• The new WDWMAGIC iOS app is here!
    Stay up to date with the latest Disney news, photos, and discussions right from your iPhone. The app is free to download and gives you quick access to news articles, forums, photo galleries, park hours, weather and Lightning Lane pricing. Learn More
  • Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
    Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.

Early entry for on site guests

UpAllNight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hey everyone, I’ve ranted about this in a few threads, and apologies if a thread already exists, but I’ve pinpointed this as the main source of my displeasure with Disney World at the moment.

Over the last year I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Orlando twice, including stays at Universal and Disney, and I’ve also just recently returned from Disneyland Paris.

Disneyland Paris has 5 open hotels, and I believe Universal Orlando has 7?. I can’t even count how many are at Disney World, when you include the partner hotels who enjoy early access.

My point is that Disneyland Paris manage to open both of their parks, for their 5 hotels, for an entire hour, every day.

Universal Orlando manage to open their 2 parks for their 7 hotels for an hour. I’m unsure if this is every day, but it was when we visited in May & October. You also get into the waterpark an hour early!

Disney open all of the their parks, for half an hour each, to service their…30 or so? Hotels?

I can’t explain what a massive difference this makes to the start of your day. At Universal, I got on 4 attractions as standard, per day, before each park opened properly. One day at Disneyland Paris, we got on 6 rides. And not any rides, we got on Thunder Mountain twice, Space mountain twice, Buzz and Pirates. We got to the front of the queue for Phantom Manor as it opened.

We managed a very successful day at Animal Kingdom when we veered to Everest instead of Flight of Passage and got on it several times before the masses, but the rest of our early entry experiences were an absolute nightmare!

Disney need to consider this if they’re genuine about improving the experience. We had some truly awful moments in the chaos where our heals were clipped, people pushing past us aggressively, arguing, running and tripping over, in a desperate bid to justify the value on their extra half an hour.

But it doesn’t need to be like this. The on site hotels are EXPENSIVE for the quality, so you pay for the perks. When you’re waking up early, to get on 1 additional ride like we experienced at Magic Kingdom, you just think…what is the point? I’m a fool.

Other resorts are avoiding this problem through not being so greedy.

30 or so BIG hotels, and half an hour per park. It’s a joke, and people justify it as it’s now half hour per park rather than an hour for a few.

I’d love management to actually do a Disney World vacation. To wake up and experience the same frustrations.

I’m not stupid enough to not realise that Disney World is next level busy, but the experience for hotel guests would be enhanced MASSIVELY by increasing this perk. I don’t expect to get on 6 rides like in Paris, but not suffering the same crowd issues would be a more pleasant start to the day, atleast.

An hour, per park and I’ll probably consider staying on site again, until then, I’ll continue to enjoy the more respectable perks offered at alternative resorts.
 
Last edited:

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't argue against an hour, but 30 minutes does allow you to get on the headliners without sucking away half a day.
I agree with the OP that an hours head start does get you on a lot more than 30 min. That extra time has a lot of value giving you a head start on others. Still, with that many resort staying guests trying to do an early entry you are competing with a lot of others to do the major attractions. I’d much rather be given more time than less.
 

Raxel7851

Well-Known Member
30 minutes seems to be a really small amount of time. I do believe at one time it was an hour for all resort guests. But that could have been quite a few years ago when there were less resort hotels.
 

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
30 minutes seems to be a really small amount of time. I do believe at one time it was an hour for all resort guests. But that could have been quite a few years ago when there were less resort hotels.
I think you may be correct @MadderAdder ! Looking back I believe the extra morning hours were rotated between the parks.
At least the half hour is available at every park each morning, right? Rather than 1 or 2 it used to be an hour for? Am I misremembering?
Yes, years ago Dis offered an Extra Magic Hour in the morning in one park and another park on another evening which was scheduled and could be viewed on the park Times Guide resort guests could pick up in the lobbies. These rotated around and you had to decide how you would handle your mornings and evenings. We took full advantage of those extra hours and looked forward to having that perk for staying in a Dis resort.
 

NelleBelle

Well-Known Member
As I recall, those parks with the EMH mornings were a nightmare all day because guests would flock there and be stuck at that one park because no One wants to spend extra on park hoppers! We’d avoid the parks with morning EMH due to the crowds.
 

