The Unofficial Guide recommends avoiding AK on AM EMH days because of the crush of resort guests. On highest CL days, is it better for a resort guest to take advantage of AM EMH or rope drop a non-EMH park, and does it depend on which park has EMH?
If you have a hopper, and you can actually get to AM EMH on time, then my answer would be to ALWAYS take advantage of AM EMH.
If you do not have a hopper, then it would depend on what you wanted to do in the park. It might make sense, it might not. It depends on what you would like to do, not other people.
Example:
At AK, would I do am emh?
ABSOLUTELY. I’d head to FOP, then probably bug out to walk on Everest a bunch of times, then walk on Dinosaur a few times. Set up my fastpasses at 9, 10, and 11, work the fastpass system for a few more that I wanted, do a Lion King show, have lunch at Flame Tree, then bug out, and hop to a diff park or head to the hotel for a dip in the pool before hitting another park.
You gotta do what makes sense to you. Will there be more people in an EMH park? More than likely, yes. Just plan accordingly.If you get to AM EMH on time, however, I think it’s well worth it. A lot of people PLAN to be on time, and life happens, so they get there late. If you get to AM EMH 30 minutes after it starts, you’ve kinda screwed yourself.
So if you ask me, I 100% always go to am emh, but, I get there on time, AND I use hopper tix. The only time I regretted that decision was when I got hosed by the Disney Bus system, and didn’t get to emh on time. (That will never happen again.)
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We always do the a.m. EMH. We always have park hoppers, take a break, and generally go to a different park in late afternoon. We have been fortunate with Disney transportation and have left the resort an hour before the scheduled opening time and arrived in time to go through security and then wait to tap in.
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I wholeheartedly agree with the previous 2 posters. If you have park hoppers, go to AM EMH and leave by late morning. Rest and hop to another park that did not have AM EMH.
I think that statement is incorrect. AM EMH is wonderful and not that crowded in comparison to PM EMH. I believe the “crush” happens when park opens to non resort guests.
I think you have evaluate many factors when selecting a park for the day: CLs, EMH, park hours, number of days of park tickets, park hoppers, things you want to do, etc. Also, CLs are projections. At 180+ days when you make ADRs, the CLs are very tentative projections. At 60+ days when you make FPPs, the CLs are still tentative projections. They don’t firm up until closer to 30 days. Unfortunately, many of us sorta plan park days before 180 days to help with ADRs.
For example, on December 16th last month, we chose to go to AK. We didn’t have park hoppers. At 180+ days, CLs and EMH were as follow (Scary! I still have this data in my spreadsheet!):
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MK: 9-9, CL 10
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Epcot: 9-9:30, CL 6
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HS: 9-9, CL 10
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AK: 8-9, CL 9, AM EMH
Based on the projected CLs, we should have gone to Epcot and definitely not AK. But with a 7 day park pass, we were going to every park twice, except AK. We felt that EMH would give us an advantage for RDing FOP with less people, get on rides for a few hours with minimal wait times, and try to get more SDD. And without park hoppers, we would enjoy the ambience, shows, and food when crowds would be at the peak and do SB as the crowds die down in the evening. We set our expectations ahead of time.
The revised CL for AK closer to our trip was 6 and the actual CL for AK was 6.
Right before noon, we had ridden 7 rides (3x for EE); met with Donald, and Chip and Dale; taken some PhotoPass; and shopped.
The rest of the afternoon, we had lunch, shopped, snacked, watched shows, enjoyed the ambience, and used our 2 remaining FPPs. There were no other SDD for FPPs in AK that day.
There was so much to see and do that we were in the park from 7:30 AM - park closing at 8 PM. And we had a great time.
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I would go further and say if you can get to the EMH park 30 minutes early, then use it.
Otherwise probably not, unless you have park hoppers and a good reason to do the EMH park that day.
Perhaps you could only get CRT breakfast on an EMH day; in that case go for breakfast, maybe do one Land and then hop over to another park with FPs booked there.
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139% correct. but I thought all Liners knew that “On Time” really means 30-60 minutes before RD. 
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Of course!
It was for the benefit of any new liners! 
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