¿It's better to use EMH or to avoid? And some other doubts

[celiacoba]

Hellow, First of all I have to say that I'm spanish so if i make mistakes while writing, I'm sorry

I will go to the magic on January 31st, to February 8. I will stay at all star music. I think this is a low season time, so what would you do? Use the EMH? I don't mind waking up early, as i will suffer from jet lag, it's even better for me to wake up early and go early to bed too. The question is, ¿Will the parks be more crowded because of EMH? in some web pages, they recommend avoiding them, but it seems extrange to me to stay at property and don't using them.

They also recommend going to a park only to EMH and then park hooping, but I have seen that it takes a lot of time to go from one park to another one... almost an hour maybe. You have to go to a resort firs and then take a bus. Then you are loosing time. Would you do so, then?


Also, I am worried because I have seen the touring plans crowd calendar and they say that there will be a 5/10 crowds everyday. In another web pages (like undercovertourist, or easy.wdw) they say that there will only be a 3/10. What do you think?

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

Hi: I've tried the morning and evening extra magic hours. On the evening one at MK, it was way too crowded, not many rides were open ( I thought all the rides would be open extra hours, but not), and only one fast food stand was open. The line for haunted mansion was horrible, much more crowded than earlier in the day. It was hot and crowded and miserable. A big disappointment, so we have not done that again. However, the early magic hours are great! Not many people want to get up that early and the rides are all mostly running with hardly any wait times. Later on around 10 am they get crowded, but you can ride many rides before then with EMH, so yes, I would do EMH. So, I guess I'm split on what I would do. It is an individual thing. Do you like getting up early, or are you a late sleeper. I guess you have to try them yourself and see. Have a magical time

 

[celiacoba]

Thank you very much for your reply!! And, when you did Morning Extra Magic Hours, then the rest of the day, is the park more crowded than usual? or is it similar? Because if you have only an hour with less people but then it's more crowded, I don't know if at the end of the day you have gone to more rides.

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Hellow, First of all I have to say that I'm spanish so if i make mistakes while writing, I'm sorry

Welcome aboard - Your English is far better than my Spanish !!!

Firstly, if you're travelling from Spain to the USA then jet lag will only affect you when you fly home and lose 4-5 hours. On you're first day you'll be tired after your journey but best to stay up as late as possible to try and adjust to American time.
Secondly, EMH. If you try morning EMH you will have the park to yourself (along with a few thousand other resort guests) but it won't get really busy until non resort guests arrive. Its at this point that you may wish to consider hopping to another park (if you have the hopper option). If you don't have the hopper, you may choose to avoid morning EMH and visit the park with evening EMH instead

 

[sxeensweet]

We love the evening EMH! We have always dealt with very low crowds for the evening EMH and we found a lot to be still open at MK for example and do not know what the other poster was talking about. Lines very short to where we even rode BTMR about 5 times in a row! This was as recent as this past December. We are not early risers so we take advantage of EMH in the evening often at all the parks that have them.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Also, I am worried because I have seen the touring plans crowd calendar and they say that there will be a 5/10 crowds everyday. In another web pages (like undercovertourist, or easy.wdw) they say that there will only be a 3/10. What do you think?

Morning EMH tends to be less crowded than Evening EMH, especially at the Magic Kingdom.

I prefer to go to a park the morning after it has had Evening EMH.

If touring plans is telling you that it is a 5/10, then that's one of the better days to go. Last time I checked touring plans, there were no 1/10 days and only 14 of 2/10 days. 208 of the days were 6/10 or higher, which makes a 5/10 one of the less crowded days.

Have a great vacation!

 

[BrianV]

Morning EMH tends to be less crowded than Evening EMH, especially at the Magic Kingdom.

I prefer to go to a park the morning after it has had Evening EMH.

If touring plans is telling you that it is a 5/10, then that's one of the better days to go. Last time I checked touring plans, there were no 1/10 days and only 14 of 2/10 days. 208 of the days were 6/10 or higher, which makes a 5/10 one of the less crowded days.

Have a great vacation!

I thought touring plans broke its days out into buckets. A 1 was lowest 36 days, 2 the next lowest 36. A 10 would be the highest 36 days. Is this no longer the case?

 

[ParentsOf4]

I thought touring plans broke its days out into buckets. A 1 was lowest 36 days, 2 the next lowest 36. A 10 would be the highest 36 days. Is this no longer the case?

Right, that no longer is the case.

They now are on Crowd Calendar version 4.

 

[BrianV]

Right, that no longer is the case.

They now are on Crowd Calendar version 4.

I can't keep track! . Thanks.

 

[celiacoba]

Thank you very much all of you for your answers you are so helpful!

It's nice to know I should not worry about touringplans
I have decided that I will go to some parks while morning EMH and I will avoid evening EMH. And other days, I will go to parks where there's not EMH. I hope to see less crowds this way!

 

[celiacoba]

Yes? I didn't know that thank you very much! if there are buses from park to park, then park hopping seems a better option!

