Extra Magic Hours are Disney’s way of allowing resort guests to enjoy some more magic before the gates open to the general public or after they have closed. Extra Magic Hours are typically known as EMH on a lot of Disney sites and Facebook groups. So, let’s talk about which is better-Morning vs. Evening Extra Magic Hours.
Morning Extra Magic Hours
- The park opens an hour earlier than normal. If you are an early riser, then these hours are for you.
- The weather is typically cooler in the mornings, which makes for more pleasant touring.
- If you have Park Hopper tickets, you can enjoy some early attractions and then hop to another park just in time for opening. For example, if you arrived at EPCOT when their Morning Extra Magic Hours started at 8:00 am, you could enjoy Soarin’, Test Track, and a few other attractions. Then, hop the monorail around 9:15 and arrive at Magic Kingdom early in the day.
- Morning Extra Magic Hours are one hour before the posted park opening, which doesn’t lead to A LOT of touring time. However, if you keep in mind that you are going to just enjoy a few attractions and then go with the flow the rest of the day, you’ll be pleased with how much you can get done.
- Get FastPasses for a “must do” attraction for later in the day, AND ride standby with little to no wait.
- Feel confident that you’ve done a lot of touring, and you can return to the resort for a midday break.
- Best parks for Morning Extra Magic Hours: EPCOT and Animal Kingdom
Evening Extra Magic Hours
- The park stays open up to three hours later than the posted closing time. If you enjoy the parks at night, and want to experience some of the nighttime spectaculars, these hours are for you.
- After the heat of the day, it’s fun to be in the parks at night. The weather is a bit cooler, and many times the crowd has thinned a bit because families are enjoying character dinners, experiencing other nighttime activities like the luau, or have returned to their resorts for some down time.
- Evening Extra Magic Hours are relaxing. You can often experience lower ride wait times if you are at the parks during nighttime shows and fireworks.
- These are a good time to go back and enjoy some attractions you missed during the day or want to do again.
- Best parks for Evening Extra Magic Hours: Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios
So what do you think? There are for sure great things about both Morning and Evening Extra Magic Hours. Personally, evening at Magic Kingdom can’t be beat. Especially during the summer months when they schedule the Main Street Electrical Parade, followed by Wishes, and then the MSEP parade again! No matter how you use them, Extra Magic Hours can be to your advantage when touring the Disney parks.
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I love the EMH. I take advantage of the evening EMH most of the time. It makes it great for sleeping in and park hopping.
BOTH! But the morning hours are best to get the few ‘E ticket’ attractions done without a wait; then you can put less stress on getting those done with all of the crowds. Also, I’m a big fan of going back to the resort for food/a nap, then hitting the late night extra magic hours for more fun!!
Like disneyfriend, I have found the morning hours are much less crowded than evening hours. I like the quiet feel of the parks in the morning and plan on utilizing the morning EMHs during my next trip!
For my family the Morning EMH are the best because we are all early risers and find that there are generally less people at the morning then evening EMH. It seems that for the Evening EMH there are so many people still there from the day that just haven’t gotten out of the part right on time that by the time we wait for all the general public to leave, there is not much time left to enjoy the park.
Probably should change that up to 3 hours to 2 hours based on the fact disney changed extra magic hours from 3 to 2 hours at night. that would eliminate some confusion for people that still think EMH are 3 hours at night. I don’t think we will ever see 3 hours again in an effort to save money by disney.