What do you think about the Early Morning Magic Fantasyland ?

[MakiraMarlena]

The three Fantasyland attractions featured are popular ones with high capacities that don't run very long. (SDMT the ride itself is just under 2 minutes long. I'm thinking the longest ride they've included is Winnie the Pooh). Character meets are extremely low capacity. Not enough time for that. Little Mermaid is high capacity but it isn't that popular and the lines for it usually aren't that long. Runs a long time too, at least 6 minutes. the Belle show is at least a half hour. Small World is a comparatively long ride. Maybe they should have had the carousel open too.

Like the evening event, I think satisfaction ratings for this are going to depend entirely on how many guests they let in.

I don't place any extra monetary value on Fantasyland rides per se but that doesn't mean that nobody does.

 

[bcrook]

I really struggle to see how they allow up to 1,000 people for this event. Pinocchio's capacity, supposedly, is 400. If they sold 1,000 tickets, they really risk having a good portion of the paying guests not having access to their breakfast if, for example, even half of them decided to wait to cash in their breakfast for the end of the event. Also, if you have 1,000 people there, and the majority head to 7DMT, let's say 60%, you have 600 people instantly queued up in line, causing quite a wait for the people at the back of the line (maybe 30 minutes). That's not what they paid for. I'd be really upset if that were me. And if you have another 100 people queue up for PP (only 10% of the hypothetical customer base), I think that causes quite a delay, too, given how slow that loads. I don't know what the actual loading time is.

Also, they aren't "saving" any money by only staffing one small land - they are opening this land when it would have ordinarily been closed (meaning, this is not "in lieu" of opening up the entire park at 8 am). So staffing this is incremental to daily operating costs, covered by the revenue generated by the tickets purchased. Thus creating the profit line. So, yes, I agree that the more times they do it, and the more people they let in, the more profit they make annually. But I think there's a critical number that allows for both the short lines they're selling and making enough profit to justify its existence. My conclusion is 750.

Seven Dwarf Mine Train has a 1400 people/hour loading capacity, Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh around 700 per hour. So, I think handling 1000 as far as rides go would be easy. As for breakfast. They will figure it out...

Disney used to have more EMH mornings that opened at 8:00 and the entire park was open. This would be adding those days back in but collecting millions of dollars on top of that.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I am anxiously awaiting reviews for this.

 

[Music City Mama]

Is anyone else thinking of changing their MK dates because of this? I am.

We have 2 afternoon/nights scheduled for MK and one a.m/RD day. Of course this is now going to happen on our RD day. Since it isn't until June, I guess I'll just wait to hear the reports of how it affected regular RD people on these days.

 

[Lothlórien]

if they really are selling out, there are a couple of possibilities: either the capacity is far lower than almost anyone here thinks it will be, or the event is far more popular than almost anyone here thinks it will be.

I suppose we will see how "silly" Disney thinks it is.

I responded to the question posed on the thread. You are entitled to your opinion and I will stick to mine.

There are people who will purchase anything Disney offers because they have a cult following. If a restaurant is hard to get, some guests want it even if they don't particularly like the menu. Guests will purchase party tickets they cannot afford because they don't want to miss anything. Disney is using it to their advantage because they know they can.

 

[KSL]

My thoughts (not that anyone asked! ):

• I will be at WDW the last week of April to celebrate my eldest daughter's 16th birthday (it's a surprise; I can't wait!).
• I have MK planned for Tuesday, April 26th - the very first of these early magic morning events.
• I did not book the event, even though we enjoy all 3 of these rides and plan to ride them (hopefully multiple times) over the course of our 5 days at WDW.
• To each their own on whether or not it's worth it; I hold no ill-will toward anyone who decides they want to do this! It just wasn't the right decision for us.
• I am still planning to do RD, as this was my plan prior to the announcement of this event, and I do not want to change up my entire week to try to avoid this morning at MK. Yulilin has confirmed the Welcome Show will still go on as usual (& I will check this at Guest Relations or somewhere the day prior, if possible), and this is the best day for us to see that. I know several PPs have commented that RD will likely be awful, but I guess I'm just not that worried about it (call me Pollyanna) because I am thinking/hoping...
• Most event attendees will do their best to hit the rides during the exclusive period (7:45-9:00) and head to breakfast once they have had a couple of rides on each and see that the wait times are lengthening with regular opening crowds coming in. Or, if they ate during 7:45-9:00, then they will still be riding those 3 rides as much as they can while it is early and before bigger crowds hit. I don't think very many of the event attendees will have finished with breakfast and those 3 rides by 9:00 to be leaving FL and head to other parts of MK.
• Thus, if most of the event attendees are at breakfast (or still riding) in the overlap hour of 9-10, they won't be in line for whatever land we head to (we will avoid FL) when we enter the park at 9:00. Then, later in the day, the event-goers won't be in line for PP/7DMT/Pooh when I am, so that's at least a few hundred fewer people to contend with in line or vying for FP (for those of you with June trips who haven't booked them yet). I actually think this will be indiscernible, but heck, a few hundred fewer people in line for those rides later can't hurt, right!?
• I think that shortly after the 9:00-10:00 period when RDers are entering and event goers are moving on to other parts of the park, lines will more-or-less balance out. YES there will be more people in the park who might not otherwise have been there that early, but I just don't think they will all end up in line for the same things I am later in the day. I am used to crowds/lines and am cautiously optimistic that I'll hardly even know it happened.

