Is Disney shifting RESORT EMH to the mornings to make room for more paid Evening After Hours events?

[Alesia]

I'm curious, how often do you end up staying for the night time shows? My fiancee (I love that word) and I love going to the parks early to get that rope drop time in, then we usually take an afternoon break and return, but even with a break, I'm usually dead on my feet by fireworks-o-clock a few days in to the trip. Wondering if there is a better strategy for that.

Matt

Have you considered skipping the afternoon break? We have no problem staying open to close pretty much every day of our trip, but if we take an afternoon break, it completely kills our momentum

 

[LSUfan4444]

To me, the writing has been on the wall for a while now that Disney has been adding (and will continue to add) more ways to "beat the crowds" at a cost. Sure, they've cut capacity and EMH around the parks before but only recently have they really had so many additional cost opportunities. I don't think the correlation will necessarily be a 1-1 but I do think they are related.

 

[epcotobsessed]

We never had any trouble making morning EMHs when my kids were younger and based on the crowds we've seen at the dozens of morning EMHs we've done, they are much more popular with families with younger kids than older ones. As far as trying to have exclusively extra cost evening EMH/events, maybe that's what Disney is going for? But really, who knows.

 

[Remy is Up]

I would not be opposed to making the night events a paid thing and just leaving EMH as mornings for onsite guests. That makes sense from a business perspective and as long as they dont oversell the After Hours paid events like they do the parties, I think it would continue to do very well.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

I'm curious, how often do you end up staying for the night time shows? My fiancee (I love that word) and I love going to the parks early to get that rope drop time in, then we usually take an afternoon break and return, but even with a break, I'm usually dead on my feet by fireworks-o-clock a few days in to the trip. Wondering if there is a better strategy for that.

Matt

We usually just keep the kids out at the parks for one night show per trip (we go every year or so so they’re slowly seeing all of them), towards the end of the trip. Resort naps don’t work great for my kids (they fall asleep on the bus/monorail and wake up when we arrive for the break, or get to the resort and want to play or swim, making them more tired). They will still nap in the stroller in the parks and if they do that, we can stay a bit later. If they don’t nap in the stroller, they’d sleep through the night show anyway and be hard to put down back at the villa. Most days we stay out at the parks until late afternoon or dinner time, but we don’t push them to stay into the evening. We mostly play it by ear.

We will see how their schedule changes as they get older, but this is what works for now.

Growing up and before kids we weren’t big rope droppers - just one day a trip for the old MK welcome show. We’d have a more leisurely morning and always stay late at the parks. We did some rope drop to close days but not many.

 

[Figvention]

Early risers and out the door are two different things when it comes to kids. Adults too. It takes awhile for that intravenous drip of coffee to percolate through the body. Then there is the multiple people/one bathroom dilemma. Factor in transportation to the park in the morning and that alarm clock is being set earlier and earlier.

~NM

This I've never understood... why budget/save/plan to then complain about getting to Disney having to "do stuff"? A few days getting up a early over the course of 7 to 10 days shouldn't bring a grown adult to their knees.

I'm doing my best to avoid being a stoic jerkface here but just get up, you are at DISNEY! A place full of magical experiences, entertainment, and things you can only see while you are there. Just get up for heavens sake, you can nap in the afternoon. You can sleep in the other 51 weeks of the year. Yes, I know to each their own but for a few days just grab the brass ring.

If you want to just sleep, vacation at a state park or sea side villa somewhere.

 

[jhoannam]

What I would like to see is EMH go back to Disney Resorts guest only, not all those Disney Spring resorts that now have all those privileges.

And yes, I think that they really are cutting back on EMHs to add more paid for events.

 

[GillianP1301]

I don't agree with the statement that relatively few people can take advantage of the morning EMH offering. Plenty of people do and will continue to take advantage of them. I think it is more than just an offering as a perk for onsite guests though, it is a way of staggering morning crowd entry. You will have those there super early even before the EMH hours begin, those who arrive right around when EMH starts, then those who will show up around regular park opening. Makes it easier to filter them through security and the tapstyles at the entrance. You don't get that same operational benefit with evening EMH. I think this is particular clear when you look at the addition of daily morning EMH right after GE opens. That has a lot more to do with crowd control than anything else.

As for sacrificing evening EMH for the sake of additional paid DAH events. I'm not sure if that is true or not, but if it is, it will be because the demand for DAH is there, so why wouldn't they do it? Personally, I love DAH events and would welcome more of them and I know I'm not alone. So for every guest that upset by eliminating an evening EMH, they are making happy by adding a DAH. The expression you can't make everyone happy all the time applies here for sure.

 

[pixiedustedme]

I see all of the EMH being minimized in favor of paid events, evening AND morning.

The value of EMH has also been quite watered down with the admission of offsite guests whose hotels are paying Disney for the privilege of participating.

 

[Euby]

@Ninja Mom - I can remember a time years ago when there were as many evening as morning EMH available. I also remember them being longer than just an hour in the morning.

I just took a look at the calendar for June and this is how it breaks down.

Morning EMH (free) = 22
Evening EMH (free) = 8

Early Morning Magic (paid) = 17
After Hours (paid) = 10

So It certainly looks like that there has been a shift over time to not only offering less Extra Magic Hours in the evening, but also a definite increase in the number of "pay-to-play" hours.

