WDW to get strict about Extra Magic Hours
An interesting report from the news section over at the Touring Plans website, the official site of the Unofficial Guide and Len “Diver Down” Testa, tells us about some upcoming changes to how Disney will conduct Extra Magic Hours in Florida.
Disney will begin testing a stricter enforcement of Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom Park with checkpoints within the park to assure that only Disney Resort Guests are visiting during the period.
Personally, Extra Magic Hours drives me insane, and it’s one of those things Disney has done recently that bugs me. In what is obviously a cost cutting measure, Disney World has spent the last few years scaling back their park hours. As a way to mask this to those spending the most money with them, on property resort guests, they offer Extra Magic Hours. Essentially they funnel everyone to the same park, creating what is often a place that is much more crowded than during the rest of the day. So now you can either go to this jam-packed park, or call it a night at 8 or 9 o’clock.
If Disney can do something to alleviate some of the crowds by enforcing these things more, I am all for it. Cleary the beginning of an Extra Magic Hours is the worst time and this may be a partial fix. But the real fix is to stop this nonsense and leave the parks open later more often for everyone to attend. (Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now…)
Matt said,
July 16, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
Unless I’m at Disney World when it’s dead, I don’t go to EMH. You’re doing yourself a favor by not going most of the time because of the crowd issues Dave mentions.
Biblioadonis aka George said,
July 16, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
Sigh.
That was amazing. If you were a resort guest, you paid an extra $12.00 to buy a ticket that let you stay three hours after park closing. It is similar to EMH now–you traded in your ticket and received a wristband. I remember the ride operators checking the wristbands before you were allowed on the ride.
In 1997, we rode Splash Mountian 3 times in a row without leaving the log. Let me tell you–that water *really* stinks. Riding Pirates with no one on a boat anywhere near you was really creepy.
There lots of characters running around. The best thins was that they rarely sold more than 5,000 tickets for an evening.
I do avoid the EMH hours all together. And the parks offering EMH.
I concur, they do need a way to clear out the, uh, undesirables every evening to make the EMH a more relaxed and enjoyable way to see the parks.
Ray said,
July 16, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
Now, I must admit that I have never been to WDW during peak season, but I found that the advice I read in the Unofficial guide proved to be spot on in regards to Extra Magic Hours in the morning.
If you can pry yourself out of bed and get to the park when they open you can get alot done before the gates are open to the general public. The key part of the advice that proved true was to get your butt out of that park shortly after the park opens to the general public and go to another park.
Now, being that my experience was during the off-season (September), I found that you could make it till almost noon before the crowds became less than desirable (translation: there is a wait to get on rides) and we’d just go to another park and eat lunch and tour.
Raidermatt said,
July 16, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
Dave, I am in 100% agreement with you on this one. The real solution is longer park hours to begin with. As for enforcing the current policy, I’ve seen them do that sometime at the entrances to the rides/pavilions, but it is very inconsistent.
Since I don’t like the policy anyway, I really don’t have a problem with them not enforcing it though. I know it means some non-resort guests make it through, but I have no desire to see them booted out.
If they really are going to insist on enforcing it, I don’t think checkpoints are necessary, they just need to check for wristbands before allowing people on rides. Who really cares if non-resort guests roam the park, buy an ice cream or sit on a bench?
We did some EMH nights a few weeks ago, and it really seems like its not worth the trouble. I did sometimes look around to see how many were wearing wristbands, and the vast majority were, so I don’t think enforcing the policy is really going to make much of a difference anyway.
I think the EMH evenings are only worth it if you want to ride the less popular attractions or just soak up the atmosphere.
The mornings of course are a different situation. They are more easily controlled and all reports are that you really can get a lot done during them. They are a nice perk, even though we personally don’t use them because we just don’t get up and going early enough.
George, I think you are referring to E-ride nights, and while I agree they were fun when you chose to pay the money and take advantage of them, they still aren’t the real solution, in my opinion. The parks are just closing too early. Plus, there’s enough hard-ticketed events already. It’s really frustrating to see them close a park early so they can have an event that requires an additional admission fee, like they are doing with the upcoming Pirate and Princess Parties.
Now, if they kept the parks open later, and THEN added on E-ride nights or EMH, I’d probably be ok with that.
biblioadonis aka George said,
July 17, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
I did mean E-Ride Nights
If I remember correctly, the E-Ride nights were until midnight or later when we were there in September 1997.
They still did the Surprise Mornings at all of the parks. At the time, Magic Kingdom and the Disney-MGM Studios were the only parks that were worth it in my opinion. In 1997, there weren’t many rides that had all-day lines at Epcot.
Now, I would recommend EMH at Epcot just to get Mission: Space, Test Track and Soarin’ out of the way.
I *wonder* if Disney could require an after evenings FastPass to board the rides. You would need to enter your resort ID card to enter the queue.
Eh, just a thought.
Raidermatt said,
July 18, 2007 @ 12:45 am
The problem with Epcot, at least on the EMH nights we have been to, was that Soarin’ and Test Track waits were still over an hour during EMH. Mission Space was shorter, which reminds me of something I noticed but wasn’t sure about the “why”. Last year when we were there, the green and orange team had wait times that were always very close together. 10 minutes and 20 minutes, 20 and 30, etc (but never more than 30. This was late July, early August).
This year we saw much bigger gaps, with the longer wait was for the orange team, and that was the wait time used on the big board in the middle of the park. The times were often like 10 minutes for green (but really was a walk-on) and 60 or 70 for orange, and the board would say M:S wait = 70 minutes.
Have they re-distributed the number of ride vehicles devoted to each side, or is orange just more popular now?
Len Testa said,
July 20, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
“Diver Down” - nice. Thanks!