Extra Morning Magic Hours — Are They Worth It?
Are Disney Extra Morning Magic Hours worth it? (Extra Magic Hours are only for guests staying at a Disney or Disney approved hotel. Only certain attractions are open during Extra Magic Hours — usually the headliners. You can pick up a schedule of open attractions when you arrive at the park.) They are not for the faint of heart, but for those that want to maximize their time in the park. This April morning, the Magic Kingdom Extra Morning Hours began at 7 AM. The park opened at 8 AM to all other guests.
To maximize the Magic Hour, we awoke at 5 AM in order for us to arrive at the Magic Kingdom by 6:30 AM at the latest. Because we drove ourselves, we were almost the first to arrive just before 6:30. While we had the turnstiles to ourselves for 10 minutes, by 6:45 there was a sea of people behind us. We may sound crazy for getting up so early, but it paid off. By 7:10 AM we had ridden Space Mountain. By 7:20 we’d toured most of the open attractions in Tomorrowland and by 7:45 we had toured Fantasyland. We even had time to go and wake Tinker Bell!
Frontierland and Adventureland were not open during the Magic Hour, however because we were already in the park and in the front of the line at the 8 AM rope drop, we were some of the first people to ride Big Thunder and Splash Mountains, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
So are Extra Morning Magic Hours worth it? Absolutely yes!!! The sacrifice of sleep is worth not having the aggravation of standing in long lines. Take a nap mid day and you’ll be fine. We had a blast and truly enjoyed the feeling of having the parks to ourselves.
Signing off for now, I am exhausted. I’ve got to take a nap.
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My family and I can barely get up in time to make a 9:00 rope drop. There’s no way we’re going to make morning EMH.
I don’t have statisticians, economists, meterologists, nuculear engineers, and microbiological geneticists to back up my data like Len does, BUT what seemed to work for us last summer was to hit the park a half-hour before regular opening the day AFTER it had MORNING EMH. My thinking was that most (or at least a lot of) resort guests had been to that park the day before and wouldn’t be interested in returning a second consecutive day. And like someone else posted above, the guests who were at the previous day’s evening EMH til 2 am probably weren’t going to be at the park at 8:30 am.
We noticed two other families in line with us at each park each morning, so I guess they had the same plan, too. Incidentally, they both also had touring plans they had printed off the website. I guess great minds think alike.
I agree with the advice in the Unofficial Guide.
I happen to be both an early riser and a park person, so I really do enjoy taking advantage of Morning EMH whenever possible. (I also like my afternoon nap. Knowing that I had a ‘successful’ morning makes it that much easier to force myself away from the parks for a few hours to get some much-needed rest.)
I also believe that a vacation should also be just that, so we build in the occasional afternoon or full day midway through the week to “do nothing” by the resort pool, assuming we make it that far from our room. 🙂
It’s been my experience that the Guide is also correct regarding a park’s normal opening following an evening EMH–it seems a lot less crowded in my limited experience.
So, I think morning EMH are worth it–so long as it doesn’t disrupt one’s normal approach to a Disney vacation.
You guys make good points about Disney changing up hours to accomodate crowds. It sounds like a great idea to call the night before to confirm when the parks are opening. Who would be the best resource for this at Disney? Would the front desk CM’s at my hotel be a reliable source or would they just misquote an old leaflet or the web site?
I’d check the front desk, Becky. They probably have the most current information, if only because they don’t want people finding them later on if the info was wrong.
You mentioned the park opened at 8 a.m. normally that day. I notice on DW’s website that it still had the opening time at 9 a.m. How do you know on vacation if the park is opening earlier than normal?
Rachel – this has me a little confused too. From what I can see on the calendar, the month of May has 9:00 openings with 8:00 a.m opening for EMH — when do these mysterious 7:00 a.m. openings happen.
Can I rely on the calendar?
Not that it matters. Husband will do the up at 6 to get there by 7 for 8:00 opening — but up at 5 for 7:00? No way! (Maybe I can get up after everyone is in bed and switch all the clocks!!!!! Sneaky!)
If you stay in Disney Property they have leaflets with the park hours, if they make changes to the schedule they will change the leaflets. If you are not staying in Disney property I think your best bet is to call Disney one night before your visit to the parks.
Greetings from Monterrey, Mexico
Rachel,
Check Disney.com and then click Park Hours. They should be listed. Also, when you arrive at the Disney Hotel they will have an up to date handout listing the opening and closing times and the Extra Magic Hours.
Thanks,
Caroline
howdy! so, space mountain’s operating? thought it was down.
Space Mountain isn’t closed until this coming Sunday. April 19th!
Any idea of whether Space Mountain will be swamped on Saturday, April 18? We can’t get to MK until around 11 am on 4/18 (1st day of vacation), and we’re wondering if we should even try to do Space Mtn before it closes down or just give up and go to another park. Don’t want to stress the kids out if there’s no chance!
Hey Pam,
I think most people will not be making a special trip to the MK on the 18th just for Space Mountain. Unless you’ve got an annual or seasonal pass, that’d be a lot of money to spend on a ride that will be back up and running by end of the year.
