What is the current thinking on EMHs?

[Joe Arkansas]

I haven’t planned a WDW trip since 2010. Back then, the prevailing thinking on EMHs was that they usually led to bigger crowds in the parks offering EMH that day. That said, many visitors still found them useful, especially with the option to hop to a different park when the crowds got too big.

My question is this: Has FP+, or any other changes in the last 8 years, led to any new thinking on this subject?

 

[Robo]

Each EMH experience can be different.

I always go to AM EMH (virtually every day of the trip
that we did not do a PM EMH late the night before)...
never ONCE regretted an AM EMH... they are amazingly
empty and easy to ride the open attractions.
If that park THEN starts to fill 2 to 3 hours later...
Were happy with "doing" that park for the day and we
can HOP elsewhere or do lunch and take a rest until
later.

PM EMH's are a mixed bag. I've been when they were
PACKED... but on other nights (sometimes within the
same trip), the crowds were basically so low that it
was like "free rides" on all the open attractions.

 

[shanew21]

Morning EMHs are generally pretty good, especially super early ones like 7:30am. Our strategy has generally been to go to EMHs and stay for the first few hours of normal operation, then go to a different park.

 

[Upatnoon]

Morning EMH is only good if you get there early enough to use it. If you sleep in, go elsewhere, the park will be packed earlier than normal.

Evening EMH is hit or miss.

Generally these days, I've found the lines to attractions are long no matter the crowds. However, it's easier and more enjoyable to walk around in a less-crowded park.

 

[Joe Arkansas]

Thanks for the replies! Sounds like the thinking hasn’t changed much over the years (pretty sure I’ve read that response from Robo a few times.)

Quick follow up: Suppose I’m too cheap to buy Park Hoppers. A little more risky to do AM EMHs?

 

[Shanti]

I haven’t planned a WDW trip since 2010. Back then, the prevailing thinking on EMHs was that they usually led to bigger crowds in the parks offering EMH that day. That said, many visitors still found them useful, especially with the option to hop to a different park when the crowds got too big.

My question is this: Has FP+, or any other changes in the last 8 years, led to any new thinking on this subject?

I haven't noticed EMH causing a crowd problem in recent years. I think that people focus on what FPs they're able to get when planning which park they'll be in when, not on EMH.

EMH are very useful, so I recommend making the most of them during your trip.

 

[Klayfish]

We are dedicated off site people, so we don't normally do EMHs. However, just for something different this trip, I booked us a night at the Swan. Didn't cost me anything, as I'm part of Starwood bonus points. So we tried Epcot EMH one night. We had fun, don't get me wrong, but I don't get all the hype over EMH. From a ride productivity standpoint, seemed no better than normal operating hours.

No way would I want to do morning EMH. Getting up at 6am on vacation? Heck no.

 

[loves to dive]

We always stay on site and frankly we don't pay attention to it one way or another. If we happen to be up and moving around and the park we want to go to that morning has morning EMH we will go. Same with night time ones, if we happen to be there and we aren't dog tired we will stay. If a park has one in the morning and we didn't go to it but feel like going later that day, we go. Frankly, half the time we wouldn't even be able to tell you which park had them and which didn't during our trips.

 

[gharter]

If we do a morning EMH, we usually leave mid morning to hit another park as it gets busier.
Generally, we plan our trips to each park the day after its EMH. It used to have a smaller crowd. Not sure it makes as much difference now.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

I haven’t planned a WDW trip since 2010. Back then, the prevailing thinking on EMHs was that they usually led to bigger crowds in the parks offering EMH that day. That said, many visitors still found them useful, especially with the option to hop to a different park when the crowds got too big.

My question is this: Has FP+, or any other changes in the last 8 years, led to any new thinking on this subject?

With FP+ our approach to AM EMH is to start our FP+ after mid morning or early afternoon depending on our plans that day. We love early AM EMH, we've been able to get on rides we can't get FP+ for that way since a lot of our trips are planned with such short notice, we don't always get the high demand FP+. We've done evening EMH but in our experience, I feel like we cover a lot less ground (get on more rides) during evening EMH than we do in the morning. I think it really depends on the day of the week, time of year and overall park events for that day that will dictate the crowds for EMH. And if it's too crazy in the park, we will just leave or change our plans. It's not a huge game changer since if there aren't EMH, we will RD instead but overall, it's a nice benefit to staying on site if you aren't going to be at WDW for a long time and need to squeeze in a good bit in a short time.

 

[chiisai]

Here’s a link to a recent post from Josh/easywdw that talks about this a bit.

https://www.easywdw.com/easy/blog/a-look-at-epcot-during-evening-extra-magic-hours/

 

[StacyStrong]

We are dedicated off site people, so we don't normally do EMHs. However, just for something different this trip, I booked us a night at the Swan. Didn't cost me anything, as I'm part of Starwood bonus points. So we tried Epcot EMH one night. We had fun, don't get me wrong, but I don't get all the hype over EMH. From a ride productivity standpoint, seemed no better than normal operating hours.

No way would I want to do morning EMH. Getting up at 6am on vacation? Heck no.

You don't get the hype because you did evening EMH. Morning EMH are different because of how many people agree and don't want to get up at 6 am. That's fine, I get it.

Personally, I'm an early riser no matter what. My internal clock just wakes me up. I don't even set an alarm to wake up for work!

( just my personal experiences with morning and evening EMH )