[staffieri]

Hello Experts,

Is early or late entry worth it? We will be staying I think at Saratoga last week in April and was thinking is it worth going to this? Or do you want to skip these parks because it can be crowded those days. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Kimberly Stafferi

[DisneyTeacher]

We think it's worth it. We usually start the day with Early Entry and take an afternoon break and go to a different park after our break. If we didn't do EE we would go to a different park beacuse it does make that park more crowded.

[gingles]

I don't know about late entry, it wasn't in effect the last time we went. We did do "E" night at MK and it was a blast because they limit entrants to about 5000.

You'll probably get a lot of comments on this one way or another, but we felt the early entry privilege was a double-edged sword. You do get in early and it's good for an hour or so, but early entry at a park seems to attract huge amounts of WDW resort guests to that park. We did it at MK and that park was jammed for the rest of the entire day, the worst summer crowd we'd ever seen.

I think Unofficial Guide still generally recommends avoiding early entry parks, but I could be wrong.

[gingles]

Originally Posted by DisneyTeacher

We think it's worth it. We usually start the day with Early Entry and take an afternoon break and go to a different park after our break. If we didn't do EE we would go to a different park beacuse it does make that park more crowded.

DT that's probably the answer, enjoy that park for a while then bail to another at late morning or lunch.

[tink74]

We think both the early entry and the late opens are worth it. On our trip in January, we would do the early open park until about 1, head back to the hotel for lunch, and then off to the late open park.
The only negative comment I have about the late open at Epcot is that the World Showcase practically shuts down (except for Norway), and the only restaurant that was open was The Electric Umbrella.....but for rides, it's great!

[BuzzLightyear]

We've done early entry twice.
It's very well worth it, for us mostly at MK. With the little one we are able to do Dumbo and a few of the other kids rides with no waits and get out of the park before it gets real crowded.

[karliebug]

We take advantage of early entry and then park hop when it gets crowded and go somewhere else. We used later hours in January and it worked out great for us.

[chiasgirl]

We certainly found EE worthwhile at MK. We were able to do Space, Buzz, Peter Pan, Pooh and Snow White before the rest of the park opened, putting us at the front of the line for Splash and Big Thunder.
I'm not convinced the other parks are as good of a deal as there are so few rides open that the crowds seem to build up quickly. As well, you miss the opening ceremonies which could be fun especially with little ones (if you have them).
They didn't have the evening hours last time we were there so I can't comment on those. However, I think 3 hours mihgt be a bit much if there are still only a handful of rides open.

[dznygrl]

Early entry is definitely worth it to me. We usually take advantage of the early entry, hit as many attractions as we can before the park opens to the rest of the public, and then head to a different park. (It's true, the EE parks get very crowded later in the day. But in the morning, it's worth the trip just for that first hour!!)

I'll give you an example of how valuable early entry was to us. We are "Park Commandos" so we move really fast, but on an Early Entry morning at MK, we were able to hit Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain and FIVE Fantasyland attractions in an hour and a half! That's 9 attractions in only 90 minutes! Don't ask me how it was possible, but it was awesome. (This was in mid-September.)

By the way...welcome to DC! You have a great name. (My name is Kimberly too!)

[Magoo]

We tried the EMH evening at MK on Feb 9 and it was absolutely not worth it. The park was EXTREMELY crowded. The EMH was from 7 - 10 pm. We arrived at 7 pm and fought the crowds to get back to Fantasyland (the non resort guests were leaving at the time we were going in). In those 3 hours we rode Haunted Mansion, Aladdin's carpets, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Teacups! We went back to MK the following morning for the day and, to be quite honest with you, it was just as crowded the night before with only resort guests as it was the following day when it was open to everyone. Mind you the week of Feb 6 - 12 turned out to be an extremely busy week at all the parks and the resorts were totally full. The EMH may be worth it in less crowded times, I don't know. We usually go in the fall but previously only the morning EMH existed and we never went to those.

[cooncat]

When we were at WDW in 2000, they only had "E" nights for MK, and I think it was only one time that week. We really enjoyed it. We took a break and had dinner at Trail's End then took the boat back to MK. We got to watch the fireworks from the lake, and then were able to do the open rides several times in a row. I also enjoyed the park at night - low lighting and small crowds (at that time of year)...very nice. We have done the Early Entry, but not being morning people we haven't done it often. I felt you really had to plan and move quickly to get the most out of the hour in the morning so we don't do them any more. We're looking forward to the late nights this time since it sounds like it's a different park every night.

[Disneyfever]

I'm going next week and I will let everyone know how crowded it is at night for the late hours. The schedule is: Sunday MGM 7-10, Tuesday AK 5-8, Wednesday MK 7-10, and Thursday Epcot open until midnight. (Now that's what the CM told me on the phone that Epcot is open until midnight, I don't know if that is true or not though. It seems very late). We are not morning people, so we are hoping the extra hours in the evening will be good. We'll see and let you know!

[mickaholic4077]

The only park that I think the morning EMH is worth it is MK because so many rides are open. In the other parks,maybe 4 or 5 attractions are open,so it isn't worth it.

[kizzmitt]

I'm a morning person so early opening works for me! I found that the park stayed relativly uncrowed up until about 11:00! I always go early May so that may have something to do with it. When I was there last May they did a test run of the new hours and they did not tell us until Monday AM. Epcot did stay open untill 12! It was fun riding test track at midnight! When I was there only China stayed open late!

[staffieri]

Look forward to hearing how it was DISNEYFEVER. Are you doing the dinig plan too? I would love to hear about that as well. Thanks for all the advice everyone. I like going and them heading to another park. Good idea.
Kimberly