Morning or evening? Need your expertise

[bsjs0708]

Ok y'all...We're heading down for 8 nights from Sept 26 -Oct 4th...We don't plan on full days at the parks as we are staying at Fort Wilderness and plan on enjoying our time there. So would you plan visiting the parks for 4-5 hours in the morning or evening? We're also doing the MNSSHP on Tuesday..TIA..Julie

 

[shocker]

Depends on if you're naturally morning or night people. Also depends on when EMH's fall, there tend to be more AM than PM EMH. Also depends on if you want to eat in parks/resorts or mostly at FW.

I would choose based on your group, not the numerous opinions you'll get here (which, BTW, will be based on what worked for their group).

If it were our group, we'd pick evening. We like touring when the sun goes down & don't need hats, glasses, or sunscreen. We don't NEED a sit down evening dinner every night. But, the trade off is...there's always more people willing to stay up late than to rise early while on vacay. If shorter lines are what you want & you don't mind setting alarms to make RD, then go in the morning. Its really up to your group.

 

[AngiTN]

Ok y'all...We're heading down for 8 nights from Sept 26 -Oct 4th...We don't plan on full days at the parks as we are staying at Fort Wilderness and plan on enjoying our time there. So would you plan visiting the parks for 4-5 hours in the morning or evening? We're also doing the MNSSHP on Tuesday..TIA..Julie

We are doing something similar on our trip that starts at Memorial Day.
We are doing evenings

 

[Davey Jones II]

Late evening/near closing is the best time for the headliner attractions. The entire rest of the day, the most popular rides tend to have ridiculous wait times.

On our upcoming October trip, we will likely try both: EMH or rope drop early in the trip, evening/closing the park later in the trip. Even with the massive amount of EMH added in the Fall (the "extra extra magic hours recently announced) I figure that late evening will be the only time to enjoy Galaxy`s Edge. All the people who will have done three hours of EMH will have long since left the park.

 

[StarSpeckledSky]

Ok y'all...We're heading down for 8 nights from Sept 26 -Oct 4th...We don't plan on full days at the parks as we are staying at Fort Wilderness and plan on enjoying our time there. So would you plan visiting the parks for 4-5 hours in the morning or evening? We're also doing the MNSSHP on Tuesday..TIA..Julie

Really depends. Early morning has short lines, late night does too. Depends on the internal clocks of your party members.

 

[sharonabe]

Ok y'all...We're heading down for 8 nights from Sept 26 -Oct 4th...We don't plan on full days at the parks as we are staying at Fort Wilderness and plan on enjoying our time there. So would you plan visiting the parks for 4-5 hours in the morning or evening? We're also doing the MNSSHP on Tuesday..TIA..Julie

Well, for the dates you're there, HS opens EVERY morning at 6:00 a.m. and MK and AK are opening at 7:00 a.m. I'd be hitting at least one of those at each of the parks to enjoy short lines. The majority of people don't want to get up that early on vacation.

With 8 nights, you can probably mix it up and do some of each. Just don't do a late night before an early morning.

 

[trubgerg]

Early is better if you're looking to find low wait times for rides. With my family, we tend to go to the parks close to the opening time and it's easy to see how much the crowds build up by the middle of the day. Plus, there seems to be more fanfare and "welcome to the park, have a great day" stuff in the morning.

I have also been in the parks near closing time and while it can be fun to have sparse crowds, things are also obviously closing down at that point. It's slightly less welcoming at that time.

 

[antlane]

I'm always an evening park person, but you get more value in the mornings I think. It depends if you want to wake up early to beat crowds or don't mind staying up to battle crowds and being able to sleep in. Maybe start with early days when everyone is super excited to be there, and then towards the end of the trip sleep in and do evenings.

 

[glvsav37]

doing similar this trip, but we are doing summer, so heat plays into it. We don't mind the heat, we normally only go there in summer, and always preferred night park touring.

We didn't make any FP's before 4pm for this one. We will be enjoying the pools, relaxing (not rushed) family breakfasts, maybe rent a sea racer, and just relax. We have a few AM things planned, like EMM at studios and such, but for the most part its PM parks for us—fireworks, night shows, and the parks look best when they are all lit up IMO

 

[gatormom2tots]

We use to be rope drop people...in line about an hour before park opening to hit headliners before crowds then we would burn through our FPs. Showing up even an hour after opening you lose that advantage. These days we are evening people...we go and do our FPs in minimal heat. The fact that we go multiple times a year is probably the biggest reason for this-no need to try and do everything because we know we will be back.

 

[bsjs0708]

We use to be rope drop people...in line about an hour before park opening to hit headliners before crowds then we would burn through our FPs. Showing up even an hour after opening you lose that advantage. These days we are evening people...we go and do our FPs in minimal heat. The fact that we go multiple times a year is probably the biggest reason for this-no need to try and do everything because we know we will be back.

 

[bsjs0708]

We've been many,many times and we're, well lets just say we're older than 40 and younger than 80..so sleeping in is a plan..I think evening plans will also be our agenda on this trip..

 

[Eastern]

I would mix it up. Early mornings, you just get more done. If you're tired and don't need to ride a bunch, evenings are the relaxed option.

 

[Wild4Walt]

We're late risers ( my husband is a 3rd shifter ) so we'd do evening. Especially on the day you do MNSSHP. I'd use my MB to enter earlier in the afternoon and then pick up my wristband at one of the party locations. We did that last year, entered about 1230p and then stayed through to the end of MNSSHP. We had purchased tickets in advance so we just checked in at one of the areas set up for the party ( you'll find them on the guide map for the party ).

 

[kydisneyfans]

Early bird here, but find the parks to be magical when lit up at night. If fastpasses allow, I'd likely do the evening thing. With the morning EMH, many will not stay up until 10-11-midnight with a 4-5:00 AM wake up call the next morning.

 

[Mome Rath]

Ok y'all...We're heading down for 8 nights from Sept 26 -Oct 4th...We don't plan on full days at the parks as we are staying at Fort Wilderness and plan on enjoying our time there. So would you plan visiting the parks for 4-5 hours in the morning or evening? We're also doing the MNSSHP on Tuesday..TIA..Julie

Since you are wanting to enjoy the Fort, I'd do most mornings in the parks, if you are committed to getting there for rope drop. You are doing one late night already, maybe do one more if there is a night time show you'd like to see. Honestly a lot would depend on the tendency of the people in your group; I'm an early bird and don't like staying til park close, so that's an obvious pick for me.

 

[senadler]

We are overall not morning people, but at Disney a few early mornings can make a big difference. My suggestion would be to plan a few early mornings early in the trip. Then transition to evenings later in the trip. We also only do 4-5 hours a day at a park and find that the kids are much more willing to get up early the first few days. After that, they are all about sleeping in and staying up late.

 

[djc9699]

We are doing early rope drops or EMM for the first 4 days of our trip and then switching to evening EMHs and after DAH for the last several days. But we go quite often and know what we are looking to do and see so we plan accordingly and when we do late nights, we still get to the parks between 10:30 and 12:30. We can't stand to stay out of the parks for too long.

 

[ELLH]

Why not mix it up and do evenings some days, mornings the others? Fort Wilderness is an area, to me, that can be enjoyed both day and night as are the parks.

 

[maryj11]

We do both. I love the lower crowds at rope drop, it's cooler and more relaxing. At night it is a little more crowded, but I love it at night with all the parks lite up and the cooler temps. So we just mix it up with both rope drop and arriving in the evening on different days.