DHS/Toy Story Land "Early Morning Magic" (EMM) FAQ & Discussion

[rxbeth]

We are here this morning. Arrived at 7am for bag check, grabbed juice and pastries to eat in line. Slinky didn’t start running until 8am so now the line is super long. We have been waiting for over 20 minutes now. We were let in at 7:20 and rode Alien Saucers, were third family in line for Woody and Jessie, Met Buzz, did entry to TSL photo pass and then Toy Story Mania by 7:55ish.

Total wait for Slinky was 33 minutes for us.

Oh no! Did they tell you slinky was down or were people wasting time in line? That's disappointing

 

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

So you had no probs rope dropping both then hitting breakfast? What did you Fastpass? Thanks

We haven't done it, but there are multiple reports of successfully:
Leaving EMM at 8:45
Riding RnRC first
Then ToT
Getting back for breakfast by 9:30

RnRC will build a line faster than ToT, and is a shorter ride, so we plan on doing that first.

Also, if any delays and tough have to skip ToT to get to breakfast, you are more likely to get ToT as a 4th FP, and the stand by line is shorter than RnRC, if all else fails.

We plan on getting FP for star tours and 2 shows. Maybe Indiana Jones and BatB. Little mermaid as 4th FP. Start tours again as 5th Fp if possible. Our HS day is July 1, so it'll be crowded. We'll see how it goes.

 

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

We are here this morning. Arrived at 7am for bag check, grabbed juice and pastries to eat in line. Slinky didn’t start running until 8am so now the line is super long. We have been waiting for over 20 minutes now. We were let in at 7:20 and rode Alien Saucers, were third family in line for Woody and Jessie, Met Buzz, did entry to TSL photo pass and then Toy Story Mania by 7:55ish.

Total wait for Slinky was 33 minutes for us.

Did you ask for/ get extra FP to make up for it?

 

[Avery&Todd]

I have a food question (of course!! ) - I've seen pictures that there are sweet potato "tots" included in some of the breakfast dishes -do they by chance have the option for just regular ones or are only sweet potato ones available?

Thanks!

 

[MIAMouseketeer]

I have a food question (of course!! ) - I've seen pictures that there are sweet potato "tots" included in some of the breakfast dishes -do they by chance have the option for just regular ones or are only sweet potato ones available?

Thanks!

Only regular ones

 

[KrazeeK120]

To me it depends on a lot of variables. Ages in your group.... your plan for the day... if you have hopper tickets or not.

For us, we would go to Tot and RnR at Rope Drop... then go eat.... then hit any shows or other lower priority things at DHS, then call it a day - we’re more 1/2 day folks at DHS. We have APs so can hop, so would keep our FPs for later in another park.

But that’s not a one size fits all answer so might not fit your plans/style.

I agree...there are a lot of variables regarding what makes the most sense for your group.

My son was just over 38 inches, so he couldn’t do any rides outside of TSL. My DH had a FP for RnRC later in the day (I didn’t want to ride alone, lol). My son’s top priority for the entire trip was meeting Chewie, so we opted to go do that first. He also really wanted to meet Olaf, so we went to him after that and then ate breakfast. It was nice to meet those characters with virtually no wait. We spent the rest of the day meeting lots of characters (which my son loved) and we also saw the Frozen show and Muppets 3D.

Your plan can definitely vary!

 

[Avery&Todd]

Only regular ones

wait - so the tater tots at breakfast during the Early Morning Magic are ONLY regular potato tater tots, or they're ONLY sweet potato tater tots?

This picture from AllEars looks like sweet potato tater tots..

 

[mrsxsparrow]

wait - so the tater tots at breakfast during the Early Morning Magic are ONLY regular potato tater tots, or they're ONLY sweet potato tater tots?

This picture from AllEars looks like sweet potato tater tots..

Only sweet potato tots.

 

[NettieNolan]

I rarely post, but I wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who has posted reports of HS EMM.

I went this morning & it was a rough start with SD being down.

We got through bag check quickly & were in line pretty close to the front to enter the land. Around 7:10 a CM said to go get breakfast bc they weren’t letting us in until 7:30. My husband wanted to go get coffee, but I insisted we stay bc I knew they’d let us in early thanks to reading your reports and they did! They let us in about 5 minutes later!

Once in the land, the CMs said to go ride other rides bc SD wasn’t quite ready for us, but I wasn’t buying it & we were second in line for SD at 7:20ish. Then the minutes started ticking by and by and by. The line was building & people were getting frustrated including us. At this point, I didn’t want to leave the line bc we were second, but I knew we were losing valuable time. I seriously wanted to cry! They blamed the cold weather, not sure if that was true, but it didn’t matter to me either way because at this point it was 7:45 and we were still waiting!! They were testing SD so we knew it would be soon, and they finally let us on at 8:00. We were on the first ride & when we got off, the posted wait time was 40 minutes & the line was super long.