JMcMahonEsq

Well-Known Member
In addition everything that has been said about striking a balance between offsite guests and on property visitors, and the improvements from 1 park open early for an hour vs all parks open early for 30minutes, what do you think the true net effect would be for adding an extra 30 minutes.

The OP apparently thought that the 30min EMH for Epcott/MK/HS were absolute nightmares. What substantive effect would is the extra 30min going to give you? If you had an absolute nightmare for 30min i am assuming that means you got on 1 or 2 rides. If you're getting on more than 2 rides in the 30 minutes you are there for EHM, then i think you need to change your definition of nightmare.
So how many more rides are you geting on in that extra 30 minutes? At most likely 2, but more likely you are going to get off of whatever ride you finished with at the end of the first 30, walk over to another E ticket ride (say 5min) likely wait in line for at least 15min as all the other EMH guests are still there, and by time you get off that ride, your extra time is basically. How does one extra ride, maybe two, turn a "nightmare" into something that justifies keeping the park exclusive to on site guests for another 30min.

This of course leaves out the argument that the whole purpose of EMH is to incentivize people to book on site hotels vs off site properties and at least so far it appears that the 30min is enough incentive.
 

jloucks

Well-Known Member
Yes, years ago Dis offered an Extra Magic Hour in the morning in one park and another park on another evening which was scheduled and could be viewed on the park Times Guide resort guests could pick up in the lobbies. These rotated around and you had to decide how you would handle your mornings and evenings. We took full advantage of those extra hours and looked forward to having that perk for staying in a Dis resort.
I remember this, and did this. I also seem to remember is was super early in the morning. Who wants to get up at 6am on holiday?

Back then tho too, they rotated a park to stay open super late, which was nice. We liked that more than the morning thing.

All things considered, kinda surprised they did away with it.
 

nickys

Premium Member
All things considered, kinda surprised they did away with it.
As @wdwmagic said, the 30 minutes in every park really does incentivise staying onsite. Not because the 30 minutes are unmissable, but because it puts offsite guests at a disadvantage at every park.

The old system meant offsite and many onsite guests actively avoided the park with early hours. Great for those who used them but it drove people to the other parks.

This system benefits all onsite guests who choose to use them , at the expense of offsite guests.
 

m steve

Well-Known Member
With the previous extra magic hours program it was fairly easy to structure your visit so that you would have a one hour head start on the day trippers. That was a valuable resort perk that Disney has cut in half. How many attractions can you cover in 30 minutes? One? Two?
This is yet another example of Disney jamming its resort guests. Magical.
 

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
I remember this, and did this. I also seem to remember is was super early in the morning. Who wants to get up at 6am on holiday?

Back then tho too, they rotated a park to stay open super late, which was nice. We liked that more than the morning thing.

All things considered, kinda surprised they did away with it.
Well be everyone does Dis differently. I’m always up early and out late. Getting up early on vacation to get the most out of my day is how I do it, but that’s not for everyone. Having both am and pm early magic hours, I enjoyed the pm hours the most. Wish they were still an option.
 

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
I remember this, and did this. I also seem to remember is was super early in the morning. Who wants to get up at 6am on holiday?

Back then tho too, they rotated a park to stay open super late, which was nice. We liked that more than the morning thing.

All things considered, kinda surprised they did away with it.
Back then, it was usually only 1 park per day, so that makes a big difference in how crowds flock, or don't flock. Early on people flocked TO the EMH. Later on the crowds actually tended to avoid the EMH park.

But to answer your question in the context of OP's suggestion, having all 4 parks open an hour early, would considerably help to disperse crowds all day long, and that benefits everyone, to some degree, at least if we assume the parks are not going to close an hour earlier.

Most people do not last in the parks from park open until park close. They tend to either arrive early, or stay until park close. A fair number of folks don't do either; they are only in the park for the middle hours of the day.
 

ToTBellHop

Well-Known Member
Facts matter. It’s 30 min at Volcano Bay and only at both parks during peak weeks. It’s also 3 or 4 rides at the open park.

Let’s not give Universal too much credit. The unlimited Express Passes at the premier hotels is an incredible perk, however.

It wasn’t at both parks at DLP last summer…and not much was open. Nor are they clear on what will be open. And don’t get me started on the bizarre hours. Philharmagic is open 10:04 am until 5:37 pm? What?
 

esskay

Well-Known Member
I'd like it to be an hour but the 30 mins at ALL parks every day is better than 1 hour at ONE park each day like it used to be.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom