Rethinking plans Feb 2020

I have done our plans for our next trip but I’m second guessing myself! Please help!

Our plan had been to do lots of RP on EMH to make the most of shorter waits, then take a break in the afternoon and park hop to a non EMH park for the evening with ADR. However I’ve just been looking at Kenny the Pirates crowd calendars and they’re recommending avoiding the parks on EMH days. Would love to get peoples views / experiences. Conscious that we’re in the world around presidents week so trying to limit crowd impact. On our other two visits we’ve been the 10 days from Easter Sunday and haven’t found it crowded for us so hoping it won’t be too bad

Yes exactly this is what I have been told! That’s what we are doing in Sept.
Usual concensus is that if you are staying onsite and can use EMH and will be up early for RD, then you can start at the park that has EMH hours and then hop to a different park in the early afternoon. They get busiest with people that don’t have hoppers so it’s gets more crowded as the day goes on.
If you aren’t rope dropping or aren’t onsite then probably pick another park.
I was at MK Easter Sunday 2018 with regular park opening at 8am and it was busy but it really wasn’t too bad until closer to lunchtime.

No if you are onsite, RD EMH and then around mid-day go elsewhere (non EMH park)

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KtP recommends that primarily for the benefit of off-site guests. It means that a RD at a park with EMH for an off-site guest is behind the on-site crowd. Furthermore, the on-site guests tend to pick that park as their park of choice in order to use EMH, which means MORE on-site guests in that park than other parks.

So, the idea is that if you avoid the park with EMH, you aren’t fighting against a higher level of on-site guests.

If you ARE an on-site guest, then going for RD at the EMH park gives you an advantage over off-site guests, as well as on-site guests who aren’t there for RD. But, once EMH are over for that day, you might want to hop to another park to avoid the now elevated crowds.

I’m not sure if there is necessarily a good way to determine if this is actually true in practice, or just anecdotally, though. Because off site guests would be more inclined to AVOID the parks with EMH, which distributes the crowds to the other parks. It might all just balance out in the end, depending on the ratio of on-site to off-site guests.

There are other factors to consider as well, such as days when parks have parties. For example, when MK has MVMCP or MNSSHP, hours are significantly shortened for the day, which makes people less inclined to choose that park to go to UNLESS they are going to the party. This means the crowds could be lower, making lines shorter. So, while you have shorter hours, you also have shorter lines. Which means, once again, it kind of all balances out. :confused:

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I should also add that park hopping from the EMH park to another park eats into some of the time savings you hoped to gain, since you are talking on the order of an hour in transportation time between parks that is effectively lost. IF you were planning to hop or leave the parks anyhow, then it doesn’t matter. But purposely choosing to do EMH at one park and hopping to another probably doesn’t, in the end, gain you anything or much at all.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. We’re staying on site so it looks like my plans may be ok