After SD, we rode AS x2 & TSM x1. At this point it was 8:30, and I knew we didn’t have much time left. My daughter (6) loved SD, but my son (4) was one & done bc it kind of scared him. At 8:30, the posted wait time at SD was 30 minutes & I knew we’d have to just suck it up & get in line if we wanted to do it again. My daughter & I got in line for another SD while my husband & son did TSM x2 & AS x1.

We were off at 8:50, and my husband & son were waiting for us. At this point, the rope drop crowd was not there (I’m thinking they held them a few extra minutes bc I know they usually let them in around 8:45) so my husband & daughter went again. My son & I just waited for them at the end and didn’t try to go on any other rides. Rope drop crowd showed up right at 9:00 as they were getting off, but they let me & my daughter go 2 more times in the FP line.

We were leaving the land at 9:15 knowing our plans to RD ToT & RnRC were shot, and I saw a CM talking to other guests. From reading all of your wonderful reports, I knew they were probably giving out some FPs so I stopped to talk to them. I was very nice but expressed frustration with the way it started. They were very understanding & agreed it wasn’t the norm. They gave us 3 anytime, any ride FPs, which is what I asked for and what I thought was fair. After we went to breakfast which was a little crowded but very manageable. We were able to use the anytime FPs during the day in addition to our already booked FPs, which was nice to have on a crowded day.

In total:
Me - SD x4, TSM x1 & AS x2
Daughter - SD x6, TSM x1 & AS x2
Son - SD x1, TSM x3, AS x3
Husband - SD x2, TSM x3, AS x3

Again, thanks to everyone for their previous reports, without them I wouldn’t have been able to have a plan or know how to adjust once things went sideways for a little while!

 

[WaterLinds]

To me it depends on a lot of variables. Ages in your group.... your plan for the day... if you have hopper tickets or not.

For us, we would go to Tot and RnR at Rope Drop... then go eat.... then hit any shows or other lower priority things at DHS, then call it a day - we’re more 1/2 day folks at DHS. We have APs so can hop, so would keep our FPs for later in another park.

But that’s not a one size fits all answer so might not fit your plans/style.

This is almost exactly our plan. In fact, this event is what pretty much sealed the deal for me on getting hoppers for this trip. (Although I am actually thinking we will do an evening at DHS during our trip too, so I guess we could do it all in one day...but my evening plan was to FP SDD after dark, and our EMM day is day one of our trip, so it would be tricky to get the FP that early.)

 

[dclDream2018]

Heads up for April peeps. Dates loaded, not bookable yet.

April open for booking!

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Not really sure if cancelling immediately adds spots back in the inventory, but I just cancelled 2 for 12/31 (which was previously sold out). Maybe that can help someone, just FYI!

 

[Soccer Princess]

Oh no! Did they tell you slinky was down or were people wasting time in line? That's disappointing

They told us it wasn’t up yet, but they didn’t know when it would be open.

Did you ask for/ get extra FP to make up for it?

I went to guest relations later in the day and got 3 anytime fast passes added to our account.

 

[WanderlustNZ]

I found this thread so useful leading up to my trip, that I wanted to pass on my thanks by reporting on yesterday’s (Friday 21st December) event.

I’ll start by saying that I loved it and felt it was worth the money. We also did the Jingle Bell Jingle Bam dessert party yesterday, which we also enjoyed, but dollar for dollar, I think this Early Morning provided better value.

I checked Thursday night if our party was sold out and both slots were showing availability, so my guess is that this party was still quite some way from being at capacity.

We are staying at Wilderness Lodge, and I started checking buses on the app from when we woke up. The first left at 5:44, which we weren’t ready to catch, but another left shortly after 6 which turned out to be perfect. We arrived just before 6:30 and shortly afterwards they checked us in and held us at the ticket scanners (we were second in the queue) until about 6:45 when we were let into the park for breakfast.
Despite not being too hungry that early in the morning, we made the less popular decision to eat the full breakfast straight away. I wanted to maximise that first hour 9am - 10am of park opening, without wasting time eating and I think we definitely made the right decision (more about that later). We were also second in the breakfast queue, so that helped speed things up.

About 7:15 we headed over to Toy Story Land and it was already open. I’m not sure how long it had been open, but there were still a lot of people over at breakfast so it was empty.

We started on SDD and loved it. I must admit I wasn’t expecting much as it looks like a kiddy coaster, but it is now my second favourite Disney ride after Everest. It’s about the intensity of BTMR, but so much smoother. The wait was about 5mins. We then went straight back on and the wait time was now showing 20mins, but I’d say it was closer to about 8mins.