 

[Remy is Up]

We use the morning EMH if we stay on property quite a bit ( Particularly for FoP). Mornings for us are the get it done, have a blast, use EMH, FP, and refresh and you can do a ton by 11AM and have the midday break before doing a nice dinner and then a relax evening at another park. And even using that strategy, we generally end up with time in the mornings to just relax and enjoy the walking. Just depends on how you manage the time and what you want to accomplish

 

[clutter]

I agree that Disney is favoring more paid-admission evening events, and will continue to do so. Will they then have less evening EMH? Probably, but on nights of events, they still have three other parks operating, so maybe not so much. We personally never did the morning EMH when dd (22) was little. She's (at the least) a third generation night owl, all of whom are a little slow to get moving in the morning. But at 3 1/2, she closed MVMCP. Now, I know that is an oddity on the DIS, but when we are out and about later in the evenings there are TONS of young'uns running around, full speed. Maybe they get up at the crack of 5:00, but I'm sure the parents don't.

 

[fractalpotato]

Have you considered skipping the afternoon break? We have no problem staying open to close pretty much every day of our trip, but if we take an afternoon break, it completely kills our momentum

Yeah, we tried that a few times, unfortunately the crowds + heat + exhaustion take a toll, last time we tried it we were miserable by sunset.

We usually just keep the kids out at the parks for one night show per trip (we go every year or so so they’re slowly seeing all of them), towards the end of the trip. Resort naps don’t work great for my kids (they fall asleep on the bus/monorail and wake up when we arrive for the break, or get to the resort and want to play or swim, making them more tired). They will still nap in the stroller in the parks and if they do that, we can stay a bit later. If they don’t nap in the stroller, they’d sleep through the night show anyway and be hard to put down back at the villa. Most days we stay out at the parks until late afternoon or dinner time, but we don’t push them to stay into the evening. We mostly play it by ear.

We will see how their schedule changes as they get older, but this is what works for now.

Growing up and before kids we weren’t big rope droppers - just one day a trip for the old MK welcome show. We’d have a more leisurely morning and always stay late at the parks. We did some rope drop to close days but not many.

Yeah, powering through it seems to be the best option, it's just tough sometimes. Especially with the heat, I'm prone to migraines and once that whole thing starts, that's it for the day and possibly the next one if I'm not careful, even with the medicine.

Thanks for your perspectives!

Matt

 

[LSUmiss]

I definitely think they want to utilize the evenings for more paid events and still hype EMH like it's some really cool thing when in reality, it's not much of anything anymore. I disagree though about EEMH. Lots of people will get up for that, even ones with little kids. Little kids are way easier to get up and moving than teens.

But didn’t they recently add more hours in evening & more mornings in Sept?

 

[LSUmiss]

This horse is dead.

But yet it keeps being resuscitated so it can be killed & beaten again.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

TLDR, sorry.

The “evaporation” of PM EMHs has been a long term Disney trend, well before events such as Disney After Hours were introduced.

An approximate history:

2011 - DAK PM EMHs stopped being routinely offered.
2012 - PM EMHs at all parks went from 3 hours to 2 hours.
2017- DHS PM EMHs stopped being routinely offered.
Late 2018-2019 - This is the first time we’re seeing Disney After Hours offered at three parks (MK, DAH, DAK) on a more routine basis. For 2016-2018, it was only offered at MK on a relatively isolated basis during smaller time periods of the year.
* You can find isolated exceptions to the above around land openings, events, etc, but I’m talking “regular” EMH rotation.

Aside from the above, the “regular” rotation of one MK and one Epcot PM EMH per week has been the norm for quite a while. Was this some grand multi-year scheme to wean us off PM EMHs? I don’t know.

The only actual recent reduction in PM EMH is this October where they do not have MK PM EMHs on the calendar for the month (5 Wednesdays) (but they have returned for November). Why they are doing this remains to be seen. Is it an offset to the seriously massive amount of AM EMHs added to DHS, MK, & DAK on a daily basis 8/29-11/2? Do they plan to ‘sell’ those Wednesday nights with After Hours? TBD.

I tend to think the focus on PM EMHs vs selling nighttime hours in the park via Disney After Hour type events is energy directed in the wrong place. And let’s just say they did go away, I’m not really going to cry foul over 2 MK and 2 EP hours each week. I’ve never really enjoyed MK PM EMHs all that much anyway.

What people should really pay attention to is actual regular open park hours - that impacts ALL of us... locals, off-site guests, on-site guests, etc.... and is the area where you can point to real (not conjectural) year-over-year downward trends.

This is not a blanket statement that can be applied to every week/month/time of year, but MK total year-over-year open park hours have been trending down since peaking in 2015. On the other hand, DAK hours over that time have been well up (you don’t have to go that far back to find a time when DAK would often close at 5pm or 6pm during certain times of the year, which would be unheard of today).

Total open hours across all 4 parks are relatively consistent over the last few years, but the MK decline has had a material impact on how many of us “feel” about hours - and perhaps rightfully so. It’s the most visited park with the most rides and the park where many of us want to spend late night time. I used to marvel at how late MK would be open nearly all of the time when we started going in 2013 (when we couldn’t take advantage of it with the kids). You have less of that these days.

Just speaking for me personally and how we tour, I don’t want more PM EMHs at the current parks (MK & Epcot) or the two other parks - which operationally would be a mess for rides like FoP and lands like SWGE which have long lines that will never clear and on some level would have less value for resort/eligible guests as PM EMHs.

I want more free park hours. Open park hours are the single most effective element that spreads crowds around, increases the FP count, and gives us all more touring/planning options.

And in addition to those park hours I don’t mind the option to pay for events like Disney After Hours, on occasion, that ensure a more efficient touring experience vs the PM EMH experience.

 

[Farro]

Looking forward to this thread moving to the TP Community board...

Wish granted!