To EMH or not to EMH?

I've heard many theories on how or if to take advantage of extra magic hours and I'm so confused. What does your family do? Do you like EMH? Do you avoid EMH? The days we're going to be at WDW have crowd predictions in the 7-9 range. I'll be thrilled if we can make it to a park in the morning by rope drop. An hour earlier? I'm not so sure. And the evening hours? I tend to find them frustrating since not all the attractions are open (plus I'm the only morning person of our family and am ready to call it a day by then while my family is just getting revved up!)

What do you suggest?

It depends, but we've taken advantage of morning and nighttime EMH and have had great experiences with both. I like to park hop and leave the morning EMH park before 11 am. I get to night EMH parks not too far before regular closing hours and enjoy the later hours, or don't bother. If I'm not going to be able to stay up late to take advantage, it's better to skip the pm EMH. I also find that it's great strategy to hit a park the morning after a pm EMH. They tend to seem more empty to me then, sure if it truly is less crowded then or just seems it.

I voted "do them all", because we do some of each. But not on the same day unless we've had a big break in the day. I am traveling with 3 teens and 2 of them are NOT MORNING PEOPLE. We like to stay out late and sleep in. But we do try to catch a few morning EMH on our trip. This next time it will depend on when we get in each evening.

The day we arrive MK is open until 2am. DD's eyes lit up wildly when I told her that. But we will want to ride TSM and EE on this trip so I think we'll need to get up early a few days to catch those rides.

Mostly we'll play it by ear. If everyone is tired and grumpy and I'm dragging them from one attraction to the next it's really not much fun.

We dont go to both anymore......................but you cant take advantage of anything unless you are there!!!:mickey:

On our last vist we did most of the am emh's. We are mostly early risers so it worked best for us, but having said that we also did ok with 2 pm emh's. I think whatever works best for the majority of people in your party is what you should do. Good luck.

I get up early (4 am) for work. When I'm on vacation I still wake up around 6 am. But I'm in no hurry. Mornings are slow and easy coffee, maybe a walk around the resort, pick up some breakfast for everyone. No hurry, no worry. I go in Oct the parks close early so we use evening EMH. :mickey:

We avoided any park with EMH scheduled and got to the other park by regular opening time instead.

This worked for us because we all tend to go to sleep b/t 9pm (DS) and 11pm(Parents) and wake up at 7am naturally and that gave us plenty of time to shower, dress, have coffee, eat, and get to the park without feeling sleep deprived or rushed. Once we arrived, crowds were minimal and we got to see/do everything we planned!

For the first time ever, we returned from our WDW vacation feeling relaxed and rested!

If we were early risers, I'd definitely take advantage of am EMH.

Tess
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We are PM EMH people. With the family being "grown up" taking advantage of the late hours is fun and beneficial. PM EMH!!!

We are mostly night owls and we definitely take advantage of the pm EMH's. We also try to hit as many of the am ones as possible too. Our motto is "we can sleep when we are home!" I am not much of a morning person but just the thought of hitting the parks gets me moving. However if we are just too beat we click off the alarm and roll back over. But we always try to be in the parks by 9:30 at the latest.

Normally DW and I avoid them completely, however we have decided on this trip to "work" the EMH to our advantage in MK so we can do both day and night versions of our favorite rides.
I guess we will see how that works out and let you know.
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Try to do it all! I'm only at WDW for a very limited amount of time so I try to spend as much time as possible in the parks! :mickey:

We to have heard bad things about EMH. In the past we took advantage of the early morning EMH when they first were introduced. We were able to enjoy many attractions before the park began to fill. We were looking forward to evening emh at both the MK and Epcot to check those out, but everything we've heard was to avoid those parks on that day.

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Originally Posted by Iteachpc

I voted "do them all", because we do some of each. But not on the same day unless we've had a big break in the day. I am traveling with 3 teens and 2 of them are NOT MORNING PEOPLE. We like to stay out late and sleep in. But we do try to catch a few morning EMH on our trip. This next time it will depend on when we get in each evening.

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Change Iteachpc travel party number from 3 and 2...to 2 and 1 and you've got our situation....two DT's (14 and 16) and our 16 year old DD is not exactly a smiling ray of sunshine early in the morning...so we will do morning EMH for only two parks (MK and (now) DS (for TSM).

I voted for PM hours only. We've tried the early morning EMH on other trips, but we never seemed to get there early enough.

My plan for our Sept trip is to basically avoid EMH parks altogether...but will keep a list of the evening EMH parks, just in case we're looking for something to do that evening.

I voted for doing both, but I think that this really depends on your style. We are early morning people, so we love getting up and hitting the parks early before the crowds get there. By 3:00, we are heading back to our room....which is when the EMH park starts getting really packed. Then...with a Park Hopper...we can go back out after dinner to another park or do an evening EMH if we want.

My only exception to the do it all is Hollywood Studios. Evening EMH is a Nightmare Fantasmic :malef:
My family experienced a couple of these fiascos. All evening EMH does is focus people into the TOT & RnR corner of the park.