Here's another thing to share: during our trip in August 2006 they offered something called "Wee Ones Hours" where Fantasyland (only) opened ninety minutes or an hour prior to the rest of the park on select days (I think this was very short-lived, as we asked about it for years afterwards hoping it would be repeated but none of the CMs seemed to have any idea what we were talking about). I cannot recall whether this was exclusive to on-site guests. It was free and listed on the Times Guide, and all the FL rides were open. We had plenty of time to ride what we wanted and it was truly a magical morning; Snow White was playing duck-duck-goose with kids on the sidewalk by her ride, Wendy was chasing Peter Pan and his shadow, Stitch was riding Dumbo with families...it was amazing and we will never forget it. Why am I typing all of this!? Partly because it's fun for me to think back on. But also because I wanted to mention that when this special early hour was over and the rest of the park was open, the crowd disbursed to other parts of the park and regular opening park guests came in and "life went on" at MK without any noticeably increased ride wait times, even though what I estimate was probably several hundred people had entered the park early for this FL thing (I mean, this event was FREE and all of FL was open and there was no breakfast so no need to consider restaurant capacity, so I would expect at least as many people came to that as would be paying 60-70 bucks a head for this, no?). I am hopeful that's what it will be like for regular park goers on these early morning days.

I completely understand those of you who are frustrated by Disney offering this event at such short notice, when they encourage everyone to plan so much further ahead. At least you do know about it in case you want to make any changes to your plans, or to think ahead about your touring style. I imagine the VAST majority of folks headed to MK on the days of these events won't know they are even happening, so you'll have had the advantage about deciding how you want to handle it.

 

[ginny65]

I was bummed to hear about this. We plan our trip avoiding EMHs to avoid crowds whenever possible. Of course, the morning we are in MK, is one of the days offered for this special ticket event. All days for this by the way are completely sold out.

 

[DisneyRunner2009]

I was bummed to hear about this. We plan our trip avoiding EMHs to avoid crowds whenever possible. Of course, the morning we are in MK, is one of the days offered for this special ticket event. All days for this by the way are completely sold out.

I'm in the same boat. This is offered on the day we decided on MK and you are right, sold out. How will this affect crowds, opening ceremony etc?

 

[puffinp51]

Is anyone else thinking of changing their MK dates because of this? I am.

I did I have two pre-park CP ADR's for our May trip and they both, unluckily for us, landed on the only two days of EMM during our trip. I agree with many posters that say they don't think the EMM will affect the overall crowds too much, but for me, it does affect what I love about pre-park breakfasts: walking down Main Street with just a 'few' of my closest friends pictures in front of the castle with no one else in them (have several years worth of these!) and getting to be the first, or in the first few hundred, to ride PP (my fave!) or 7DMT. I was able to find another pre-park on a non-EMM so switched but we have hoppers and change parks all the time as our kids are older so it isn't too hard for us to manage. I know these things about pre-park breakfasts aren't guaranteed and feel grateful that I have been able to enjoy them in the past and will book them as long as they are offered - but not on EMM days!

 

[PaulChrestman]

I called this morning because I missed the announcement yesterday. I only wanted to purchase because I didn't want to mess up my MK day on May 3. They were all sold out. It was worth the price if it meant have a smooth day at MK. It's thought getting a curve ball when we all do ADRs 6 months out and FP 60 days out. I hope it doesn't change much and that the EMM doesn't change the flow and the lines at RD.

 

[thornton0511]

I just called. It's all sold out. I wonder how many tickets are sold. How limited is limited?

