OK. Thanks for that, Bob.
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News Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Hours coming for resort guests
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
They do all have a turnaround right after the parking gate for that.
Let's not overly complicate what Disney needs to do for Early Entry. Admitting on-site guests but not off-site guests is not new. They have done this for years with EMH. The only difference is now it's every park, every day.
But they simply can use the same procedures they used for EMH.
The only slightly complicating factor is the 30 minutes vs 60 minutes.
Swarms of off-site guests typically would not arrive a full hour before park opening. Thus, those arriving a full hour before park opening were primarily on-site guests who knew they were eligible for EMH.
The big question I have for Early Entry: Do they open the turnstiles exactly 30 minutes before official opening, or do they keep doing what they are doing now: Start admitting on-site guests as they arrive, so any on-site guest arriving pre official opening can walk right in without a wait. If there is a 15 minute back-up of people at the turnstiles at 8:30 am, it not only takes away from the Early Entry advantage, but also creates more opportunity of confusion between off-site and on-site guests. I'd imagine many off-site guests arriving 15-30 minutes before official park opening... wandering into the admission line.
Using 9am official opening as an example:
If WDW transportation starts arriving at the park between 8am-8:15am, and people are admitted as they arrive... then it will be a steady flow of on-site guests going through the gates. It will be easy to weed out the off-site guests as they won't "mix into the crowd." Easy to have cast members stationed around the entry plaza, reminding people it's on-site only, reminding off-site to step to the side.
If they hold people at the turnstiles until 8:30 am, you can have a huge backlog of people. And you could start having more off-site guests arrive, creating more confusion.
But they simply can use the same procedures they used for EMH.
The only slightly complicating factor is the 30 minutes vs 60 minutes.
Swarms of off-site guests typically would not arrive a full hour before park opening. Thus, those arriving a full hour before park opening were primarily on-site guests who knew they were eligible for EMH.
The big question I have for Early Entry: Do they open the turnstiles exactly 30 minutes before official opening, or do they keep doing what they are doing now: Start admitting on-site guests as they arrive, so any on-site guest arriving pre official opening can walk right in without a wait. If there is a 15 minute back-up of people at the turnstiles at 8:30 am, it not only takes away from the Early Entry advantage, but also creates more opportunity of confusion between off-site and on-site guests. I'd imagine many off-site guests arriving 15-30 minutes before official park opening... wandering into the admission line.
Using 9am official opening as an example:
If WDW transportation starts arriving at the park between 8am-8:15am, and people are admitted as they arrive... then it will be a steady flow of on-site guests going through the gates. It will be easy to weed out the off-site guests as they won't "mix into the crowd." Easy to have cast members stationed around the entry plaza, reminding people it's on-site only, reminding off-site to step to the side.
If they hold people at the turnstiles until 8:30 am, you can have a huge backlog of people. And you could start having more off-site guests arrive, creating more confusion.
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Dad 2 M & M
Well-Known Member
10-4
My post was MK specific and I should have made that clear....one cannot “only” drive to MK; one still has to enter the parking lot and then use additional transport
The rest on the Parks it’s parking lot direct to Park
should have been more specific; my bad
Dad 2 M & M
Well-Known Member
Right....the turnaround will be busy
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
“Fine! I’ll go to Universal! Wah!” only to discover Universal also has early entry.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Wasn't part of the impetus for the Skyliner that they wanted to reduce overall bus service? Doesn't seem like they'd want to have to ramp it back up for a new perk.
jt04
Well-Known Member
Simply adopt an add on plan 
for WDW resort guests that open the parks to them even earlier. 7:00 AM would be ideal. (They would need a clever marketing name to delineate from EMH) This would subsidize getting the transportation system fully operational for the regular resort guests to get there for 8:30 rope drop. It would also make the 8:30 rope drop less crowded.
Hold off site guests at the parking booths until 8:00 AM. They would queue at the main turnstiles until park opening. Everything gears up in a more orderly fashion this way.
The idea of a separate booth for resort guests to access the parking lot early and ideally free of charge is great. My concern would be regular day guests ignoring the signage and jumping the line. I guess they would have to redirect them to the back of the line which would be a disincentive and word would spread.
That might work.
for WDW resort guests that open the parks to them even earlier. 7:00 AM would be ideal. (They would need a clever marketing name to delineate from EMH) This would subsidize getting the transportation system fully operational for the regular resort guests to get there for 8:30 rope drop. It would also make the 8:30 rope drop less crowded.Hold off site guests at the parking booths until 8:00 AM. They would queue at the main turnstiles until park opening. Everything gears up in a more orderly fashion this way.
