Is anyone starting to think about how to manage the Extra Extra Magic Hours recently announced? For DHS, three hours in theory sounds great, but I suspect it will still be crazy-busy. With “only” an hour normally, there is some picking and choosing to do, but with three hours I hope the crowds will disperse a bit after the initial rush to the Millennium Falcon ride. Maybe not too, it will be interesting.
I kind of hope that having EMH days at 3 of four parks each day might disperse the crowds a bit more too. My trip isn’t until Sept 29, so will be watching for peoples comments as the plan rolls out and reports come in.
I figure the biggest hurdle will be getting my DW up for rope drop. For a 6am opening, be there at 5:30, so working backwards, needing to get up at or just before 4am! I planned the trip before EEMH was announced, so when I found out, I needed to prefix the news with “Now, this is something you have every right to refuse to partake in…” before I explained the parks opening time moving from 9am to 6am.
I’m not sure anyone can predict what the DHS EEMH will be like.
For those avoiding Galaxy’s Edge, it should be great. But even that assumes that those waiting for GE will be in one big long line, which may not be the case. And we won’t know that until they announce more details as to how they will manage it. (It could be they issue a return time to enter the land, leaving people free to go elsewhere in the park).
For Galaxy’s Edge, there will be people lining up at 4am, so by 6am there could already be quite a wait to get in to GE. And it will continue to grow through EEMH with those just arriving and those not eligible for EEMH.
If you want to do GE, get there as early as possible and definitely during EEMH if you are eligible.
Nickysyme: Yep, definitely new ground to sort out. I was kind of hoping that a 6am start might do at least some crowd filtering and being there at 5:50 might be enough. Maybe wondering now if we should plan on earlier. Not sure I could convince my DW to be there at 4am though! For the first time ever we will have a car with us, so at least have the option of earlier since Disney Transportation won’t be our only option.
I’ve been tinkering with some touring plans online just to see what the overlords are predicting, realizing that it is all extrapolation. The overlords to seem to anticipate the rest of the park being pretty empty. For the Millennium Falcon ride it seems to be predicting 30-ish mins for rope drop, then 50-ish mins for the rest of EEMH.
The original purpose of the trip was to see the last Illuminations and first Epcot Forever shows, so if we are going to be doing 6am starts followed by late evenings, I definitely think naps in the middle of the day are going to be necessary!
Definitely some fun first world problems to be grappling with!!!
I’m really hoping that WDW announces an opening plan which is like the virtual queue system they’ve announced for Disneyland after June 23rd, this would mean the park would still be quiet until enough people have arrived for the virtual queue to start so EEMH will be great for those not attempting SWGE
This would also make being in SWGE a nicer experience as there would be a cap on the amount of people
The issue I’m having is alot of people on here and DIS are saying its fine we’ll avoid DHS and do SWGE another time but I’m going with three friends who’ve never been before and won’t be able to go again anytime soon so we want to do everything including all the shows and rides so we just have to brave the masses with a good TP and fastpass refreshing going on
Luckily for me, my trip is at the end of October, so I’ll be watching the early morning trends for the 2 months leading up. Gonna be interesting for sure
Well if he’s not that interested in going, I say you should definitely go on your own.
On our very first trip to Florida, we went through to Kennedy Space Centre after a week or so in Orlando. Plan was to stay a couple of nights, then drive down to the Keys and back to Miami for a flight to the Bahamas.
When we got to KSC, there was a sign with a countdown to a Shuttle Launch in four days time. Change of plan, drove south to the Keys with a one night stop, couple of days down there and then all the way back to Titusville. And got up at 2am to get to KSC for 3am; Launch was at dawn.
So for a one-off, even DH could manage to get up that early. And a s a massive Star Wars fan I think he would do it once.
My trip is end of September, so have just a month of others reviews before I brave the masses, this trip is going to be an interesting one for sure.
I do have a feeling there will still be some more big changes coming in terms of how they will manage crowds. We’ll just have to keep watching and be ready to adjust in a hurry!
It depends on the park and where you are headed. Going to the headliner of any park is hard. Hollywood Studios seems to be tougher/more running and pushing than the other parks. Epcot is fine—crowds split, no big deal. Magic Kingdom is fine, but if you are going to 7DMT, might be tough with littles. I wouldn’t attempt Flight of Passage RD with littles but I know people do. Seems hard.
