WWYD Re: DHS

[la79al]

We are doing a 7 day trip end of February, beginning of March. Kids will be 4, 9, 11 and it's generally a struggle to get them up at 7:30 for school every morning. They can easily stay up until midnight. I am not going to try very hard to get them to any AM EMH or even rope drops. My one possible exception is DHS. We only have 1 day at this park. I was thinking about going on AM EMH day (day 6 of our trip) to maximize time. But then I'm not sure if I really want to push it out so late in our trip. WWYD? Hit DHS earlier in the trip (day 4 or 5) or save it for the day they have AM EMH? There is no guarantee that I will want to get the kids up that early anyhow, especially that late in the trip. I should mention that when I ask them whether they want to hit SDD or TSM first, they pick ToT.

 

[piccolopat]

Get FP+ for the rides they want to do later in the morning and then go to the park when you are ready. Trying to get them up early that late in the trip will almost certainly be a problem. Going to the parks every day is just exhausting! Unless this is a once in a lifetime trip, you can always go back on another trip and see anything that you miss. With this in mind, I would select a day other than one with EMH since that alone will drive more people to the park on that day.

 

[yorkieteacher]

Unless they change the current FP tiers, this is a hard park to do without rope dropping something. Smuggler's Run is doable later in the afternoon with usually a less than an hour wait. All of the toy story rides will be over 30 minutes, with SDD possibly over an hour. ToT is usually about an hour without a FP. Don't know if you can get near RotR yet, TBD! Ask them how long they are willing to wait vs. getting up early. I wouldn't do EMH, but at least rope drop something, get one FP for one of the biggies, then prepare to wait.

 

[lampshadehead]

Go early, with the promise of going back to hotel to take a nap. Then go back to park after naptime, and stay until close?

 

[Davey Jones II]

GE, and the Millenium Falcon ride, are very accessible in the evenings. We took the regular standby line and didn`t wait more than 25 minutes.

 

[leebee]

One thing I learned early on about Disney trips: You can't burn the candle at both ends. It's a disaster trying to get my family up for EMH/rope drop, so I just don't do it. My family would be miserable if I blasted them out of bed for EMH (especially if they'd been up late the night before), and really... if you aren't going to go for EMH, what's the point of saving your visit for that day? Standard wisdom says an EMH park is a nightmare, crowd-wise, by mid-morning. Why choose that day, NOT do the EMH, then go into the park when it's at its busiest? I say do DHS earlier in the trip and don't schedule your kids for times that are just naturally against their internal clocks.

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

I haven’t been there since SWGE opened, but we have been pretty successful with not rope dropping this park and staying until close. It will really clear out a lot after the first of the shows. Then a lot of rides will have very short wait times, and if you are in a line when the park closes, you still get to ride. I will preface this with, watching the show is not that important to us. My son has autism and gets bored and fidgety, so he’d rather be riding, but you could still watch the first show and get out with time to hit a few rides.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Our approach has always been that sleep is for the weak. Our default is RD with the idea that we'll take an afternoon break and probably also have an "off day" at some point in the trip. Those first couple of hours are just too valuable IMHO.

 

[gharter]

We found our kids were so excited to go to the parks, getting them up early wasn't a problem unless we were out very late the night before.

 

[nkereina]

If getting up early on day 6 would be difficult, I don't see how getting up early on days 4 or 5 would be any better. I can't speak to how it would be late February, but DH and I arrived at DHS around 9:30 about two weeks ago. I had pre-booked RnRC FP+, and was able to get FP+ for ToT, TSMM, and Aliens day-of pretty easily. No luck with SDD FP+ so we chose to wait in the posted 60 minute standby, which ended up being exactly a 60 minute wait. It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated, and the line was continuously moving. Around 5pm, we headed over to Smuggler's Run and waited in the posted 50 minute standby, which ended up being closer to 35 minutes. With no FP+ there yet, it moved pretty quickly. We did notice the Smuggler's Run wait times come down from earlier in the day.

 

[Rory607]

We have two kids with different internal clocks/sleep schedules. It keeps things interesting! If you are going to try for an EMH morning I would not wait until the end of your trip. My DD who hates getting up early is generally okay with an early morning at the beginning of the trip. She’s fresh and excited to be at Disney. By the end of the week it’s a different story.

That said, will you have park hoppers? We hopped over there two different days in order to get everything done. Once at night and we rode everything but SD with minimal wait. SD was down at that point. Also did Galaxy’s Edge they night. We had a fast pass for SD for another afternoon.

 

[Karlrob]

If it is their vacation also, let them sleep in - within reason. Have seen way too many crying, screaming, and unplesant children in the parks because they haven't had enough sleep, or are there too early and too late. Save yourself the grief, it is your vacation also.