TP Crowd estimates vs EMH

[lynnzrae]

When you plan which days you go to which parks do you go with the lower crowd estimates or which park has EMH?

 

[stinkpickle]

We almost always have hoppers, so we use EMH and then hop to/from non-EMH parks during regular hours.

 

[Babs1975]

What park doesn't have EMH and also some crowd calendars. Usually switch it anyway, but always stay away from EMH.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

I don’t use crowd calendars... but I do generally (mostly, but not always) avoid the park with EMHs. No real reason other than I used to use EasyWDW crowd calendars back when I first started going to WDW (and he still published them) and that strategy just always kind of stuck with me as a way to roughly map out park days.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

I avoid the crowd calendars and I have gone on the EMH days with great success (as far as crowds) a few times. Time of day is most important to me. Get to the park at rope drop (or a PPO ADR), leave usually around 12:30 or 1:00, then go back to a park around 4:00 or later. You avoid the heat of the day, have a rest, chill out period, go back refreshed as the temperatures are getting better and the crowds start to thin. I remember the year we went when they first opened Splash. 1 hour, 45 minutes in the HOT sun. We stayed until park close, and asked DS if he would like to do anything else before we left and he said Splash. It was a walk on.

 

[SaintsManiac]

We go where our hard to get FPS land us. Simple as that.

 

[Klayfish]

When you plan which days you go to which parks do you go with the lower crowd estimates or which park has EMH?

Neither. Crowd calendars have no accuracy value. If you do rope drop every day, I can see where you'd need to plan for EMH. However, if you don't and are going to show up at 10am or something like that, I don't think it makes one bit of difference what park has EMH. We are offsite people, so we don't even look what parks have it when because we're not eligible for it. However, when I step foot in a park at 10 or 10:30am, I couldn't tell you if it had EMH or not. So I don't think it matters at all.

Go to the park you want to go to on the day you want to go.

 

[Ds4angels]

If you know you can wake up and get there in time for AM EMH, I'd plan on using them. It's a great way to see low wait times. But you're going to need to wake up early on vacation and not everyone wants to do that.
MK is good for PM EMH because there are lots of rides to disperse people, Epcot really only has the big 3 rides, so not a good choice for PM EMH.

 

[gharter]

We have done EMH at times. Now, we generally go to the park that had EMH the day before. In theory, that park will be less crowded the day after EMH. Not sure if it really works out that way.

 

[lilfaeriebrat]

First is where my FP lands me if I'm shooting for a new/popular ride that I haven't been on. Then it depends on if it's AM or PM EMH. My DH and I are morning people because of work and when I'm at WDW I can't sleep in because I'm just too excited so after FPs have decided where I must be on certain days I'll look at AM EMHs. I ALWAYS try to do at least one AM EMH at AK so I can ride the safari twice before the crowds show up and it's cooler so the animals are more active. We have been lucky in having short waits whenever we do AMs. Not everyone is a morning person, families with little ones can take longer to get to the parks in the morning, and/or people are out late the night before at other parks. PMs we have not been as lucky with the short lines. Clearing the park out of nonresort guests can take some time and the resort guests that are in the park already tend to hang out and think the same thing you are... "Hurry up people and leave so I can get on these rides faster". I think the short lines at PM EMH take longer to get to but I believe PMs are 2 hours and AMs are 1 hour (might be wrong there). So for me crowd calendars never play a part in my planning. The crowds for the day are going to be what they are.