I’ve never done rope drop for DHS since Toy Story land opened, but all have been reasonably civil for me. Agree on Epcot and MK especially. For AK it is 99% civil with most folk aware of the folk around them and keeping the same general order. You do have the 1%ers darting though that are trying to get ahead of the general crowd and most folk politely just put up with them. Then, as you are waiting for a subsequent rope drop, you will get the folk “trying to join their party”. As long as your kids are able to keep up a good pace, “Walking with purpose” as we call it, you should be OK.
Keep in mind there are cast members at the front who keep pace all the way to the headliner ride. Where the 1%ers come into play is when they are further back and are trying to get closer to the front. I suspect the orderliness may degrade as you get further back, in true liner spirit I’m usually in the first 100 or so folk, and there it is pretty good. The ultimate “winner” picture I like to get though is a picture of one of the kids touching the rope. That is still pretty rare though.
@beals5 This is exactly what I have been thinking about since they announced the 3hr EEMH thing! We’re going mid Sept so not much time to see how it’s going to work and definitely after I have to make FPP. We are willing to attempt 6am RD to see SWGE. My concern is that even if we finish seeing SW by 8 or so, the wait times for SDD, ToT, RnRC will be super long because many people will just go there first and not even try to get into SW. I’m considering the strategy of leaving HS after SW and returning with FPP for the above 3 rides later in the evening.
I am struggling hard with my HS plans because ideally, I would like to do the same, come back in the evening. My fear though is that the park might hit capacity and we may not make it back in.
If it hit a phase 4 closure, that’s true. But my gut feeling says if that did happen, it would be temporary. As people left, they could let others back in.
How many people would be queueing outside on the offchance of getting in? I guess it’s a hard one to guess just now.
I’m fortunate and my trip isn’t until the end of November, so we’ll have some data before my FP day. I’m still struggling preparing for ADR day though.
@pkitt: Agree on the worries. I tried a touring plan to see what the overlords said and at least they gave me a 15 minute wait for TSMM at 7am. I’m the first to know that this is new for the overlords too, so that could be way off. Hard to model something that has never happened before!
@kerrilux_625778: Ooh, hitting crowd capacity isn’t something I had considered as a possibility. That would be scary if it were the case. The Big Book has some pretty funny things to say about hitting the parks when they are at capacity though. I giggle thinking of it. It mainly had to do with MK and when (not sure if it is true anymore) Disney Resort guests can still enter even if the day folk cannot.
Thinking about it more, I’m sure SWGE has some capacity limits, but hope that might not be the case for all of DHS. Even more reason to get in early, get in the one ride and then be able to wander around until it starts feeling too crowded. In all my years of WDW trips I’ve never ever gone back to the hotel for a break during the day, so doing it for this trip will be a first and I suspect if there is ever a reason to do it, this will be the trip for it. 6am for SWGE to 10pm for the last Illuminations. If the gondolas are working, it will even be pretty easy since we’re staying at POP.
Every park has a capacity limit. And it is very, very rare for it to ever reach phase 4,when no one gets in at all. But I think SW:GE may see that happening at DHS for maybe the first time ever.
I’m planning on EEMH for DHS in late September with my DS4 and DS1 - just for TSL and no plans on SWGE. Obviously no one can predict how this will work, but any speculation if they’ll have a separate queue for those NOT going to SWGE? I’m hoping if the park opens at 6:00, and we get there around 5:30/5:45, we can easily do SDD and TSMM, and maybe ASS before it gets crazy crowded. My DS4 ONLY cares about TSL and won’t stop talking about it (he’s only been to TSMM, the rest of the land wasn’t open during our last visit). I’m just trying to figure out the best way to manage this considering we must do TSL but have no desire for SWGE.
We are arriving on September 2 (Labor Day) and plan on hitting HS that afternoon. The goal is to hit one morning of EEMH, but with a 5 and 8 year old, I’m not sure how successful it will be. I’m the only big SW fan in the family, so if we don’t make it to GE, we will survive, even if I’ll be disappointed. TSL is the kids’ number one priority for this trip. At any rate, we have an early dinner reservation at Chef Mickey’s the day we have an early plan for HS, so we will go in the morning, then crash the rest of the day.
For the first time ever we will have a car with us, so at least have the option of earlier since Disney Transportation won’t be our only option.