How important is avoiding EMH?

[SarahC97]

I've gathered that most people try to avoid parks with EMH due to the fact it can be very crowded. I'm curious - how important is this philosophy to follow during lower crowd times?

I'm going at the end of January and won't have park hoppers. I've scheduled to go to Epcot and MK on days they have evening EMH and one day at AK with morning EMH. Is this a gigantic miscalculation on my part?

 

[Harambe]

We always use EMH, but only for the morning ones. We do a bunch of rides, then go to another park in the afternoon. I got the FPs for the afternoon park.

 

[emilyrachael]

Are you planning to take advantage of the EMH times? If you are, then that should make those days worth it for you - you can ride the more popular stuff during those times.

 

[SarahC97]

Are you planning to take advantage of the EMH times? If you are, then that should make those days worth it for you - you can ride the more popular stuff during those times.

Yes, we are planning to use the EMH on those days

 

[StraightToDumbo]

The EMH is definitely worth it...but may I suggest park hopping? Go to a non-EMH in the morning and switch for the evening.

 

[SarahC97]

The EMH is definitely worth it...but may I suggest park hopping? Go to a non-EMH in the morning and switch for the evening.

We didn't buy park hoppers and don't want to spend the extra money. We have 3 kids and park hopping, we've learned the hard way, is just too much for them. We're just one park a day people.

 

[loves to dive]

I rarely even know if a park is have EMH so, for us, not important at all. I've really never been able to tell the difference, we don't do rope drop unless it's an accident (we are up anyway) and have used the evening ones every once in a while.

 

[tlmadden73]

Only go to a morning EMH park if you plan on using the morning EMH, but plan on the park feeling crowded the rest of the day.
If you have hoppers, use them after lunch, but I wouldn't buy hoppers JUST for that purpose.

It also depends which park as well. EMH at MK -- there is so many attractions that you can get a lot done in the first hour and the park doesn't feel as crowded. Plus you may get so much done in your first few hours, the crowds may not matter later.

I did morning EMH at DHS this past March and because the park had only 5 ride attractions (4 now), the park felt really crowded there all morning. A lot of the crowd beelined to Jedi Training lines and while Star Tours was a walk-on, Toy Story Midway Mania still had a 30 minute wait DURING the extra magic hour, which seemed crazy long to me, but not surprising considering it is only one of 5 rides there (and arguably the best ride there).

We hopped over to MK that afternoon and MK felt a lot less crowded.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

No, I wouldn't say it is a miscalculation. Extra hours can be very helpful, but WDW isn't like it used to be. Don't expect short waits because IMO WDW no longer operates that way. They now manage the parks so that there is always a wait. When the parks are less crowded, many attractions only operate at reduced capacity. (like only opening one side of Pirates and BTMRR.)

In the past, we often covered quite a few rides during EMH, but recently we weren't able to do much at all during EMH.

 

[Mimifree]

I've never stayed at a park all day having morning EMH. I think that one hour is not worth how crowded it will be all day. However, I think the night EMH is great! Two hours with lower crowds in the coolest part of the day is worth it. We stayed at MK last night until 2:00 am and rode anything we wanted with minimal waits. I've learned not to trust the posted wait times late at night. They are very inflated.

 

[blemon]

My only experience with this was at EPCOT. We went at rope drop on a day they were having EMH for the evening.
It was very low crowds in the morning but by late afternoon, it was really picking up -- much more so than on a normal day. I was thinking that a lot of people went to a different park in the morning then headed to EPCOT for the later hours.

 

[slpeters]

We have one day that I just couldn't manage it. We are doing the evening EMH at MK on a Wednesday and I kept trying to make another park work for that morning. Most days we are doing a morning EMH and then we hop by way of a nap/pool break to another park. It just wasn't working for this Wednesday--even when we took the break we ended up doing both legs at MK. Finally my husband pointed out "how many people that are planning on being there until eleven or midnight are really going to be there at nine in the morning? Who exactly are these people you're so worried about sharing the park with that morning?" I don't know whether his reasoning will prove correct or not but it makes sense to me--the time I was worrying about the most that day was the time that was actually the least problematic.

 

[Aflyingbuttress]

We went end of Oct. - early Nov. last year and the crowd levels were higher than they are supposed to be end of January and early February. I don't think it matters all that much. We definitely went to EMH parks and didn't feel it made a huge impact. We also didn't do rope drop every time and while it was crowded at times, we had a good plan it it worked well. We also are not park hopping people. I like to stay in one place and leisurely enjoy my day. We're going the first week in February and I'm not going to let the EMH impact which parks I visit on which days.

 

[Aflyingbuttress]

I've always considered the warning to avoid EMH parks was meant more for people who can't make use of them because when they get there the park will have been moving for an hour.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

If you're staying onsite I personally see zero reason to avoid it.
I seek it out.
I like AM EMH myself but do PM EMH if need be.
If you're staying offsite on the other hand its better to avoid since onsite guests will already have been creating lines in the AM.
If you are staying offsite and it works out that you have to do on EMH days well then you just do.

 

[StraightToDumbo]

Without park hoppers, I'd say the difference between parks is negligible until you get close to closing. A LOT of people make their way from the other three parks to the EMH. I noticed on our last trip that EMH evenings at EPCOT were DIVINE. Yes, there was still a 45-60 minute wait for FEA, but everything in Future World was WALK ON.

 

[ajwolfe]

We are big evening EMH people so I wouldn't worry about avoiding a park just because they have EMH. Anymore I really don't think it makes that much of a difference.

 

[SingingFlower]

We did evening emh at MK on Wednesday. While the regular park hours had insane crowds (lots of fall break people and sandwiched in between Halloween party dates), the extra magic hours from 12am to 2am were awesome. We walked right on pirates and big thunder mountain, 15 minute wait for haunted mansion. For some reason the wait time said 90 minutes for seven dwarves mine train all night, but our actual wait was 12 minutes. We also walked right on space mountain.

 

[tzolkin]

Are you planning to do rope drop at the parks you will also be attending evening EMHs?

If so, you can get a ton of stuff done first thing in the morning and then have a relaxing afternoon when there are more people in the park (either take a break at your resort or do things in the park that don't have long lines).

 

[MusicalAstronaut]

I've been going to Disney my whole life and I've been a passholder for the past 4 years. I have never once avoided EMH or thought that the park was ridiculously crowded because of them. I would take advantage of them for sure. AK EMH means I can get in & out in 1.5 hours and then go to MK or something until lunch time when I head back to the pool. Evening EMH are fun because they parks will clear out a lot after fireworks and riding things at night is more fun (like astro orbiter!).