EMHs worth it with so many more hotels getting to partake?

[SL6827]

With Disney giving more and more offsite hotels the benefits of the onsite hotels are the EMH really all that great anymore? (the night time EMHs more so)

 

[Disneypro1]

Its common knowledge with vacation planners....AVOID EMH's Goto the park that doesn't have an EMH. It will be less crowded and you'll get more done. We plan around EMH's goto say M.K. on a day it doesn't have one...Epcot Center same thing and so on. There is no benefit to EMH's other than a crowded park. There will be folks that disagree....but those that know...avoid them. Its like park hoppers....you'll get more done doing one park per day...but folks like to waste time going from one to the next......Again....YMMV. This is my opinion. But, i'll stick to it..'-)

 

[DizFan13]

I guess I have to respectfully disagree with Disneypro1, as they mentioned some might. I still (as recently as the December 2018 and end of January 2019) think that both EMH and PHing can be a great way to get the most out of the parks, if you do it carefully.

I love to RD an EMH park. Even if it is a bit more crowded than it was a decade ago, DH and I still find that you can accomplish a lot in that first hour. We then hop to whatever park is meant to be the quietest for the day, and book same-day FP+s for the latter park. We feel like it's an easy strategy to get the most out of our time.

 

[Magical2017]

We have loved evening EMH in the past. We stayed offsite on our last trip so I don't know how things are currently. I imagine with the two additional DS hotels getting these benefits it's pretty crowded, but Disney is always crowded. I think the 60 day FP and Magical Express are still good benefits, but those are offset by resort parking fees for non-DVC guests.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I think morning EMH's will still be very beneficial. Most people don't want to get up early on vacation and most people don't want to drag their kids out of bed early if they don't have to.

Night time will probably be more crowded.

We were just there in November and did AM EMH at AK and we headed to EE. It was empty. Rode 5 times in the first 30 minutes.

 

[chris benton]

Its common knowledge with vacation planners....AVOID EMH's Goto the park that doesn't have an EMH. It will be less crowded and you'll get more done. We plan around EMH's goto say M.K. on a day it doesn't have one...Epcot Center same thing and so on. There is no benefit to EMH's other than a crowded park. There will be folks that disagree....but those that know...avoid them. Its like park hoppers....you'll get more done doing one park per day...but folks like to waste time going from one to the next......Again....YMMV. This is my opinion. But, i'll stick to it..'-)

I agree with what you are saying in some instances, but there are also those who know that Epcot Area Resorts + hoppers are a pretty good way to roll.

 

[Mickey's Best Girl]

We’re AM EMH rope droppers and mid morning Park Hoppers.

We’ve always done it this way and will continue to do so. It’s what works for us.

PM EMH is a hit or miss with us. It’s never seemed super beneficial since non-resort guests can still stay in the park, just not ride. So the parks have always seemed crowded to us. I won’t get into whether or not non-resort guests are actually having their bands checked consistently at ride entrances

 

[Peppeperoni]

I love park hopper. I love being at multiple parks in the day

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We always leave the parks midday so hopping doesn't take away any time for us. We leave our morning park around midday, hit the pool and relax and then go back to another park for the PM. Either way we have to head to a park.

 

[mkla2015]

We usually avoid AM EMH- I've never had much luck with them but we LOVE PM EMH. In October PM EMH at MK was insanely busy BUT that was the only night during the week that MK didn't close early for MHSSHP so I'm sure that had a lot to do with the crowds. We did PM EMH at MK the last week in February and crowds weren't bad at all. We were able to get a lot done and I feel like it was definitely worth it.

As for Park Hopping- we hop pretty much every day... it's rare that we stay in one park all day. Everyone has different touring styles- hopping works for my family.

 

[KCSherri]

I guess I have to respectfully disagree with Disneypro1, as they mentioned some might. I still (as recently as the December 2018 and end of January 2019) think that both EMH and PHing can be a great way to get the most out of the parks, if you do it carefully.

I love to RD an EMH park. Even if it is a bit more crowded than it was a decade ago, DH and I still find that you can accomplish a lot in that first hour. We then hop to whatever park is meant to be the quietest for the day, and book same-day FP+s for the latter park. We feel like it's an easy strategy to get the most out of our time.

