Riding the Haunted Mansion late at night gives it an extra scary oomph.

When staying on Disney World property, a great plus is access to parks an hour early in the morning, or 3 hours late in the evening. Extra Magic Hour, as it is called, is available only to Disney World resort guests, who must show their resort ID when entering the parks.

Each day, Extra Magic Hour is a little different. One day, Animal Kingdom may be open an hour early, while the next day, Magic Kingdom may be open 3 hours late. Here are a few considerations for each as you decide which to take advantage of:

Morning Extra Magic Hour

Not for night owls: If you’re the type who stays up past midnight, it’s pretty unlikely you would be able to make it to a park’s front entrance by 8 a.m. And if you do, you’ll be yawning! Make sure to get some rest if you plan to take advantage of morning EMH.

Early touring: With morning EMH, you can often get several rides in early. Beware though, that morning EMH parks tend to be quite busy once the extra hour is over with. But if all goes well, you can plan more activities for later in the day at another park.

Cooler temps: Especially in the summer, you can really beat the heat by getting out there early. We hear that the extra hour at Animal Kingdom is especially magical in the cooler morning, when the animals are more active. By midday, you can retreat to the refreshing pool at your resort, or visit Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach to cool off.

Evening Extra Magic Hour

Not for early birds: If you’re the type who nods off after 10 p.m., you’re going to have no fun forcing yourself to run around the parks late at night. If you plan to hit evening EMH, catch a nap in the afternoon, or maybe a Red Bull or 5-Hour Energy…

All to yourself: If you stick around to the wee hours of an evening EMH, you really feel like you have the place to yourself. Rides that are packed during normal hours, like Peter Pan’s Flight and Space Mountain, become nearly deserted. And for rides that aren’t normally as popular, you can ride over and over and over…

Night riding: Picture riding the Haunted Mansion late at night during a thunderstorm (spooky!), rounding the curve at Test Track in the dark (exhilarating!), or being able to ride Splash Mountain 3 times in a row with a dark drop at the end (wheeeee!). There’s a thrill to feeling like you’re somehow breaking the rules by riding so late, even though you’re not, of course.

That said, some families prefer morning EMH, others prefer evening EMH, while others attempt as much EMH as they can! Which type of Extra Magic Hour do you prefer? Leave a comment below.

Sign Posting Wait Time for Tower of Terrow

I know you hate the idea of “scheduling” your vacation; so do I. But just doing a small amount of planning can help you save time and money in Disney World. Just think: by creating a touring plan, you can easily save yourself countless hours of standing in lines waiting for 4-minute rides!

Touring plans can be brief or extremely detailed. It all depends on what you want and with whom you’re traveling. You can create them yourself, ask a travel agent for help, or engage the service of several companies who can customize touring plans for you.

What’s a touring plan look like?
Touring plans are usually just step-by-step itineraries, crafted to take advantage of the times when rides, parades, and events are least popular with other guests. Here’s a sample touring plan from TouringPlans.com, which is the website for one of the best Disney World guidebooks on the market: The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World.

Animal Kingdom Touring Plan (c)TouringPlans.com

While this is a less-detailed touring plan for a day at the Animal Kingdom, you can easily create more detailed touring plans or broader touring plans, based on how scheduled you’d like your vacation to be. For more examples of touring plans, fill out the checkboxes on this page and submit to see samples that fit your criteria (be sure to check the “free plans” box).

We recommend that if you’re traveling with a lot of people, or with several little kids, you make a more detailed touring plan. This will allow you to schedule around naptimes for the little ones, and around what will likely be large meal times for a group or family.

How do I make one myself?
Making a touring plan yourself may take a little research and ambition, but it’s absolutely possible. In fact, we recommend doing a few touring plan drafts so that you get a better idea of the geography of the theme parks and which rides are the most popular.

For that research:

• Look through a guidebook or two (our favorite is the one we mentioned before: The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World) to figure out which rides, restaurants, and attractions might be best for your family/group.
• Study some Theme Park Maps to get a better understanding of where rides and restaurants are located.
• Figure out what the most popular attractions are in each Theme Park. These are usually the ones to visit early in the morning, before the lines get long. We believe these are:
  • Magic Kingdom: Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Peter Pan’s Flight, Winnie the Pooh, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, Haunted Mansion
  • Epcot: Soarin’, Test Track, Mission: Space
  • Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Toy Story Midway Mania, Rock-n-Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, American Idol Experience, Fantasmic (the night time show)
  • Animal Kingdom: Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safairs, Kali River Rapids, Dinosaur, and the stage shows–Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo, the Musical.

  Figure out which of these rides on top on your list; they’re the ones you want to head to first in your touring plan.

• Visit TouringPlans.com, where there are more sample touring plans as well as some great mini-guides to each theme park.

Now, take a shot at writing up a broad touring plan for one of the theme parks you’d like to visit. Just list the rides and attractions you don’t want to miss, schedule the most popular ones in the morning, and schedule the rest according to importance and geographic location. Don’t forget to add in time and restaurant choice for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner.

Once you have this broad overview, consider if the fastpass service can help you save time. With this service, you can avoid waiting in longer lines by “reserving” your ride time in advance. Here’s a primer on how fastpass works, and which attractions offer fastpass. If you’re going at a particularly busy time (look here to determine the busiest times of the year to visit WDW), you will likely want to use fastpass for most of the more popular attractions.

Finally, if you’ll be staying at a Walt Disney World Resort Hotel, consider which parks are offering Extra Magic Hours on the days you’ll be in Disney World. While this shouldn’t change your touring plan significantly (you’ll probably want to visit the same attractions is about the same order), it could lengthen your day and/or offer you the opportunity to avoid even more crowds.

How do I ask my travel agent about these?
If the research and development above seems a bit too intensive for your first trip, consider working with a travel agent to book your hotel, flight, and other reservations. If you work with a Disney-trained, specialist travel agent (called “Disney Vacation Specialists”), s/he should be able to develop touring plans for you, or help you to develop your own.

Can’t I just throw money at it?
Of course you can.

• TouringPlans.com has a subscription service where you can access their detailed touring plans (a WIDE variety of specific touring plans), theme park “cheat sheets,” and research articles on Walt Disney World for $8.95 per year. Subscribe here.
• Ridemax is a relatively new piece of software that will generate touring plans for you. For ~$20/3 months and ~$30/year subscriptions, the investment might be worth the time-savings for a lot of folks. We haven’t used the software, but SoloFriendly.com reviews the service here.
• Tour Guide Mike (TGM), a service created by a former Walt Disney World VIP tour guide, offers an online vacation planning system for $21.95. This can be used for only one vacation; if you wish to renew for another vacation, the price could be discounted.

So, as you can see, there are several options to help you plan the best possible Disney World vacation. While this may seem stressful in and of itself, the most important tips to keep in mind are these:

• Visit the most popular rides in the early morning
• Schedule some down time in the afternoon for napping and relaxing
• Choose up to four main attractions in each park that are must-sees; after that, relax and go with the flow. Nobody can do EVERYTHING in Disney World. Remember, this is your vacation!

Relax. Have fun. And feel free to send me your touring plans for feedback!