Dang that is crazy. Just goes to show no matter how much we think Disney's cash cow ideas are ridiculous they have sold out venues to say " I don't care what you think" as they roll around in all that dough. We may all just need to evolve here and accept this nickle and dime stuff. Good grief I just hope they don't stoop to Six Flags low and start allowing outside vendors in the parks to try and get you to sign up for this and that for free Disney whatevers around every corner.

 

[tlmadden73]

They were all sold out. It was worth the price if it meant have a smooth day at MK.

Right there . .that quote .. "It was worth the price if it meant having a smooth day at MK".

As I suspected ... people WILL pay for this. Having something sold out when it was only announced yesterday? Yowsa. I wasn't expecting it to sell out THAT quickly though.

Remember .. people pay for "expensive" things like character meals, the Boutique, Cinderella's meal, tours (where you also have to buy a ticket to the park), things like Club Villain (where you also need park admission), etc. Things a lot of us think are "overpriced" .. yet there are enough people doing it that these things sell out and obviously it isn't overpriced.

It "feels" like a good deal and people will pay for it. Paying $69 for something that basically gives you:
1) A breakfast
2) 3 free fast passes (essentially more since I would think the crowds would be low enough that you could ride each ride MANY times). You don't need to use fast passes for the rest of the day on these three rides, give you more flexibilty for your day.
3) Early access to the park (gives you nice main street shots, gives you a "running start" to any ride you want at rope drop, etc.)
And to some people that is worth whatever the price.

If this is in high enough demand, I could easily see them having more dates, or simply having it every day and doing away with EMH (and replacing that perk with something else -- like a more fast passes or something).

I just wonder what "sold out" means. I am not sure why they aren't giving out numbers. Knowing that only X people are allowed is probably a good selling point (people will jump on it more if it is a super low capacity).

 

[counselormom]

It's hard to believe it's already sold out for everyday already. Is it possible there is a glitch or are only releasing a certain amount of tickets per day ?

 

[Hikergirl]

I just wonder what "sold out" means. I am not sure why they aren't giving out numbers. Knowing that only X people are allowed is probably a good selling point (people will jump on it more if it is a super low capacity).

Because if it is successful they can just add more. If they announce its only 500 then they will get backlash if they sell another 250 tickets.

 

[Silvermist999]

Is anyone else thinking of changing their MK dates because of this? I am.

When I first heard about this, first thing I did was double check our itinerary and luckily our MK dates aren't on Tuesday or Saturday. I would definitely change my MK dates if they coincided with this event.

 

[jknc]

When I first heard about this, first thing I did was double check our itinerary and luckily our MK dates aren't on Tuesday or Saturday. I would definitely change my MK dates if they coincided with this event.

I'm waiting for the next Disney blog post "Due to overwhelming demand Extra Morning Money Hours has been expanded to these additional days..."

 

[Planogirl]

I've been mulling over the capacity of this. If they sell 700 tickets (which is the lowest I've seen suggested) then you'd have to divide all of those people among three rides. I would bet that just about all of them will show up when this opens so there is that. I also bet that most will head to one ride in particular.

What is the capacity of these three rides? My imagination is seeing 500 people all heading into the dwarfs ride around the same time.

 

[3smithboys]

I'm waiting for the next Disney blog post "Due to overwhelming demand Extra Morning Money Hours has been expanded to these additional days..."

This is what I'm afraid of.... Our MK day falls on Tuesday, and to be honest - I'm really annoyed. A lot of planning has gone into my trip. DH just said to me that he thought this was supposed to be a "relaxing" trip since it was just the two of us.... Does he not realize how much planning goes into making our trip relaxing!?!?!?

Last night, I really thought about switching my MK day, but that would mean losing my BOG lunch and Ohana dinner... Plus what if they do start adding more EMM?? Then what?? I can't keep switching?

I would have considered buying in on the EMM IF they had opened more than 3 rides... that's just not worth it for us.... I would have needed way more than that!

 

[keepswimming76]

How are they going to handle park entry? That is what I'm interested to know. Will they hold off the pre-park open ADRs until the EMM guests are inside? Or will there be just one big mass entrance for all? And this will certainly make early-morning security a cluster.

We used to arrive around 7:15 for a pre-park open ADR at 8:05. Now I'm thinking we need to be outside by 7 a.m. at the absolute latest.

I did send a nice long email to Guests Services today regarding EMM and the fact that it was announced so late and impacts the plans people made six months ago. I'm expecting much, but it never hurts to let them know how you feel.

 

[nursemelis374]

I hope this is available for our trip in September, I think it is a good thing for those that can afford it. Breakfast runs 30 anyway so to pay 30 more for 3 rides and additional FP throughout the day seems more than reasonable to me.