This. This is exactly my strategy, but don’t let the secret out of the bag!!! Hee hee.

 

[georgina]

I used to like EMH too, but more often lately I stay offsite so now I avoid them. I guess we are just not 'in the know'! Definitely still park hop though!

 

[KenHutch]

Well when it comes to EMH we are middle of the road people. I plan park days and ADR's in advance of the EMH so if we get it fine, if we don't fine but I have noticed that in the evenings when everything matched up the parks tended to be more crowded. We have still managed to get extra fast pass's during those times so go figure.

 

[Lease257]

If you can’t get there early enough to make it worth it, then it’s not.

We went to Epcot for EMH and I kinda forgot it was. We pretty much spent the first 30 min getting in bc we waited to leave until 7:30. So the bus line was crowded and the line to get in was horrible. We got in at 8:30 so we really just lined up to wait for baymax at 8:40 and were first in line to meet him at 9.

The next day had MK with EMH and since my kids were exhausted we just aimed to be in the park by 9:15 since I knew we couldn’t get there by 7:30.

 

[ClapYourHands]

It really depends on what you want to do, and where you are in the RD line. The following are my EMH experiences from Jersey Week 2018

AM EMH at AK. Got first bus out of Pop, were maybe 10 people back in front of "our" turnstile to enter park. Went quickly to Pandora (with older kids who know how to keep a move on, so no strollers or anything to deal with), where we were first on FoP, then went on NRJ and were hitting the bathrooms by 8:10. We then did EE twice, Dinosaur, and were walking onto Primeval Whirl by 9 when the park opened. Headed up to Safari, which we rode with minimal wait, and then over to walk on Kali. We left the park by 10am, having done all rides other than Bug's Life and Triceratops (no interest, but easily could have).

AM EMH at EP. Rope dropped from IG, and were towards the front of that crowd as we hurried to TT. Rather long wait by the time we got there (from those entering at front of park), and then we decided to ride again single rider line, but wait time ended up being much higher than posted time. Despite being there early for RD, we only managed TT and single-rider TT in that hour.

PM EMH at HS. We lucked out, sort of, as it was POURING rain. Like by the time we got from the bus to the entrance, we were completely and totally drenched down to our underwear. Could not have been wetter if we jumped in a pool. As a result, crowds were much lower than they would have been. Rode SDD with about a 15-20 minute wait, then AS2 twice, then TSMM (once or twice?), then hopped back into line for SDD just before closing and waited less than 5 minutes.

 

[DisLiss]

For us, Hoppers are the only park ticket. We have never gone without them, so we just go for the EMH and when the park starts getting crazy, we leave. That has always worked well for us on morning hour days. We're normally early risers, so we're awake anyway, we might as well be in a park.

 

[glamdring269]

I think the ‘avoid the EMH park’ advice is primarily intended for those who do not have hoppers. You’re correct that it’s known that those parks will likely have the most people. That’s because folks take advantage of EMH and don’t have hoppers so are stuck there all day. This is not really a problem in the first few hours when you have a hopper as you can fly through the park in the morning, have lunch, head back to relax at the hotel, then hop to another park that night.

 

[Disneypro1]

I think the ‘avoid the EMH park’ advice is primarily intended for those who do not have hoppers. You’re correct that it’s known that those parks will likely have the most people. That’s because folks take advantage of EMH and don’t have hoppers so are stuck there all day. This is not really a problem in the first few hours when you have a hopper as you can fly through the park in the morning, have lunch, head back to relax at the hotel, then hop to another park that night.

I agree with that. It’s not that I’m 100% opposed to hoppers. I just see a lot of time spent going here to there. I do think it’s best to avoid emh unless I suppose you want to get to the AM ones. Even then though. Parks are busier.

 

[gharter]

Lots of different answers.
We tend to avoid the parks with EMH unless we are going to park hop and usually leave about an hour or 2 after the park opens unless we do our FPS there, then we may stay later.
If we ar enot going to park hop, then we skip the EMH park adn go to that park the day after EMH.