MK/Fantasyland “Early Morning Magic” (EMM) FAQ & Discussion

Thank you. So that will be perfect, no time wasted once in the park. I totally forgot the scooter rental is in that area.

Traveling with a big group in July with two that need them. Having to think through and plan for situations we haven’t encountered before.

Appreciate the help!


Just an FYI there are quite a few disers who are raving about the ease, quality, and lower price of renting scooters from Gold Mobility instead of renting at park. The scooters in the park are $50 per day and an additional $20 which is refunded when you return the scooters.
 
Thank you. So that will be perfect, no time wasted once in the park. I totally forgot the scooter rental is in that area.

Traveling with a big group in July with two that need them. Having to think through and plan for situations we haven’t encountered before.

Appreciate the help!


And since you said this is new for you .. have you considered the amount of walking required to get from resort to bus stop, then bus stop to scooter rental location at the park? I needed to rent a wheelchair from an outside source for my then DS14 who was on crutches. The effort of managing the morning made him exhausted before the day even began.
 
My family and I attended this event on 6/16. I didn’t keep track of all the times for each ride, but most were walk-on. 7DMT was maybe a 5-10 minute wait. We managed to do every ride at least once. Around 8:45, my mom took our kids to ride Small World while my wife and I rode 7DMT one more time.

Around 8:55, my wife and I waited to rope drop Space Mtn. They held us near the entrance to Cosmic Rays. As someone else mentioned, the starting fireworks went off and they held us maybe another minute. But it was timed so that we merged with the other rope drop crowd in Tomorrowland. We were able to ride Space Mtn and were out by like 9:15.

Met up with my kids and mom who were riding Dumbo, then went to Cosmic Rays for breakfast.

Overall, absolutely loved this event and it was totally worth it. If it is available the next time we visit, we will attend again.
 
We attended 6/9 and thought it was a great value. We had never done it before so nothing to compare to. When we first arrived 7DMT was down, which got us anxious, but we later heard that we would be allowed to use the FP lane til noon. We headed straight to PP, and rode very quickly. Off that and started towards IASW but it was also closed. At this point we weren't too happy. Headed to Pooh. After riding quickly, 7D was finally open and we got in line. It did take a few minutes but not too terribly long. My 7 year did a complete turnabout from previous years and loved it! So much so that he and my DH went back on. My 5 year old not so much, so I took him to Pooh. Then we headed to IASW which was finally open. Then he and I went to UtS. During this time, DH and DS7 rode 7D about 2 or 3 more times, along with Pooh once. At this time, the rope dropped. We met up with DH and DS7 and DH took DS5 to Buzz, while I went with DS7 to 7D again since we had use of the FP line with our wristbands.

After this, we thought about Speedway but the wait was about 20 or so minutes and we still needed to eat breakfast so we decided to just head that way. We thought the breakfast was solid.

All in all, we would definitely do this again. It wasn't dead, crowd-wise, but it was certainly not very busy at all. Several rides only had us and another family or two on it. Thumbs up.
 


I just booked this for the end of July for me and my son. Now I’m worried after reading the last few pages here. Our main reason like most people doing this is mine train. Guess I’ll keep watch here and decide if we will keep the reservation or not. Goal is mine train multiple times, PP and Pooh once each and breakfast and then get to btmrr for rd. Hope it’s doable...
 
I just booked this for the end of July for me and my son. Now I’m worried after reading the last few pages here. Our main reason like most people doing this is mine train. Guess I’ll keep watch here and decide if we will keep the reservation or not. Goal is mine train multiple times, PP and Pooh once each and breakfast and then get to btmrr for rd. Hope it’s doable...

We last did EMM on Sunday 5/26 (Memorial Day weekend). DS and I rode 7DMT 5 times from 8:31-9am (plus all the other rides once except IASW & Carousel before that) (FWIW, we were hustling to get in #5).

YMMV based on conditions on any given day, but we had a great morning.
 
We did EMM again for the 4th time on 6/25. This was our first time doing it with the new format and will probably be the last time that we do. It just doesn’t have the same value anymore as there’s clearly a lot more people there now. It felt crowded, which it hasn’t in the past.

