This is a question I’ve gotten quite a bit from clients and from friends. Going to parks with Extra Magic Hours sounds like a good idea, but is it?
First, what are Extra Magic Hours (EMH)? Each day one theme park in Disney World will either open earlier or stay open later than normal park hours. Disney plans these out ahead of time and you can see the schedule on their website. Knowing the schedule for EMH helps when planning your days in the parks.
Personally, I have found that the morning EMH are better than the evening EMH. The reason being is that people are more likely to stay later in a park when they are already there then they are to get up early to go to a park. Therefore, the crowds for morning EMH are much lower than the evening EMH.
During our last trip we took advantage of morning EMH again. In those first couple of hours we were able to meet so many characters and ride a bunch of rides, because of the low crowds. Some of the experiences we had booked FastPasses for later in the day, so we were able to cancel those FastPasses and book new ones. We were able to experience so much before lunchtime and it was great!
So, my advice would be to take advantage of the morning EMH. You will be able to experience so much early in the day! It’s nice, because then the rest of the day can be taken at a slower pace. You can keep booking FastPasses or head back to the hotel for some relaxing pool time.
Extra Magic Hours are not open to the general public. To take advantage of this perk you must be a guest at either a Walt Disney World Resort hotel, a Disney Springs area hotel, or the Swan and Dolphin Resort.
Have you taken advantage of Extra Magic Hours?
Thanks for reading!
*Liz*
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Liz
I love all things Disney, but my main love is for Disney World and I'm always planning for the next trip. Before becoming a Disney blogger, I was a radio DJ, so I guess I'm just continuing in the communication industry, just in a different form. I love talking Disney and I could talk about Disney all day. That's why I started blogging and created the Facebook group. The Disney community is full of friendly, helpful, and happy people...and I love being a part of it! If there is any Disney subject you would like to see covered just let me know! Need help planning your Disney vacation. Feel free to contact myself or Melissa at Never Stop Dreaming Travel Co. We love helping people plan their trips! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! Don't forget to check out our Countdown to Disney app! Feel free to email me with suggestions of things you would like to see in the app :-)
Liz I love how much you and your family loves Disney! I am only a kid but Disney is my FAVORITE thing! Whenever I am on here and your articles are up I always read it. Thank you for the wonderful information!
Thank you for your kind words! I hope the information is helpful. 🙂
We have, and I have to agree, morning hours are better if you can get up in time. The parks are much less crowded. I’m curious, do you know if going to Animal Kingdom park for early hours is any help getting on either of the Pandora rides?
Hi Randi!
I haven’t had personal experience with that, but I’ve heard from other people that they had luck getting on Flight of Passage with much less of a wait when going during morning Extra Magic Hours.
My parents were just there and did park opening at AK for FOP. They got on in 25 min. This wasn’t even EMH so I would imagine that it would be even better with the EMH.
That’s fantastic! The wait times for FOP are still so high, so it’s worth getting up early for such a short wait.
We love EMH. We tend to do the evening magic hours because we are not morning people. Lol. We find that the later the EMH the less crowded it is. (Example EMH 9-11 is more crowded than a EMH 11pm-1am). Also, the last hour of the evening EMH tends to be less crowded as well. We have done Early EMH at AK (because they don’t do evening there) and it is great. But we have never done that since Pandora opened. Anyway. We love the EMH and it’s totally worth it. (Oh, I would also recommend park hopping for EMH. The park holding EMH is typically busier, so we like to go to a different park then hop over for the EMH )
That makes sense about the later EMH, not everyone can stay awake that late. LOL. I agree with you about park hopping and only going for the EMH. I have an AP, because I try to get down there a few times a year for website and travel agent stuff, but when my family comes with me we always get Park Hoppers so we have the option to hop.
This is great information however I am not up with all the jargon so things like FOP mean very little I can work out most of the acronyms but not all so it would be handy to have a list on the site.
Hi Julie!
I have a list on the website with some of the acronyms, which you can access under the Disney World Info Tab. I have it listed as Disney Lingo. If there are any other acronyms that you are not sure about, and they are not on the list, let me know and I’ll add it. Hope the list helps! I know it can get confusing trying to decipher what all the acronyms mean.