What is everyone thoughts on the early magic hours? I have seen different opinions and both make sense, just wanted to hear everyone’s experiences.
Some love it since you get an extra hour but others say its not worth it since it is only for 1 hour and then the park is much more crowded that day.
I will have a 7 year old and 6 year old with me, I’m leaning towards the thought that it is only and hour and waking up early with the kids isn’t worth it and the other parks will be less crowded. My wife disagrees, thinks the extra hour is worth it and we will probably go back to the hotel from 12-3 so we would miss out on the really busy hours.
We all know who will win unless the consensus agrees with me lol
I think it really depends on the temperament of your family. We are all early risers, and we always stay on site, so we usually like to take advantage of the early magic hours. We also tend to have park hopper tickets, so we can hop to another park later in the day if we are done with the crowds, or just want a different experience. We also like to take an afternoon break at the resort, as your wife mentioned, to get away from the crowds (and heat depending upon the time of year we are there). Our kids were 8 and 15 during our last trip, and this worked out well for them.
I know some families would prefer to sleep in and not rush around. They may also not want to hop park to park, so in that sense it may not make sense to go to a park just for an extra hour in the morning.
I’ve never been able to personally take advantage of them, but when planning our trip in 2020, I’m thinking of taking advantage of EMH on days where we plan to hop out of the park to another park later in the day. So, we get the advantage of the early hour, but don’t stick around for when crowds pick up.
If we don’t plan to hop out of the park, however, we won’t target EMH. That’s the plan for now, anyhow. From what I’ve seen based on historical data, days with EMH definitely have higher crowds.
If you will be at the park BEFORE emh starts, waiting to get in, and you are leaving at noon, AND you are paying for emh by staying on property, I would target doing EMH. Just make sure you go hard in the am, and then chill in the pm.
You have to make it a priority to be at am emh on time. Other ppl “plan” to be there, but life happens. If you get there late, it’s a waste of time/energy. If you get there EARLY, you’ll crush it that day.
If you have hoppers, you should absolutely do am emh if you can get there on time. If you’re staying at a resort with easy access to parks - especially EP Area, your vacation will be an absolute breeze, your travel time to and from 2 parks is only 10-15 minutes tops.
I’ve done EMH for each park, and planned around it for last two trips I took… and to be honest, it was only worth it with Magic Kingdom. We rode about 6 rides and did a meet and greet within first 1.5 hr.
Edit: I haven’t been since Toy Story land opened, so maybe that would be another park its beneficial in now.
“I’ve done EMH for each park, and planned around it for last two trips I took… and to be honest, it was only worth it with Magic Kingdom. We rode about 6 rides and did a meet and greet within first 1.5 hr.”
good advice. Maybe only do it for the MK is the solution. I’m wondering the same thing, “Is emh worth it?” Assuming you don’t pay for extra park hopper.
We used EMH at MK, AK and HS on our last trip (August 2018). We found it was great at all three.
At MK, we did Space, Buzz, Under the Sea and got a snack before 9 am.
At AK, we couldn’t do Navi because of a ride closure but we did Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl, Expedition Everest and the Gorilla Trail before our 9:40 fastpass for the Safari.
At HS, we chose to skip TSL. We were part of a very small group waiting for rope drop on Sunset Blvd. We did RnRC, TOT, Star Tours, met Olaf and Muppets 3D before 9:30.
We’ve always found the morning EMH to be a great time to get on popular rides with little wait.