our plans, it likely will result in a more spread out crowd across all 4 parks which likely means a net increase in crowd levels for our plans.