Evening EMH Studios Questions; Please advise

[deva]

Please respond if you have done the Evening Extra Magic Hour at Disney-MGM Studios.

I am planning a short October vacation and trying to maximize my time at Disney. On one of the nights I will be there, the studios are having an evening EMH. I have not been to WDW since they started this program & am curious about what to expect. I have several questions:

1. The information says that the park stays open for an extra three hours. Is this always the case? I will be there during an off-peak time of the year, and the park is slated to close at 7:30. Will it be open until 10:30, or close a bit earlier?

2. How crowded does the park get on these days? I’m curious about the morning, afternoon, evening, and EMH time. Is it more crowded than normal during the early part of the day? How crowded is it during EMH time?

3. The information says that only 6 rides are open during EMH evenings at the studios. I like to ride the R&R coaster & Tower of Terror over & over. As there aren’t many other things open, are the lines for these two rides jammed?

Thank you.

[MsMin]

1. The information says that the park stays open for an extra three hours. Is this always the case? I will be there during an off-peak time of the year, and the park is slated to close at 7:30. Will it be open until 10:30, or close a bit earlier?

Yes, it will be open until 10:30 if the park closes at 7:30
2. How crowded does the park get on these days? I’m curious about the morning, afternoon, evening, and EMH time. Is it more crowded than normal during the early part of the day? How crowded is it during EMH time?
I spent the full day there when we went and the crowds were not bad in the day. During the evening the thrill rides were packed. I recommend getting them out of the way early and seeing the rest like fantasmic or other open activity later in the evening.
3. The information says that only 6 rides are open during EMH evenings at the studios. I like to ride the R&R coaster & Tower of Terror over & over. As there aren’t many other things open, are the lines for these two rides jammed?
I've done EMH evening twice now and they have been fairly jammed about an hour wait during a slow time of year. ToT is not as bad as RnR.

[Vinny]

Please respond if you have done the Evening Extra Magic Hour at Disney-MGM Studios.

I am planning a short October vacation and trying to maximize my time at Disney. On one of the nights I will be there, the studios are having an evening EMH. I have not been to WDW since they started this program & am curious about what to expect. I have several questions:

1. The information says that the park stays open for an extra three hours. Is this always the case? I will be there during an off-peak time of the year, and the park is slated to close at 7:30. Will it be open until 10:30, or close a bit earlier?

2. How crowded does the park get on these days? I’m curious about the morning, afternoon, evening, and EMH time. Is it more crowded than normal during the early part of the day? How crowded is it during EMH time?

3. The information says that only 6 rides are open during EMH evenings at the studios. I like to ride the R&R coaster & Tower of Terror over & over. As there aren’t many other things open, are the lines for these two rides jammed?

Thank you.

1. All of the times I have been to evening EMH's at MGM the park has always remained open 3 hours after its scheduled closing time.

2. Crowds at this time of year are usually lighter than those in summer. I am not too sure on the question of crowds during the day at the park on the particular day that has evening EMH's because I usually will not go to that park in the day time if I will be there that night. My guess would be that the crowd levels would be normal for the time of year you are planning to go.

3. Although there are only 6 attractions open for MGM EMH's, the lines have not been very long for the past few times I have been there. On my last trip I was able to ride ToT, get back in line, ride again, get back in line and ride a third time all in about 15 minutes.

[deva]

Thank you MsMin and Vinny.

So far the 2 responses to my 3rd question have very different answers. One says the lines are jammed during EMH, and the other says they rode 3 times in 15 minutes. Quite a disparity so far. If anyone else who has done EMH evenings at the studios could weigh in with their experiences so I could get a better idea of the trend I would greatly appreciate it.

[Vinny]

Thank you MsMin and Vinny.

So far the 2 responses to my 3rd question have very different answers. One says the lines are jammed during EMH, and the other says they rode 3 times in 15 minutes. Quite a disparity so far. If anyone else who has done EMH evenings at the studios could weigh in with their experiences so I could get a better idea of the trend I would greatly appreciate it.

It is really all proportional. If you are going to WDW in the spring or summer time, you can expect larger crowds during the day and thus larger crowds for EMH's during those times. In the fall and winter, crowds are usually smaller so EMH's crowds are generally smaller. As you are going in October, the crowds should be on the smaller side.

[BelleBeauty]

I agree with Vinny. I have done EMH at MGM only during summer hours. The lines for RnR and TOT get jammed at the beginning because these are the biggies. What I have noticed in all parks is that when EMH extends to 2am, you have a better chance at short lines if you wait it out until the very end of the evening. What I would guess for EMH in off-peak season is that the crowds would be less in general, but since the park is only open until 10:30pm, and most of us can stay up that late, the crowd levels would be about the same throughout EMH.

[Rayadragon]

I had a similar experience to Vinny's, in that the lines were relativly short for ToT (and I'm assuming RnR, although we didn't ride it during EMH). We went during the begining of October last year. Also, the length of the lines varried conciderably depending on when during the EMH it was. Early on, the lines were still pretty croweded. The night we went, it seemed like a lot of people were staying for a later performance of Fantasmic, and left right after. The final hour or so of the EMH you could pretty much ride ToT over and over without much wait.

[Tiggerish]

I was there last October and went to evening EMH at MGM. I recall waiting an extraordinarily long time to get on the Great Movie Ride. I credited that to it being the first open ride that most everyone encountered as they entered the park, because I'm pretty sure we walked right onto Star Tours.

I don't ride either RnR or ToT, so I can't say what their lines were like. Sorry!

[GAN]

It's very hard to predict. During the summer months, the parks are open later so the extra 3hours could bring you to 2AM -that keeps a good amount of guests away for the full 3 hours. If MGM closes at 7:30, it will remain open until 10:30 -a fairly reasonable hour. I would expect a good crowd even though October is a slower time of year. Out of all the parks, MGM would be my last choice for the evening EMH. I've been in June and at 12:30AM there was still an hour wait for ToT. Early EMH is your best bet.

[pianobabe]

We have taken advantage of the EMH at MGM the past couple of years, and I thought it was great. I didn't think the lines were bad at all. What I liked about those nights is there were 2 showings of Fantasmic. We rode a lot of the popular rides during the 1st showing and then went to the 2nd show. The show wasn't too crowded and the wait for rides after the 2nd show still wasn't that bad then. We really had a lot of fun taking advantage of the EMH. It is really neat to ride ToT at night.