I’d read on here that SDD tends to get quieter later on during morning magic, so we decided to go over to the Alien Twirling ride which was so quiet half the saucers didn’t have riders.
What a disappointing, jerky ride. Once was enough for that.

On to TSMM, which was a complete walk on, but the walk onto the ride and off it again chewed up quite a bit of time. We were using the fastpass queue, but it’s still feels quite long.

Back onto Slinky Dog, which was now showing 15minutes, but was almost walk on. I looked at my watch and it was showing 8:03 when we entered. Between 8:03 and 8:26, we rode SDD four times.

At this stage, we decided to do TSMM one more time before rope drop and despite being walk on still, it took up the remainder of our time, walking on, riding and then walking off.

So in total we did SDD x 6, TSMM x 2 and Aliens x 1. I should also add, that we also spent quite a bit of time roaming and taking pics of the land. We didn’t ever feel like we had to rush.

At 8:45 we tried to beat the rope drop crew to Rock n Roller Coaster, but we were about a minute too late. Still we got on in about 5 minutes and when we got off the wait time was already about 40mins. Walked over to ToT and did it on standby with a 5min wait. Walked off and did it again using our Fastpass as the wait time had rapidly climbed to 45mins. Out of interest, I also checked the wait times on the app at 9:12am and SDD was already at 90mins.

We then went over to Launch Bay and got pics with Kylo Wren (10min wait), Chewbacca (about 10mins also) and
BB-8 (walk on).

The remainder of the morning, we watched the Star Wars stage show, rode Star Tours on Fastpass, found heaps of photopass photographers to get Xmas photos, and then checked in early for our midday ADR at Brown Derby.

1pm: It was a crowd level 8 day, people were everywhere, popular rides were around 2hours, and we were heading out of the park for a midday nap having done everything we wanted with little to no wait.

We then headed back in about 5:30. Did a TSMM fastpass and laughed at the crazy crowds in Toy Story Land. Enjoyed the Xmas festivities for an hour, before enjoying the dessert party and getting a lovely spacious sitting spot on the back wall for the fireworks (Another tip I have the DIS to thank for).

In all a fantastic day!

 

[OKC Disney Fan]

We're planning a split day between HS and MK on our EMM Day in Feb. Hoping to leave HS around noon. Would it be better to use my FP's for that day at HS to make sure we can get on TOT, ST, and RnRC early, then hopefully get a few more at MK in the afternoon, or should we assume we can walk on those rides after EMM and book our initial FP's at MK?
My FP day is Wed so I'm trying to finalize plans. Thanks!

 

[WanderlustNZ]

We're planning a split day between HS and MK on our EMM Day in Feb. Hoping to leave HS around noon. Would it be better to use my FP's for that day at HS to make sure we can get on TOT, ST, and RnRC early, then hopefully get a few more at MK in the afternoon, or should we assume we can walk on those rides after EMM and book our initial FP's at MK?
My FP day is Wed so I'm trying to finalize plans. Thanks!

I would save my fastpasses for MK. The afternoons are the busiest time in the parks and you should be able to do all 3 of those rides at rope drop.

The order I would do them in would be RnR, ToT and then ST last.

 

[Jessirip]

Following along for June 2019. Does anyone think that they may add Fridays back in during the Summer? I know it would only be speculation at this point. We're going to do MK EMM also on a Tuesday as our first park day, and wondering if the kiddos can handle two super early days in a row.

 

[chelynnah]

I found this thread so useful leading up to my trip, that I wanted to pass on my thanks by reporting on yesterday’s (Friday 21st December) event.

I’ll start by saying that I loved it and felt it was worth the money. We also did the Jingle Bell Jingle Bam dessert party yesterday, which we also enjoyed, but dollar for dollar, I think this Early Morning provided better value.

I checked Thursday night if our party was sold out and both slots were showing availability, so my guess is that this party was still quite some way from being at capacity.

We are staying at Wilderness Lodge, and I started checking buses on the app from when we woke up. The first left at 5:44, which we weren’t ready to catch, but another left shortly after 6 which turned out to be perfect. We arrived just before 6:30 and shortly afterwards they checked us in and held us at the ticket scanners (we were second in the queue) until about 6:45 when we were let into the park for breakfast.
Despite not being too hungry that early in the morning, we made the less popular decision to eat the full breakfast straight away. I wanted to maximise that first hour 9am - 10am of park opening, without wasting time eating and I think we definitely made the right decision (more about that later). We were also second in the breakfast queue, so that helped speed things up.

About 7:15 we headed over to Toy Story Land and it was already open. I’m not sure how long it had been open, but there were still a lot of people over at breakfast so it was empty.