We only just made it over to MK at 7:35am after getting to TTC at 6:50am as the monorail was taking so long and when we got there no one was really checking who needed wristbands so anyone with a PPO reservation could have got in line and got one.

We were on the 3rd train of SDMT of the day and they made everyone go through the standby line which was VERY annoying because it was eating up time walking around each time. The line for SDMT was the longest I’ve ever seen it at EMM. In fact we’ve never had to wait longer than 2 or 3 mins to get on the next train but it took 25 mins just to get 3 rides on it. By 8:30am they finally let everyone go through the fastpass queue and we managed to go on another 3 times fairly quickly.

After that we headed over to Pooh and again they made everyone go through standby even though there was no one waiting and after that we had to quickly go over to Peter Pan before the rope drop people arrived.

In total we did SDMT x 6, Pooh x 1 and PP x 1 because of how long SDMT was taking at the beginning. Originally we had planned on doing another ride on PP, Little Mermaid and Tea Cups but there just wasn’t time. I’d recommend doing some other rides first then heading to SMDT because the queue cleared out later on as people moved on to other rides. Luckily for us SDMT was working the whole time so that was the only plus.

Breakfast wasn’t as bad as everyone had made out but the eggs are clearly processed as hell and really chewy. Still wish it was at Pinocchio’s though. After that we hopped over to DHS and did the Star Wars Dessert Party that night and had a much better experience. I very much doubt we’ll do EMM again with this new format and we’re going to look into After Hours for next year if they still do them.
 


I just booked this for the end of July for me and my son. Now I’m worried after reading the last few pages here. Our main reason like most people doing this is mine train. Guess I’ll keep watch here and decide if we will keep the reservation or not. Goal is mine train multiple times, PP and Pooh once each and breakfast and then get to btmrr for rd. Hope it’s doable...
The trick is, in my opinion, go do Pan a couple times and maybe Pooh b4 heading to SDMT. That was our strategy and we rode it 5 times with under 5 min wait. Then we ended with Ariel.
 
I just booked this for the end of July for me and my son. Now I’m worried after reading the last few pages here. Our main reason like most people doing this is mine train. Guess I’ll keep watch here and decide if we will keep the reservation or not. Goal is mine train multiple times, PP and Pooh once each and breakfast and then get to btmrr for rd. Hope it’s doable...
My DH and DS7 did Mine Train about 5 times at least, and PP and Pooh (2x). And that was with Mine Train being down for about 20 minutes at the start of the event. This was on June 9.
 
So it seems like there are still some positive reviews... thanks for the encouragement everyone, this would be our first emm.
 
So it seems like there are still some positive reviews... thanks for the encouragement everyone, this would be our first emm.

I am behind in writing up my proper review from 5/26. I had done the prior EMM many times and while I’m usually pretty open minded and positive about things, but I was prepared to be let down.

Ultimately, we had a great morning and really appreciated the expanded ride options.

I did not like the look of the 7DMT line pre 8:30, so we avoided it and did other things, then got in our fix 8:31+.

The biggest nit in my book was the breakfast. Pinocchio Village House was such a lovely experience - small, intimate, incredibly friendly CMs, and the food was in our opinion pretty good.

With all due respect to Cosmic Rays, it’s just not the same. It was somewhat crowded, rushed, no intimate vibe, the food was only passable and made more for a mass crowd vs a small ticketed event.

So, we had great ride experiences and that delivered as expected (in some ways better than expected). The food part was “m’eh” and that was a disappointment. If I have any strong “miss the old setup” feelings, it’s about the food.

This was still a great setup for a fun park morning for us.
 
Just to throw it out there, we hit the buffet at 9:55. That way we could rope drop some rides (BTMR and Splash) and then get there after things had picked up a bit in the park. This worked really well for us, there was hardly anyone there and the CM's still took care of us until we left around 10:40. After that we were off to Buzz for our 10-11 fastpass, then Space for our 11-12 fastpass.
 
