Over in the Hilton forum, in one of the Hilton hotel threads, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...sta-us-fl.html, it has been mentioned that Disney may be looking at changing the Extra Magic Hours benefit. I thought it might be worth posting this here as that goes beyond just Hilton's one property that had access to those extra hours.

I did find an interesting article on this at: 3 Possible Futures of Extra Magic Hours at Walt Disney World

I'm a bit worried as I kind of liked Disney offering that benefit (though not necessarily for the most obvious reason.) The last couple of trips I've taken, I didn't really go to any of the parks with the extra hours. I'm probably getting a bit old and I'm either too tired to get up extra early or stay later. What was nice is that I could plan on heading to a different park in the hopes that it might be a bit less crowded as the park with the extra hours tends to be extra crowded. So having it "pull" people there meant that maybe the lines would be a bit less at the other parks.

So I'm hoping they don't do away with the benefit (even though I don't normally take full advantage of it myself.)

I haven't taken advantage in ages, though 2 weeks ago I did hang around a bit longer in Epcot. I probably wouldn't miss them.

The MK, at this time of year, is open until midnight or 1am anyway. There is no way I would stay in the park that late.

But I did see a lot of people coming off the resort launches and headed into the parks after the fireworks. It usually empties out at that time and I guess they stayed for the extra hours.

People who don't go as often as we do would do themselves very well using the late hours, particularly at this time of year. It's hot and humid during the day and quite nice at night. After the second parade the park empties out and the waits drop to nearly nothing.

I agree our age MAY have something to do with it

My guess is that the Hilton leaving Extra Magic Hours is due to the Fast Pass Plus (FP+) system. Currently, there really is no way for Cast Members to verify that a guest is actually staying at the Hilton. Next year, the problem goes away because during Extra Magic Hours, all guests will have either a Magic Band or a Disney Resort room key.

I'm a former Disney Cast Member. One of my roles was training the Reservation Sales Agents. When describing Extra Magic Hours, if a guest said that they wouldn't get up early or stay late to use them, one of the preferred responses was to say essentially what you wrote. (We always made sure that the word "may" or "might" was part of the script.)

I also worked at a temporary/seasonal role within the parks. My colleagues came from many different areas, including Attractions and various resorts. Those folks always said that Extra Magic Hours in one park really didn't lessen demand in the other parks. Of course, none of us had access to any real data...so, it was all just speculation.

So do/will those at the Swan/Dolphin get Magic Bands or will they also drop or lose access to EMH?

Honestly, I completely forgot about the Swan and Dolphin. That does invalidate my theory. To be fair, I did preface my comment by calling it a "guess".