This would be true accept there aren’t any EMHs right now at HS are there?
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I should have said there aren’t any morning EMH currently.
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Correct, no morning EMH but there are evening EMHs. Which is different, admittedly, but it is a benefit available.
At the very minimum WDW could have offered morning EMHs but not start booking BPs til regular park opening. That way resort guests would at least have the opportunity to be in the park when BPs opened up.
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They tried this on Sunday and there were issues. I think that’s why they moved EMH to evening.
Specifically, resort guests who were already in the park when BGs opened were not alerted to the fact or were riding rides, etc. and so they actually were at a disadvantage to day guests who were just entering the turnstile with nothing to do but check MDE. Evening EMH at least protects resort guests from this hangup.
There are other ways they could have solved it. I think they’re just trying to keep morning as orderly as possible.
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Except that off-site guests would be paying that no matter what, just for showing up. An on-site guest has to go out of their way to pay the extra, and make use of the ride share.
Say, for me…I’m an off site guest. I’m going to pay $20 to park…so it is just a matter of whether I pay it at 6:00 am or 9:00 am. And by paying it 6:00 am, I get ahead of most on-site guests who rely on Disney transportation.
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You would think if WDW alerted everyone ahead of time when BGs would open this issue would be solved.
I’m also failing to understand why WDW isn’t sticking to their park hours. What is their reasoning for saying HS will open at 7:00 and then opening the taps at 6:30?
Yeah the bigger problem is that they told everyone BGs would open at 7:45am - they made a big fuss about it at the tapstiles - then they went ahead and opened it at 7:15am! So people who thought they had another 30 minutes of fun before they had to worry were on ToT or whatnot and by the time they checked, the BGs were almost gone.
I’m with you that Disney shot themselves in the foot on that one. They could have handled it better, and the solution could be better as well. But it is what it is, I guess.
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They typically open all parks a little early if crowds materialize - not unusual. But the size of the crowd and the amount of time before park opening is certainly unusual.
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lol. I’m a planner and the uncertainty of rope drop is driving me nuts. We fly down a week from today.
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I hate to reveal my sources (ruins the magic 
) but I found this site that automatically tracks the highest BG being called every 5 minutes. I feel like I’m cheating when I use this so I just use it as a check to my manual refresh.
Anyway, today they have been pretty steadily releasing BGs almost all day, other than a 1-hour breakdown in the early morning (red bars are my notation for the breakdown):
Compare that to yesterday when there was lots of downtime when they stopped calling BGs (red line is yesterday, blue line is today, black line is average of all days since opening):
Notice that the red line has a lot more “steps.”
Are they trying to mask the breakdowns by issuing 3-4 BGs an hour rather than 10? Or is it really breaking down less today? In any case, they have gotten above 70, which is pretty good for 3pm. They are tracking above the black “average” line. We’ll see how the day ends. 
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LOL. I am using the same site to get the BG calls during the day. I was looking earlier today and it appeared they were trending to be the most efficient day yet. They are only behind 12/9.
I built a custom trend of just RotR for 12/6-12/12 to see the daily trends compared against each other. The breakdowns are definitely visible.
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You guys rock, thanks for all the data!
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Side story - I thought your avatar was an apiarist in a beekeeper’s hat until I zoomed in. 
I like your actual avatar much better lol.
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Thanks. I am pretty jazzed today…I saw that Beaches & Cream was opening earlier than expected after the rehab and snagged a lunch during my next trip…
Take a guess at what I will be ordering!
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This year we are focusing on SeaWorld and Discovery Cove, but will spend a day at WDW (HS & Epcot). Does it make sense to drive from our SeaWorld hotel to HS, or should we pay to park at The Dolphin of Swan and ferry over to HS? This is assuming that BG’s are still being used and we’d have to arrive at 6:00 am.
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One sad thing here is I’ve not had to pay parking in the past by arriving even earlier than parking lots have had attendants. Now it seems they’ve manned the lots for those super
early arrivals.
I love that off-site and on-site guests have all had good access to ROTR. It reminds me of old FP days. 
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I would not park at the Dolphin or Swan. If you arrive at or before 6am, you should be fine parking and walking to the gate within just a few minutes. You will lose more time than you save by parking at nearby resorts.
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Honestly the SW fireworks at HS are only fine. We saw them once and thought it was pretty skippable; we won’t be making any efforts to see them again.
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