I was working my TP with and without EMM for a one day MK plan (on another note - so frustrated April EMM not released yet) - and if I only care about riding rides once EMM really only allows me to fit 3 extra attractions into the day. I think it is the 9:30am breakfast break that kills it - maybe the secret is don’t eat the breakfast? I’m thinking I’ll save my money and just prioritize. Am I missing something?
You’re missing that most people do it to get a big number of rides on 7DMT - some people have managed 9 or 10 with no wait. You can’t do that in normal hours. But as much as I like any ride, I wouldn’t pay just to ride it a few times. Some people would.
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I thought the same thing. We have always been fine with a TP and I’m excited to use the FP’s early this time and use the tips from @OBNurseNH to try for as many extras as possible. We are doing the HEA dessert party as our “extra” this year because it seems to be more location dependent than Wishes, so more people crammed into the hub. The DAH events seem well worth it! They didn’t match up with our plans but maybe in 2023!
We have done it 3 times. For us, the value was in riding 7DMT multiple times and being able to walk around Fantasyland without the massive crowd of people. I am incredibly crowd averse and this was one time in the park I didn’t feel people pressing in on me at every turn. Not surprising, I’m a big fan of DAH events too.
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Yeah I was thinking it was mostly about multiple 7DMT rides. I’m not sure I’ll get my son on even once as he has developed an irrational fear of the Snow White witch in crone form.
If you’d like to do the rides offered multiple times, and you are early risers, and you like to eat, and you wanna get in a few high demand rides in before 9:30, and you’d like to get pictures in an empty park, EMM is a no brainer for the price, imo.
If you don’t want any of the rides multiple times, I don’t see how the value would work. If “skipping the breakfast” is a thought you are having to get value out of it, then IMO, you might want to look at a different “extra.” The breakfast is great. Matter of fact, work out some math for a similar breakfast, and subtract that from the emm price, then see what’s left for the price of having the park to yourself for those rides during that time. If the rides are what you’d like to do multiple times, it’s a no brainer for me.
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I think it really depends on your travel party.
We did it largely for the awe factor of having Fantasyland to ourselves. It was my boys (8 and 6) first trip to WDW and their first day in the park so I wanted them to feel amazed. We didn’t even do all the rides available - but we did do a few of the rides multiple times. (ETA: after my coffee kicked in I read through the EMM offerings and we did everything we wanted to do once and our favorites multiple times. Some things we didn’t have any intention of doing - tea cups. And we did a FPP for the princesses later that day.)
That being said, I don’t think it’s something I would do again if I wasn’t going with the kids so it really depends on your travel party. The day after our EMM day we did a PPO at BOG. We exited breakfast and walked onto 7DMT (elder son and me) and PP (younger son and H). Then the older one and I were able to queue for Space with the RD crowds. We were off that around 9:15.
I paid around $300 for the EMM and $75 for PPO BOG (only ordered two real meals and then cupcakes for the boys). So were the extra rides worth the $225? Yes! Because my kids were so awed by being at Disney that they were slow as he!! walking around. OMG - MOVE IT - we are not taking advantage of all these walk-on rides! Not having to navigate through crowds allowed us to cover way more ground than we would have been able to cover with the crowds.
We did MK EMM last week. I have mixed feelings about it. First of all, Disney held us up at the entrance until 7:45 so we didn’t get to fantasyland until 7:50ish several minutes into the event. You could argue we missed out on a ride. Rides are also spread out around fantasyland, making it less efficient than say TSL EMM where everything is bunched closer together. We did 7D 2x, then all the other rides only once. Not great, largely because of walking to all the other rides and the fact that several such as LM and Small World are slow. If I had to do it all over again I probably would just do PP once and 7D the rest of the time. All of the other rides you can do with relatively short waits another time. Major benefit is you can jump quickly to Tomorrow Land at park opening and knock out all those rides in a couple of hours. And we did the breakfast, which I wasn’t impressed with but served its purpose. So I don’t regret but if you’re on a budget and have enough time at MK to schedule all the rides on your own I would skip.
I definitely found TSL EMM much better and more efficient.
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Do you mean in your TP? I emailed Help about this and they responsed that the system was assuming the park was open. I put EMM in as a break and just wrote the rides in the comment because it was showing longer than EMM waits for the rides.
I just assumed riding each EMM before 9 at least once (well except for teacups) - I didn’t put into actual TP. Built a TP from 9-close with PM break not including those EMM rides as already ridden. That “EMM plan” compared to a “No EMM plan” where I included the rides of the 6 I cared about riding - timewise I was only able to do 3 more total attractions in EMM than non-EMM plan. Hopefully that makes more sense.
I realize the main draw is riding 7DMT multiple times etc. but with my touring party and their personalities I don’t think that will be worth it. We also have 6 in our party so I am getting sticker shock on any extras like this in general.