Did EMM this morning. After reading several negative reviews we were pleasantly surprised how well it went for us. There were separate check in lines for EMM and for breakfast reservations. We entered park at exactly 7:45 am and went directly back to Fantasy Land (no stopping for pictures). One of us rode PP 10x by 8:23 am...the others rode SDMT 4 x and then moved on to other rides. We rode LM 2x without getting off. Had breakfast which was ok...plate were really heaping with food...eggs were tasteless but other items were ok. Croissants and cinnamon rolls were only pastries offered. Fruit was ok not the best I've had. There was no signage indicating choice of drinks and were only offered apple juice and orange juice. You had to know and ask for the chocolate milk and bottled water and then CM would reach into cooler case and pull out. They were not set out so you would know it was available. We had several people stop and ask us where we got the water and milk.
Rode HM 2x a few min past rope drop and then moved to POC and JC with only a few min wait. Left park to spend day at pool have IllumiNations dining at r&c tonite.
 
We did this yesterday as well, and enjoyed it! We had to take turns riding SDMT with 2 little ones, but we all rode it 2x, PP each 1x (Little ones 2x), Pooh each 1x, LM 1x.
Older ones RD'd Space, I took GSs to breakfast. NOT impressed with hot food, fruit was ok and pasteries, but we took advantage of water bottles and drinks. :)
When we left I went up to ask for a water for each of us for the road (8) and the CM put them in a big bag for us and then I saw the GoGo squeezes and asked if we had access to them and she said "As much as you paid for this, sure! How many would you like" She gave me 4. :)
 
We did EMM in FL on 6/23 and it was worth every penny! We arrived by 7:15 via the bus from CBR. No problems at all! Checked in very quickly and they let us into the park at 7:41. (Can I tell you how excited I was that it was before 7:45 after so many people saying they waited until exactly 7:45?)

We didn't run but were practically the first people up Main Street. Paused for a very quick photo in front of the castle with a PhotoPass and then headed over to FL. We were the first people on SDMT and then went to ride Peter Pan. No wait! DD and I quickly met Tiana/Rapunzel, rode the Carousel, and then Pooh. Joined back up with DS and DH who had ridden SDMT 2 more times and we rode 4 more times together! Squeezed in a tea cup ride and at 8:45 we all decided we'd had enough and went for breakfast. 6 times on SDMT and all the other rides we wanted to ride in just over an hour? Perfect! We ate a quick breakfast (that we actually really liked!) and watched the rope drop come in with a beautiful view of the castle. Glad we didn't do rope drop because at 9:30 the breakfast crowd increased significantly but we scooted down to Space Mountain and only had a 15 minute wait.

Don't forget to get a few extra bottles of water on your way out of breakfast - that was a nice perk!

It was fantastic! For fast movers, this was definitely worth our money. Spent the rest of the morning doing our fast passes and left the park at 1pm and got out of the intense 100 degree heat!
 
At the moment I am planning on RD from EMM to SM, go on Buzz then back to Ray's for breakfast by 9:40. Is that realistic if those two rides are up and running?


Reading experiences here I am slightly worried about the merge point of my group of 8 coming from EMM with the regular RD people but all the videos I see of RD is seems that Space only has a rather small hard core group of people trying to ride immediately rather than the thousand or so going for 7DMT.
 
What are the others who had cancelled EMM in September doing for touring plans? I am actually struggling with the touring plan for 11 FPP! Touring plans suggests we will have 21 minute waits for 7DMT by 10:30...

I am thinking of booking our 3 other FPP for 12 - 3 for rides outside fantasyland. I guess we can't start with the FPPs till 8am...
 
What are the others who had cancelled EMM in September doing for touring plans? I am actually struggling with the touring plan for 11 FPP! Touring plans suggests we will have 21 minute waits for 7DMT by 10:30...

I am thinking of booking our 3 other FPP for 12 - 3 for rides outside fantasyland. I guess we can't start with the FPPs till 8am...

IMO I think you always want a FP for 7DMT. Just not worth it for me messing with lines at any other time of day except maybe popping in line in the last 30 mins of the day.

21 min 7DMT wait at 10:30am sounds aggressive.

If no FP for 7DMT, then I'd take advantage of the 7-8AM EMHs if you're eligible.
 

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