Stay on property for extra magic hours!

For Disney residents (those that stay on property), one of the primary benefits is the extra magic hours. Each day, one park opens early and/or closes late. These "extra hours" are for Disney guests only, so they can be very advantageous. This is especially true for Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

My children aren't old enough to enjoy many of the rides at EPCOT, although they do love that park for other reasons. Therefore, the extra hours at EPCOT have not been something we've done as a family. However, we have used them at all three of the other parks.

At Animal Kingdom, we got in early and were able to do the Safari and the river rapids rides before the first hour was up (the extra one).

In Magic Kingdom, we've only used extra hours in the morning, although they also have extra hours at night. Our kids, at 7 and 4, just don't last long enough to use the extra hours at night. They are lucky to make it long enough for the fireworks. However, in the morning, we get in early, do Dumbo and the Speedway because they have no fast passes and their lines can get very long. After that, it is on to Buzz Lightyear. We love this ride and the kids often want to do it more than once, so we get it in during the extra hour and then also get a fastpass for later in the day. Of course, you have to choose what you most want to do based on your preferences.

Hollywood Studios is where we benefited the most from the extra hour in the morning. Usually, to get into Jedi Academy, you have to race there first to sign up. However, you also want to race to Toy Story too...therefore, if you have a Star Wars loving child, where do you go first. You can split up. One get signed up for Jedi Academy and the other get Toy Story fast passes, but this is how it worked for us. We raced to Toy Story and I got in the fast pass line (it will be long) while my wife and kids got in the Toy Story regular line. I got the fast passes and then found my family in line. We rode the ride and then raced over to sign up for Jedi Academy, hoping that they won't have used up all the sign up because of the extra hours. We turned out to be right (I won't guarantee this especially during busy season) and actually got signed up for a time before lunch. After that, we returned to Toy Story (our kids favorite ride at HS) and rode it again with only a 15 minute wait. When we got off the ride, the line was then 1.5 hours long because the "extra" hour was done and the park was open generally. Plus, we still had our fast pass for later. With typically 2 hour lines, it is amazing we were able to do Toy Story 3 times in one day.

I would highly recommend taking advantage of the Extra Magic Hours when possible. If you are older and have older children, I'm sure the late night hours are worth it too. The parks are generally very pretty with all the lights after dark.