We started on SDD and loved it. I must admit I wasn’t expecting much as it looks like a kiddy coaster, but it is now my second favourite Disney ride after Everest. It’s about the intensity of BTMR, but so much smoother. The wait was about 5mins. We then went straight back on and the wait time was now showing 20mins, but I’d say it was closer to about 8mins.

I’d read on here that SDD tends to get quieter later on during morning magic, so we decided to go over to the Alien Twirling ride which was so quiet half the saucers didn’t have riders.
What a disappointing, jerky ride. Once was enough for that.

On to TSMM, which was a complete walk on, but the walk onto the ride and off it again chewed up quite a bit of time. We were using the fastpass queue, but it’s still feels quite long.

Back onto Slinky Dog, which was now showing 15minutes, but was almost walk on. I looked at my watch and it was showing 8:03 when we entered. Between 8:03 and 8:26, we rode SDD four times.

At this stage, we decided to do TSMM one more time before rope drop and despite being walk on still, it took up the remainder of our time, walking on, riding and then walking off.

So in total we did SDD x 6, TSMM x 2 and Aliens x 1. I should also add, that we also spent quite a bit of time roaming and taking pics of the land. We didn’t ever feel like we had to rush.

At 8:45 we tried to beat the rope drop crew to Rock n Roller Coaster, but we were about a minute too late. Still we got on in about 5 minutes and when we got off the wait time was already about 40mins. Walked over to ToT and did it on standby with a 5min wait. Walked off and did it again using our Fastpass as the wait time had rapidly climbed to 45mins. Out of interest, I also checked the wait times on the app at 9:12am and SDD was already at 90mins.

We then went over to Launch Bay and got pics with Kylo Wren (10min wait), Chewbacca (about 10mins also) and
BB-8 (walk on).

The remainder of the morning, we watched the Star Wars stage show, rode Star Tours on Fastpass, found heaps of photopass photographers to get Xmas photos, and then checked in early for our midday ADR at Brown Derby.

1pm: It was a crowd level 8 day, people were everywhere, popular rides were around 2hours, and we were heading out of the park for a midday nap having done everything we wanted with little to no wait.

We then headed back in about 5:30. Did a TSMM fastpass and laughed at the crazy crowds in Toy Story Land. Enjoyed the Xmas festivities for an hour, before enjoying the dessert party and getting a lovely spacious sitting spot on the back wall for the fireworks (Another tip I have the DIS to thank for).

In all a fantastic day!

Fantastic report. We go in Feb. Slightly OT, but can you point me in the direction where I could find out about this ‘back wall’ for the fireworks?

Thanks

 

[WanderlustNZ]

Fantastic report. We go in Feb. Slightly OT, but can you point me in the direction where I could find out about this ‘back wall’ for the fireworks?

Thanks

Hi there,
The ‘back wall’ is really more of a small raised concrete garden border in the roped-off viewing area where dessert party guests get to sit.
In Feb, Jingle Bell Jingle Bam won’t be on, but I’m assuming Star Wars dessert guests would get ushered to the same area.

The roped off area is quite close up to the action, so those in the know recommend that you go to the back of the viewing area to take in the wide angle view better. If you get right at the back, the small wall makes for more comfortable sitting.

I quickly discovered that not many party guests read the DIS, as while they rushed to stand at the front, we went to the back and were able to sit the whole oerformance with room to stretch out our legs.

Meanwhile, behind us, outside of the area, was a packed sea of humanity stretching as far back as we could see. I can only assume though that the general viewing area will be less crowded in February.

I hope that helps. The dessert party threads will give you any more info you need.

 

[chelynnah]

Hi there,
The ‘back wall’ is really more of a small raised concrete garden border in the roped-off viewing area where dessert party guests get to sit.
In Feb, Jingle Bell Jingle Bam won’t be on, but I’m assuming Star Wars dessert guests would get ushered to the same area.

The roped off area is quite close up to the action, so those in the know recommend that you go to the back of the viewing area to take in the wide angle view better. If you get right at the back, the small wall makes for more comfortable sitting.

I quickly discovered that not many party guests read the DIS, as while they rushed to stand at the front, we went to the back and were able to sit the whole oerformance with room to stretch out our legs.

Meanwhile, behind us, outside of the area, was a packed sea of humanity stretching as far back as we could see. I can only assume though that the general viewing area will be less crowded in February.

I hope that helps. The dessert party threads will give you any more info you need.

Ahh, thanks. I somehow didn’t connect it to the dessert party in your post (though it clearly is) and thought it was a secret viewing spot for normal viewing. Splashing out for EMM at DHS and DAH at MK (OMGosh sooo many acronyms lol) I don’t think well swing a dessert party.

And yes it makes perfect sense to watch from the back. We’ve always marvelled at people crushing to the front of fireworks shows in particular. They’re in the air after all. We always try and pick w spot further back.

Thanks so much