 

[PrincessNelly_NJ]

I have found the most successful emhs like this...
Morning and especially Night emh for Magic Kingdom.
Morning emh for Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom

 

[JillC LI]

We ALWAYS go to morning EMH because not as many people like to get up early, and between the early EMH plus the normal first hour of opening, you can do every big attraction in a park, leaving the less popular attractions for when the crowds arrive. We generally avoid evening EMH unless we are going to arrive just for those EMHs.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

Thank you very much for your reply!! And, when you did Morning Extra Magic Hours, then the rest of the day, is the park more crowded than usual? or is it similar? Because if you have only an hour with less people but then it's more crowded, I don't know if at the end of the day you have gone to more rides.

It does get pretty crowded after 10AM, usually. But the extra hour plus is really nice! I don't know if it gets more crowded as the day goes on, but I bet it does. We usually go early, ride what we want, and do what we want til about noon, then back to our resort to rest, then off to another park or dtd. I guess you really have to try it. Good Luck

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

We love the evening EMH! We have always dealt with very low crowds for the evening EMH and we found a lot to be still open at MK for example and do not know what the other poster was talking about. Lines very short to where we even rode BTMR about 5 times in a row! This was as recent as this past December. We are not early risers so we take advantage of EMH in the evening often at all the parks that have them.

Hi: Glad you guys tried late night emh and it worked for you. I don't know what happened the night we went to MK for emh. It was horrible. The line for HM was much longer than it was earlier in the day while we were there. They did not have many big name attractions open for some reason? In fantasy land, there wasn't much open either. We found only one food stand which was way beyond crowded. We did not go to every corner of the park after seeing all this. It was also hot and so crowded people were bumping into one another. It was awful. Maybe it was one time only thing, don't know. It was in October about 2/3 years ago. I'm glad you had a great time, and hopefully Disney has fixed these problems

 

[ratherbeinwdw]

Thank you very much all of you for your answers you are so helpful!

It's nice to know I should not worry about touringplans
I have decided that I will go to some parks while morning EMH and I will avoid evening EMH. And other days, I will go to parks where there's not EMH. I hope to see less crowds this way!

We got back last night. Morning emh's saved our trip. The crowds were massive for four of our days. We also did the later hours for MK, not the extra magic hours. We were too tired to stay until 3a.m. We went back to the resort around 4 and didn't go back until 9:30. However, once the fireworks ended, people flooded out of the park, and we rode everything we wanted by 12. People we talked to said that the late hours were almost empty at MK. So I wouldn't avoid them if you don't have small children. Just take a nap before you go. We have learned to do the first two hours at AK--early hour and first hour, leave and come back around 5:30 or 6:00--when the park is open until 8, and have been able to walk on EE, dinosaur and Kali. We try to do the safari in the early hours as you get to see sooooo many of the animals. In the evening, it's hit or miss. We've been when there were barely any animals out, but we had a great driver, and he would stop as long as we liked for picture taking for the few animals that were out.
We don't plan to ever go again at the same time. With the combination of the Food and Wine Festival, Columbus Day, and tons of colleges on fall break, it was packed.
We also did Universal, and it was packed also. We couldn't really get on anything without an hour or more wait. However, we went back Tuesday before our drive home and were able to walk right on Forbidden Journey and a 15 minute wait--single rider-- for Gringotts. We got more done in two hours than in eight hours on Friday.

 

[Weather_Lady]

If you don't have parkhopper tickets (which allow you to visit multiple parks per day), I'd suggest avoiding the parks with morning/evening EMH and doing your best to get to one of the other parks at rope drop at the regular opening time, as the parks with EMH will generally be more crowded with onsite guests, many of whom won't have parkhoppers either and will therefore plan to stay all day.

If you have parkhoppers and are naturally a "morning person," however, I highly recommend morning EMH at any of the parks! You'll get more done in that first hour than you could in an entire afternoon. Once you've spent the first couple hours at the EMH park, you can hop to one of the other parks (make your FP+ at this second park in advance). Just be sure to get to bed at a decent hour the night before all of your planned EMH mornings, so you're not "burning the candle at both ends," so to speak.

If you are more of a "late night" person, you could instead start out at a non-EMH park at rope drop, and later hop to the park with evening EMH instead, but as others have mentioned, you'll want to be prepared for the fact that some attractions will be closed, and crowds and lines won't necessarily be significantly lighter than usual until the final hour or so (although as others mentioned, the best use of the evening EMH is at MK, which has more attractions in general and tends to attract more children, whose parents are eager to get them to bed after the fireworks are over).

 

[LucyK]

As long as you arrive before the park opens for an early EMH and plans to stay till the very last minute of a late EMH you can have a very successful day. Just have a contingency plan for the most crowded part of the day (11AM-7PM), like hopping away from the park during that time or visiting a monorail resort after lunch before going back to the park.

I plan my park days including EMH and the most recommended park on the same day, starting my day in one and ending in the other. We're very happy with what we can accomplish that way.