The idea of a separate booth for resort guests to access the parking lot early and ideally free of charge is great. My concern would be regular day guests ignoring the signage and jumping the line. I guess they would have to redirect them to the back of the line which would be a disincentive and word would spread.
That might work.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
They don’t have much choice. Another SkyLiner is possible but it would take a few years to build.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
This is one of the main things I pointed out earlier. There's a chance this perk amounts to very little depending on how it's actually operated, because as you said, 30 minutes is a very short window if there's a backup. There could (and likely will) be people only getting into the park with 10-15 minutes left before the gates open to everyone, even if they're there at opening time if everyone is held until it hits that exact 30 minute window.
And that's not even considering the Disney transportation issues that could cause people to miss early entry even if they're at a bus stop an hour before it starts. Last time I was at WDW I waited for 45+ minutes for a bus to Animal Kingdom and eventually had to just call an Uber or we were going to miss an entire FP+ window.
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UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I hope not. I absolutely hate the Skyliner and won't stay at any resort that has it because they expect everyone to use it instead of buses.
pdude81
Well-Known Member
I assume that they announce 30 minutes but they really open 45 to 60 minutes early like they are now. It just becomes a perk for on site guests instead of all ticketed guests.
Even a 15 minute window can prove to be quite significant -- It's basically an E-ticket FP. At 30 minutes, it's 2-3 high priority fastpasses. At 15 minutes, it's probably only 1-2.
I don't assume anything when it comes to Disney.
pdude81
Well-Known Member
That's fair. I think 45 to 60 benefits them as much as it does us to reduce confusion and congestion. They would have to allow off site guests into the parking lot before the posted opening time, so sticking to 30 on the dot would lead to quite the cluster*.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Even that is dependent on how many people actually show up. If there are 10,000 people at the Magic Kingdom for early entry (I don't think there will be, but who knows) and you're one of the last thousand in 15 minutes later than everyone else there could easily be 30+ minute waits for some (if not all) of the major attractions. That's still a shorter wait than you'd have otherwise, but it's not really a big enough perk to justify the hotel prices.
It could be even more of an issue at the other parks where everyone would head to a smaller number of attractions and thus concentrate the crowds/wait times, although they will likely all have less people showing up than the Magic Kingdom which helps ameliorate that problem.
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There weren't 10,000 people at MK for EMH... and now early entry is at all 4 parks, as opposed to just one park, which will more evenly distribute on-site guests.
Of course, it will depend on the time of the year and the time of the opening. Animal Kingdom 7:30 a.m. early entry in May, I wouldn't expect a huge crowd gathering. Yes, if you're in the back of the early entry line, you may have a 20-30 minute wait for FOP, but that's still a decent advantage.
But 8:30am early entry at Magic Kingdom during Christmas week, would be a mad house.
Here is the thing to remember about the "perk" -- While it may not seem like a huge win for on-site guests, it really is very very punitive for off-site guests. Off-site guests completely and totally lose the ability to rope drop any park.
As things stood under EMH -- Typically, no more than 1 park would have EMH morning. So off-site guests could rope drop the other 3 parks, the same as an on-site guest. So if they got there early enough, they could ride Mine Train or FOP without any real wait.
But now, rope drop is on-site guests only -- Even if it was only a 10-minute advantage, that's still huge. That's the difference between doing FOP, Slinky Dog, Mine Train -- with a minimal wait, versus doing it with a 60+ minute wait.
So early entry may not seem like a huge win for on-site -- until you compare it to off-site.
Wendy Pleakley
Well-Known Member
Interesting perspective. Is Disney shifting from "here are some perks for staying on-site" to "your trip will suffer if you don't stay in the bubble"...
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
That's what I said before. It's really more of a negative perk than a positive perk, if that makes sense -- it's less that this is an amazing thing for people staying on-site and more that it's a big disincentive to stay off-site.
However, that's still only true for people who rope drop, and that's a pretty small number of guests overall. Like we both said, there aren't 10,000+ people who usually show up early at the Magic Kingdom. If that was a regular occurrence, rope drop wouldn't have been especially beneficial in the first place.
I'm not sure that 30 minutes early is going to move the needle much for the vast majority of Disney visitors who don't care about rope drop or getting to the park right at opening anyways. It will be nice for the people who do care, though.
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UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Yep, this is exactly what I've been saying since this was announced. It functions more as a disincentive to stay off-site than anything else, although as I said above, I don't think this is something the majority of guests really care about.