Extra magic hours

[Rockin Roller]

I just got back from Disney today. It was a short trip but still lots of fun. Although I was really disappointed. I decided to take advantage of extra magic hours and I found it to be a horrible experience. When the parks closed it seemed still that everyone who was at the park was still there and then more people came later. The line for most rides was around an hour. A few years ago when I did this you had to pay to stay late which was much better because not many people showed up so I got on each ride like 5 times with no wait! In my opinion extra magic hours is no fun at all. In order to cut your wait time down on rides you should go to a different park that does not have extra magic hours. The park that does have it attracts a lot more people . Anyone have any opinions on this?

 

[CommandoDisney]

i had the same thoughts last summer before i went in august, which was my first time going to EMH since they changed it from E-Ride night where you paid extra to stay later. i liked at E-Ride there was a limited number of people that could be in the park which kept lines short. however, the new system does have a lot mroe advantages. first off its free if u are staying on property, its now available in EVERY park not just MK, theres one every night (i believe? someone correct if thats wrong) rather than a few times and more rides are open. however, at the end of august i did not have to deal with as great of crowds as im sure you did. during high peak times ive always just stuck to the principle of avoiding the parks with the extra hours, cuase they are always the most crowded leaving the other parks with very reasonable wait times.

 

[erasure fan1]

That is the same thing that happened to us. When it was E-night it was great but last year it was very very busy with long wait times. I think they need to open more stuff at the park with EMH to thin out the lines. I dont think we are going to do it this year and if we do we will just do a few things and call it a night. Bring back E-night!

 

[CSUFSteve]

Interesting, I didn't notice this while I was there over New Year's Eve this past year, but then I don't really pay much attention to crowds so it might have just escaped me.

I haven't asked but I'm certain that EMH has contributed to positive hotel occupancy results for Disney hotels. Like FastPass, I think there might have been a question about whether it ultimately will decrease a party's LOS, but I would suspect they'd know those results by this point and they must gain more than they lose. That is, theme park spending (food/merch) as well as additional hotel nights must have increased by enough of a factor to make up for any potential offset in reduced LOS. And opening up EMH to your entire pool of Disney Resort hotel guests certainly has more profit potential for the Parks.

The economics of WDW have always fascinated me. At Disneyland, that would never be profitable b/c there just isn't the volume of course. And even hard ticket events... we can't do the special parades and entertainment that FL does again b/c of economics. If we do end up building a couple more hotels at some point, it'd be interesting to see if this changes. Right now, we're forced to include "Good Neighbor" hotels along with certain marketing activities. Argh!

 

[tigsmom]

E Ride Nights were better than EMH because they were limited in the number of people who could attend. Now anyone who is staying on site can attend. The crowds last August in the MK and EPCOT were horrible (late EMH), with EPCOT being a little better. The AK was wonderful for late EMH, its a very different world there then. We did not do MGM. We've decided not to do late EMH in the MK again as it was more crowded than in the daytime and some rides had waits that were at least an hour or more.

 

[CSUFSteve]

The AK was wonderful for late EMH, its a very different world there then.

Yeah, a friend always laments that they spent all this effort on a comprehensive lighting scheme for AK and that it rarely gets seen. I plan to see it on this trip! I've NEVER been to AK at night.

 

[col]

its a shame that you had a negative experience with EMH's.

i had a great time infact one of the best when i went to EMH's over xmas and new years. all the rides that i didnt do during the day coz of the long lines i did during EMH's coz the lines where short and quick for instance during the day soarin' was a 3 1/2 hour wait during EMH's it was 20-30 minutes. another time the wait time for splash mountain was 5 minutes during EMH's when it should of been classed as a walk on.

i prefer EMH's as i get to go on rides that have a long wait time during the day where as at night they have a short wait time.

 

[Clark Griswold]

I had the same thing happen to me last August during my last trip; at the Magic Kingdom I was standing in Tomorrowland during Wishes, so once it got over I headed over to Space Mountain and the cast member in charge of checking armbands was letting people without them enter the ride!! I really think that this is a recurring problem and isn't really a "benefit" at all to guests who stay on site.

"You can't run away from your troubles...ain't no place that far."

 

[kennygman]

first off its free if u are staying on property, its now available in EVERY park not just MK, theres one every night (i believe? someone correct if thats wrong) rather than a few times and more rides are open.

You're pretty close there either a park open 1 hr early OR a park open 3 hrs late. Sometimes in busy seasons you'll see both.