To EMH or not to EMH? That's the question.

[Redarrow5150]

Yeah I'm in the crowd with doing EMH in the morning especially during busy times. We are going again xmas week and plan to do a lot of morning and head back to resorts late morning early afternoon and then Park Hop with FP+ in mid afternoons. We will also be doing late night hours but will see how that works out for the next day in repeating EMH in the am.

 

[Redarrow5150]

Not necessarily true. We are going xmas week and plan to do EMH so we can do the rides first and then do Christmas around the countries. The most of the time this might be the case but not during the holidays.

Thank you to everyone for your input. A lot of variable advice (but I expected that), more importantly though was advice on the best ways to make it work.

It seems that those who go all the time shy away from it. Those who don't get to Disney on a constant basis do use it, however they often use park hopper to bail between 11 and noon.

The breakdown that Shaden provided made complete sense, and I can definitely see how it impacts the rest of the day at the park.

In my case, I'll be there with a 5 year old and a 2 year old, so the fact that only 'kiddie' rides are open is perfectly fine with me (this may be an unpopular opinion, but as a roller coaster enthusiast, I find all the rides at MK to be 'kiddie rides').

That said, I do plan on doing ADR's for Cinderella's Castle and The Crystal Palace for breakfast, so I will have to do those on days that MK is not allowing EMH, otherwise we'll be eating during the one hour that makes the most sense to be enjoying the park.

EMH at AK does seem to make a lot of sense to me. As it stands, I think we may do a half day there at most. The kids will enjoy the safari ride, but beyond that - there isn't a ton left for them. The animal exhibits aren't much better than what we have here at our local Dallas and Ft Worth zoos honestly. And neither of them will be up for Everest or Dinosaur (I remember Dinosaur being pretty intense when I went to AK 4 or 5 years ago). So that just leaves the triceratop spinner ride and maybe the lion king live.

I also agree that EMH at Epcot doesn't make too much sense for us. The World Pavilions don't open until 11am I believe, so that just puts you in the front of the park for 3 hours or so with nothing to really do for this age group other than the sea pavilion and the land pavilions boat ride. Originally I had considered skipping Epcot totally with the kids, but decided later it would be fun to take my 5 year old "around the world". I may consider doing an EMH AK morning with a park hopper to Epcot that evening. I have a feeling that we would be able to see everything we want to see at a fairly leisurely pace in one day at both parks with that age group.

DHS appears to be the variable here. Other than TSM, most of the other stuff appears to be live shows, and I'm guessing EMH doesn't benefit those much as I doubt they run extra showings in that first hour. Might be good to look at shops and stuff though in order to keep more available time for the shows. DHS is the one park I've never been too, so it is a lot more difficult for me to plan that one out. I look forward to getting within a year of my trip, as then I'll be able to look at crowd calenders and other resources and actually start planning some of this.

Thank you again for all of your input!

 

[SFMommy]

This is an interesting thread for a Disneyland vet who would never miss an EMH at Disneyland...even at 7:00 a.m. !!! But we will be flying in from the West Coast, so an early wake-up for EMH may really ruin our trip if we feel like we woke up at 3:00 a.m. In that case, I guess we'll do the non-EMH park that is recommended on Easy WDW each day. And by the way, if everyone follows the tips on Easy WDW, then won't the park that is suggested for each day actually be busier?

 

[chiisai]

I preface this by noting that I have never been to WDW. So, everything I say below is well, from someone who hasn't done this yet. I did go with our family to Disneyland last year at spring break.

We are going this spring break to WDW. We will have a DD5 and DS9. I'm taking one of easyWDW suggested parks each day. Some of those days are EMH parks, it's going to be hard to avoid since it's a spring break week, when EMH is in more places.

I have read that EMH morning hour parks are good if you use the hour, like others have said. We have super early rising kids and plan to do rope drop at each park and stay until noon-ish. Relax, pool, maybe nap, whatever in the afternoon and head out for CS or TS dinner. May or may not go back to the park after. I am not doing Park Hoppers, I don't think we'd take advantage of them enough. (I could be totally wrong about that!) We have one All Rest day, and we may build in another Mostly Rest Day if they kids would rather hang out at the pool, go to Ft Wilderness or bike around, etc...

I'm using Touringplans to build custom plans, and will update when we get FPs. I used Touringplans when we went to Disneyland and California Adventure last spring break, and it worked out really well, even during the eventual mad crush that surely did happen. Fingers crossed.

All that said, we'll be ok in the throngs if it becomes that way by 10 as others posted, and we are ok not seeing everything. We'll also likely need to split up at times to see different rides with the kids. And if everyone decides they want to sleep in, I'll have to deal with it, change course, and hope for the best.

I am hopeful things go loosely to plan half the time, but I know wild stuff happens, and I have never been there so I don't actually know anything, so, who knows. I'm not going to be at work, I'm not cleaning, I'm not cooking, I'm going to be with my family, there will be food... so it can't be that bad.

Here is a link to the list of EMH morning rides for MK. Links to evening and other parks are closer to the bottom.
http://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/attractions/early-park-admission