Not using EMH

[ceejayzvan]

Even though we are early risers, I'm thinking of not taking advantage of Extra Magic Hours and just rope dropping at other parks. Is this a bad strategy?

 

[Robo]

Personal preference.
We like AM EMH at MK & Epcot.

 

[mathhouse88]

This is always our strategy. I've always heard that the park(s) with EMH on that particular day will be the busiest (whether or not people end up making it early enough or staying late enough for the EMH, Disney resort guests will often choose the EMH day because it seems like the most bang for their buck). So we avoid the EMH parks for the most part in order to avoid the busiest ones.

 

[Robo]

EMH and "Park Hopper" tickets work great together.
Utilize the extra hour of AM EMH in the cooler earlier hour.
Stay there for awhile, then, if that park seems too busy... "Hop" to another park to finish the day.
(The "Hop" is also a great time to have a non-park lunch and/or take a relaxation break.)

 

[Heather07438]

Even though we are early risers, I'm thinking of not taking advantage of Extra Magic Hours and just rope dropping at other parks. Is this a bad strategy?

That is a fine strategy.

We usually avoid the EMH park and rope drop another, unless we plan to hop that day. Then we hit the amEMH and leave once it gets starts getting crazy. Same with pmEMH, we usually wait until 5pm to arrive at that park.

 

[EddieValiant]

Even though we are early risers, I'm thinking of not taking advantage of Extra Magic Hours and just rope dropping at other parks. Is this a bad strategy?

No, this is fine to do. I make a plan before doing fastpasses, but modify it to wherever the fastpasses take me.

The earlier EMH are, the better they will be. Fewer people will do a 7am one, for example.

 

[Harambe]

We normally do EMH at MK as that gives us the most choices of rides that we actually go on. A few during EMH, then a few Fastpasses right after that, then we head out of the park (maybe after eating a waffle sandwich from Sleepy Hollow . . . ).

The rides offered for EMH at other parks are ones we don't do.

 

[Kaadk]

We need our sleep. We've rarely used either AM or PM EMH. Don't often rope drop either. My family is very much not patient, so getting up extra early, just to wait around for a rope drop, turns into a miserable day for us. They've had enough before we even make it in the park.

What we do though, is avoid the EMH parks if possible. Or, depending on timing, we might do the EMH park, but at the opposite end of the EMH hours. Like, say Epcot has morning EMH, we might go around dinner time. By then, most people hopefully would have tired themselves out and moved on. MK though, we just avoid all together if either AM or PM EMH is on. That park in particular seems to hold its crowds for the day.

 

[SaintsManiac]

We rarely use EMH.

 

[ceejayzvan]

Thanks for your comments! We have park hoppers, so I plan to use them to get away from heavy crowds.

 

[Lumpy1106]

I just don't see the value in park hoppers. I mean, if I had them I might use them, but it's not worth the extra cost. Sure, you could EMH then park-hop but it will cost you at least an hour going between parks.

We avoid EMH parks, especially PM at DHS.

 

[Elsaalltheway]

This is all personal preference.
If you have non park hoppers people do extra magic hours to get as many hours with their tickets as possible.

But since you have park hoppers avoid the extra morning hours at Epcot and MK as they have limited areas open so ALL those people scrambling to get on those rides in small area since they only open part of MK for the morning and same with Epcot. But after hours after the park. Yep. I'll do that because kids are tired and cranky and so are parents by the end of the night and the non hotel people are making their way out and you have to scan your bands. But extra morning hours at HS and AK, yes, because people are going to the main rides. This is the time to get the non main rides out of the way and be done with these parks by noon. Just my two cents.

 

[Heather07438]

I just don't see the value in park hoppers. I mean, if I had them I might use them, but it's not worth the extra cost. Sure, you could EMH then park-hop but it will cost you at least an hour going between parks.

We avoid EMH parks, especially PM at DHS.

When DH first started adding hoppers I thought it was kind of a waste- unnecessary and missing park time to travel.

I love them now! They're great during MK party season to take advantage of the low crowd party days and hop elsewhere at night, and great to hop over to Epcot during Festivals. We can squeeze in more park hours with EMHs but mix with hopping to avoid those crowds all day. Comes in handy with RoR at HS. Days seem to pass slower with more variety too.

 

[loves to dive]

We rarely do morning EMHs, we are usually up (or I am) but aren't motivated. We also rarely do rope drop, I don't like to feel like the running of the bulls. We do enjoy the evening ones, we have found we can get just about every ride we want to do done during the evening then the days are just for fun. As an aside, we also don't avoid parks with morning EMHs during the day, but that's because we rarely pay attention to if they had one when we decide to go. We always have PHs, always have and always will. We don't always hop but having that option is priceless for us.

 

[Junebugwv]

We have avoided EMH for years, but we were at the parks the first week of Feb and now (Feb. 26-Mar.7) and the regular rope-drops have been very crowded in comparison to anything I've seen for quite a few years. We are going to start doing EMH again.

 

[figment5]

Even though we are early risers, I'm thinking of not taking advantage of Extra Magic Hours and just rope dropping at other parks. Is this a bad strategy?

We have found the crowds to be just too large at EMH so we have started avoiding those parks and sleeping in a little extra.

 

[Bete]

I'm an extra magic morning fan. We find we can do more. You start out early and work your way to the back of the park before the general public get in at regular hours. The back will be emptier for about an hour. Now, around 10 am you start using your advance fastpasses an hour apart. After the first three fastpasses start looking for the fourth one and so forth. If we are getting stuck without a fastpass we will catch a counter service meal and look again for another fastpass. If we still have no luck then we will do a ride in the regular line or do a show which is easier to get into. Now, we look again for fastpass. We continue this pattern and we normally have great results.