So, if you can get up insanely early, then the morning Extra Magic hours pay off. I don’t think this will be possible with the kids for quite some time. The hubby and used to be able to get there super early like this way before kids.
Thanks for the details.
That was my first time with a 7 AM opening. An 8 AM opening is a lot easier.
I am always the first to get ready in my family so that is why I got up at 5 AM.
Thanks,
Caroline
I just wanted to share that I have found the 7am EMHs far less crowded than the 8am EMHs. It seems more vacationers find getting up to be at the park for an 8am opening more acceptable than getting up to make a 7am opening.
I’ve done the 7am openings over Christmas week and I feel they were particularly productive for two reasons:
Firstly, the morning EMHs were so great during Christmas week because the evening EMHs went so late. Guests staying at Epcot (for example) for evening EMH until 1am or 2am are far less likely to make it to MK for a 7am EMH.
Secondly, around holiday times the MK often opens for many consecutive days for morning EMH in anticipation of high crowd levels. Thus, not all on-site guests are flocking to the MK on one particluar morning of the week to take advantage of the morning EMH. This was precisely the case for Caroline. The MK actually had 7am EMHs from April 5th on. So, there was no need for all the on-site guests to attend any particular day of the week because they were offered every day.
I’ve found holiday times are usually great times to take advantage of those morning EMHs (especially those 7am MK openings). However, I don’t feel that morning EMHs for the other weeks of the year are quite as productive as those few weeks around Christmas and Easter for the above reasons.
I’m not saying they should be avoided if a family can commit to actually making it there for the full hour but I don’t think one can accomplish all that Caroline did on a non-peak, once a week, 8am morning EMH. (Whew! that was a mouthful!)
Rhonda,
I absolutely agree with you. Most guests don’t get up for the 7AM EMH.
See you at the EMH,
Caroline
Caroline- Thank you for your input on this. We are going to utilize AM EMH for MK and AK both. I know touringplans.com is very much against this, but we are morning people anyway and we have hoppers so we plan to tour those parks until about Noon then leave for lunch and rest and then go to another park in the afternoon. You have made me feel like we definitely made the right decision to do this.
Anyone ever try and be at two rope drops? For example if DS has EMH in the morning go, ride TSM, get TSM fast passes, then head to another park for the 9 AM rope drop. Can it be done?
Exceedingly difficult. If it could be done, it’d likely not involve the Magic Kingdom (i.e., it’d be Epcot to Studios, Studios to AK or something similar). But if you’re up for trying it, let us know how it goes!
Len, thanks for the input to both my posts. I was going to build my itinerary around avoiding EMH in the morning, now I think I will change that. My family has no problems getting up early (in 2005 we made a 7 AM EMH at DL) in fact they consider themselves “veterans” because they know better than to sleep in. There is nothing like leaving a park at 11:30 when everyone else is streaming in.
As for my second post, I think I’m going to give it a try in August. My plan is to drive to DS; I have AAA parking so that should work to my advantage, and then go to either EPCOT or AK. In DS all we will do is TSM and then I’ll get fast passes to TSM. Book out of there and head to the other park. In this case AK may work better because the AAA parking is very close. Then at the end of the day head back to DS to use our TSM Fastpasses. If we go for it I’ll be sure to send an update.
Hi Amy,
If getting up is no problem then EMH are the way to go. It is so fun to get to enjoy the major attractions over and over again when the crowds are lighter.
Have a great trip,
Caroline
Caroline – how can I check the EMH for May? It looked like the morning magic hours were opening at 8:00 am — but I wonder if it will end up being 7:00. I would hate to goof!!!!!!
Chris, here’s Disney’s Extra Magic Hours schedule for April through June 2009:
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdwi/en_GB/calendar/extraMagicHour?id=CalendarExtraMagicHoursPage
This seems to contradict what they tell us in the book. Did you stay in MK or head to another park?
Arrrgh! Caroline took my blog idea! Darn darn darn! (Just kidding – nice job!)
So here’s the interesting thing. We know from testing that using morning EMH saves about an hour of standing in line at the Magic Kingdom.
We also know from crowd counting that 75% of Disney’s resort guests do not take advantage of morning EMH.
So while we would like to recommend morning EMH, most people would not be able to follow the recommendation. Rather than suggest something infeasible, we make recommendations for other parks.
That being said, if you’re absolutely sure you can get to the MK in time, morning EMHs work great. They also work great at Epcot and the Studios, if you’re going to ride at least two of the three headliner attractions open (Soarin’, Test Track, Mission: Space, Tower of Terror, Rock n’ Roller Coaster and Toy Story Mania). We don’t think morning EMHs work well at the Animal Kingdom, so we don’t recommend them.
We actually went and had our favorit breakfast at Kona Cafe at the Polynesian. While we were eating there was a down pour. We went back to the room and took a nap. Had the weather been better we would have gone to another park.
Thanks,
Caroline
Thanks for the in-park updates, Caroline! Did you use a touring plan for EMH? Have a good nap!
Hi Henry,
I would highly suggest a touring plan. Yes. I did use a one.
Thanks,
Caroline