Extended Evening Hours - When to Enter Park

[toontownresident]

I have my very first trip to DW (!!!) booked for this upcoming August. We are staying at a deluxe resort which means we want to use those extended evening hours at MK. But most guides I've read for this park suggest rope dropping and showing up early. I don't think we would want to be at the park all the way from 8:30 AM to midnight, so my question is at what time would you recommend to enter the park when planning on attending extended evening hours? We'd like to sleep in on this morning if possible, but not so late that we miss out on taking full advantage of MK.

 

[SheSingsAlong]

Deluxe Extended Evening Hours afford such low crowds that you can accomplish a LOT of rides. If you'd prefer to sleep in, then focus on shows, experiences, and rides with reliably low wait times during the day. Plan on hitting the E ticket rides during the extended evening hours. If you don't mind skipping the fireworks, ride wait times also dip during the show. You could also rope drop and take a mid-day break (August will be pretty miserable mid-day) the return to the park around 6 or 7pm.

 

[EdwardtheConfessor]

It depends on what your goals are for the park. Are you looking to do all the rides or are you only targeting some? Are you going for more entertainment and meet and greets?

If it’s all the rides then rope dropping, then a break, and back for evening hours will likely get you on the most rides. However, if you have Genie get up at 7AM to start stacking LLs and you can come in later without too much of a hit.

 

[Skippyboo]

You could do rope drop and take advantage of early entry stay for a couple of hours then go back in the evening. August is super hot and humidity, so you want to take advantage of mornings and evenings and use the midday for the pool or napping.

 

[toontownresident]

Deluxe Extended Evening Hours afford such low crowds that you can accomplish a LOT of rides. If you'd prefer to sleep in, then focus on shows, experiences, and rides with reliably low wait times during the day. Plan on hitting the E ticket rides during the extended evening hours. If you don't mind skipping the fireworks, ride wait times also dip during the show. You could also rope drop and take a mid-day break (August will be pretty miserable mid-day) the return to the park around 6 or 7pm.

These are some great tips, thanks! I was hoping to sneak in some more resort exploration somewhere so maybe leaving and coming back would be perfect for that.

It depends on what your goals are for the park. Are you looking to do all the rides or are you only targeting some? Are you going for more entertainment and meet and greets?

If it’s all the rides then rope dropping, then a break, and back for evening hours will likely get you on the most rides. However, if you have Genie get up at 7AM to start stacking LLs and you can come in later without too much of a hit.

Definitely want to hit as many rides as possible, not as concerned with characters or shows. We were also thinking of saving a little bit of money by not buying Genie since we have the extended evening hours anyways. So it sounds like the best idea is still rope dropping but leaving and coming back later in the evening after a nice rest.

 

[Upatnoon]

I was at MK for extended hours and was able to ride Tron during that time getting a virtual queue drop at 6 p.m. that was finally called around 11:30 p.m.

The negative of doing this is that the line for that attraction was still a full hour, time you could have spent on other low-line attractions. Instead, you are standing in line. I would suggest doing that ride earlier in the day.

Just before the park closed I was able to ride Mine Train, waiting about 15 minutes.

I would suggest getting dinner, shopping and all that out of the way before the fireworks so you can concentrate on the rides all night and you should get a ton of stuff done with low lines.

 

[DisneyRobbie]

Do we know if the wait times for Tron individual lightning lane are just as long as the virtual boarding group times?

 

[slo]

Do we know if the wait times for Tron individual lightning lane are just as long as the virtual boarding group times?

The virtual queue is a longer wait. We did ILL for Tron two weeks ago, and after I saw the length of the VQ I was sooooo…..glad I did.

 

[slo]

I have my very first trip to DW (!!!) booked for this upcoming August. We are staying at a deluxe resort which means we want to use those extended evening hours at MK. But most guides I've read for this park suggest rope dropping and showing up early. I don't think we would want to be at the park all the way from 8:30 AM to midnight, so my question is at what time would you recommend to enter the park when planning on attending extended evening hours? We'd like to sleep in on this morning if possible, but not so late that we miss out on taking full advantage of MK.

Welcome to The DIS

My tip for you is to get a ILL for the afternoon because we overheard a family a few weeks ago that did the deluxe EMH and they did the 6:00pm VQ for Tron and their boarding group got called late and by the time they rode it and got out of the park it was after 2:00am - they were really unhappy about it. So make sure you are on the Tip Board early and get that ILL - don’t hesitate if Tron is important to you.

 

[robinb]

We usually park hop on Deluxe Extended Evening Hours days. We rope drop at a different park, take a break back at the resort and then go into the Deluxe Extended Evening Hours park a couple hours before it closes for everyone else. We then sleep in the next day because burning the candle at both ends makes my family cranky.

 

[subtchr]

Do we know if the wait times for Tron individual lightning lane are just as long as the virtual boarding group times?

ILL wait times are MUCH less than VQ.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

How late into August are you going? Last year, once party season started, MK was open until 11pm on Weds, so EEMH ran until 1am. Disney usually updates hours around the 15th of the month for the next month, so we'll know in a couple of weeks if they're doing that again for the 2023 party season. Definitely watch for that as your trip approaches.

Do you have hoppers? How long is your stay? Any younger kids who might struggle more with the long day?

When we used EEMH, we took those days to be more chill in the morning to help the kids (then 8 years) prepare for the late nights. But, we had a long trip with lots of park days, so we planned it that some of them would be RD days and others late nights. We also had hoppers, so we started the day in another park and then got to MK around dinner to start evening touring.

If I was on a shorter trip without kids or hoppers, I'd probably do a marathon day with a long lunch on the monorail loop and air conditioned shows in the midday peak heat in lieu of totally leaving the area.

 

[lorileahb]

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[lorileahb]

Welcome to The DIS

My tip for you is to get a ILL for the afternoon because we overheard a family a few weeks ago that did the deluxe EMH and they did the 6:00pm VQ for Tron and their boarding group got called late and by the time they rode it and got out of the park it was after 2:00am - they were really unhappy about it. So make sure you are on the Tip Board early and get that ILL - don’t hesitate if Tron is important to you.

Just read this one - good to know! Was wondering about the 6 p.m. VQ drop... and thinking could just wait to get in line at 11:50 p.m. after group called (on a 10 p.m.-12 a.m. Extended Hours day)... BUT didn't realize the wait after being called could be that long!