Disney After Hours = 8am park opening - any affect on first 2 hours of crowds?

I feel like this data must exist, but I cannot find it! My kids are 4 and 7 years old and early risers, especially in a hotel out of their normal we can expect to be up 5:30-6am. Given this (and obvious other reasons) we are planning to rope drop the parks, but won’t be taking advantage of any late/extended evenings. I just received an alert from TP today showing that on Thursday 2/16 MK is going to open at 8am due do the after hours event. My original plan was MK Wednesday 2/15 (EE 8:30am, predicted CL 6) and HS Thurs 2/16 (predicted CL 8). But should I flip days to HS Wednesday (CL 7) and MK Thursday (EE 7:30am, predicted CL 7)? Is there any data that shows if crowds are lower in the morning when the park opens at 7:30am vs 8:30am? Do they lose some people that first 1-2 hours since they can’t get out of bed? Thanks for any insight!

I don’t know if TP has data on this but I know that there are some 8am vs 9am openings coming up. I would mark them in the next week or two and then track those wait time. The exception to this would be January 31 when MK closes early. I don’t think that will be indicative of the morning times on a 8am-10pm vs a 9am-11pm day.

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Thanks that is a good idea!

If it were me, I would make the switch and RD 7:30 EE at MK. It is not the exact same situation, but on my October MK day with 7:30 am entry, crowds were very low from 7:30 am to 8:30 am and then relatively low from 8:30 am to 9:30 am. My situation was different because it was a MNSSHP day with early closing, and I am not sure how that will translate to an After Hours day, but I suspect it may be similar.

@TriGirl12 I think Poco’s given you good advice. You might want to focus on days where MK opened at 8am and had after hours, eg Monday 1/9 CL 8 actual, or Monday 1/16 CL 7 predicted, for the most apples-to-apples comparison.

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