Should we avoid early magic hours (EMH)?

[Lizhanson26]

Potential family fight alert! I am planning a trip to Disney World for our family (two girls, 3 and 4) and my in laws for late January 2014. I had heard that parks with early morning magic hours tend to be more crowded on those days than the others, so when making my itinerary and ADRs I kept this in mind and planned our trip so we are not in parks during their morning magic hour days. I just discovered however that my in laws LOVE morning magic hours. before I switch all of our ADRs, can anyone tell me if I'm right to have planned around them, or if I'm just being paranoid! I know the week we are going is supposed to be a low crowd week; does the tip to avoid EMH parks hold true on low crowd days or will we be ok? Thanks!

-Liz

 

[jambo5564]

If you are going to use them (the extra magic hours) then you can change. You want to avoid those parks when you're like me rolling in at 10:00 .. then its already full and you missed out. Short lines if you're there at opening tho

 

[Hootch]

take advantage of AM EMHs. The parks are relatively empty that first hour and a lot of things can be done. The park with the EMHs will be more crowded later that day. It is usually easy to see heading into noon.

There are a number of opinions on this and many people will disagree. I would not go to an AM EMH park if I did not have park hoppers. If we do an EMH we go back to the resort by 1 PM (summer time so longer hours) and head to another park that evening.

If I did not have have PHs (which has never happened) I would consider starting at the park that had the AM or PM EMHs the day before.

 

[ZoZo]

I tend to avoid morning EMHs because not all of the attractions that I want to ride are open during EMH. I was so disappointed one year at MK; went to morning EMH and, with one exception, the only rides that were open were the "kiddie" rides. As a party of all adults, we felt like we got up early for nothing. So I say, make sure to do your research ahead of time!

That said, I agree with other posters that morning EMH can work really well if you have park hoppers - once the crowds start to build, you can hop to a less-busy park.

 

[White Rose]

I avoid EMH parks because I do not plan on waking up that early for them. We go to non EMH parks and enjoy how not-crowded they are. We also travel in Oct.