WDW last week

[RBrooksC]

Te parks were empty. The longest wait I had was Soarin' and that was due to the limitations of the ride. It was either wait 40 min in line or 2.5 hours for Fastpass.

At the magic kingdom, I think five minutes was the longest wait, save Dumbo, and I was able to ride many rides twice in a row.

The only thing I saw that was busy was dining and that was due to the free Dining plan. If you didn't have a ADR at a popular place, you were out of luck getting a seat.

It was nice to be able to do everything you wanted to do in the parks and have time to spare to do other things.

[wifey5794]

We were there actually this week last year and felt the same way. We spent more time and saw more people in the food court then we saw all day!

IMO it is a perfect time to go!

[Kairi_7378]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm going to be there next Monday and I hope that the crowd levels stay low for me too. I was nervous but you've made me feel better!

[CanadianWDWFan]

Thanks guys!:thumbsup: We are in single digit countdown mode now! We really have only been during the busy times so I am sure that this will be a different trip for us!

[BethieTink]

This is great news. I am headed down next Friday for 10 days. Can't wait!

I expect a somewhat bigger crowd for the holiday weekend, but I think it will quiet down on Monday or Tuesday for the rest of the week. At least I hope so.

Getting very excited!!

[mjaclyn]

Wow...I had a completely different experience. The parks were crowded when I was there last week. We visited from September 15 - 25 and were very surprised at the crowds. I went to two Little Ones EMH mornings at MK and both were packed. I didn't get to ride Dumbo once with my DD because the line was so long. If Disney offers free dining again next year I don't think we'll be coming back in September.

[jenperich]

Te parks were empty. The longest wait I had was Soarin' and that was due to the limitations of the ride. It was either wait 40 min in line or 2.5 hours for Fastpass.

At the magic kingdom, I think five minutes was the longest wait, save Dumbo, and I was able to ride many rides twice in a row.

The only thing I saw that was busy was dining and that was due to the free Dining plan. If you didn't have a ADR at a popular place, you were out of luck getting a seat.

It was nice to be able to do everything you wanted to do in the parks and have time to spare to do other things.

I don't think I've ever been when it's been that slow. I hope its even remotely like that when we're there in November, right after Thanksgiving. We'll see. :mickey:

[Gottaluvgoof]

September 7 - 12 was the same way. It was wonderful. We were able to ride our favorites like Everest, Space Mountain, Soarin, Splash and many others numerous times. I've been to Disney in Feb., June, August, and September. September is definitely #1. :number1: Already booked for next year. :mickey:

[RBrooksC]

I should say Big Thunder Railroad was a little longer in the wait times. I did use Fastpass on that but... I was able to ride everything else while waiting for my time which was about 45 min later so it wasn't an problem.

I still have my ToT Fastpass because I never needed it.

[KellyWasHere]

Great news! I know 2 different groups that went last week, and they said the same thing. Crowds were very low and they didn't have to wait long for any but the most popular rides. Hope it's the same this weekend and next week !

[Seasonscraps]

We were in the MK on the 20th & 21st and had the same experience - we pretty much walked onto everything. Our longest wait was Peter Pan for 10 minutes and Buzz Lightyear maybe 8 min but there seemed to be a ride breakdown as some guests rode through again and we were able to walk right back on again with no wait.

[Stickey]

I completely disagree. Crowd levels were significantly higher this September(9/15-9/23-07). We have gone to WDW for the past four years, and this year was CROWDED!

Typical September ride waits are 5-15 minutes, with the exception of Soarin. This year, it was 20-70 minutes. There were a few walk-in, or 5 minute waits, but that was rare. The AK was especially crowded. It seems that free dining has led to much larger crowds in the parks and restaurants.

[ariel03]

We where there Sept. 11th-18th and had high crowds during our trip.

[Melanie]

These conflicting reports are interesting. :confused:

[crltkcagle]

We were there the 10th -16th and didn't find it too terribly crowded. the longest wait we had was 10 mintues anywhere we went. It was nice to not have to stand in line and wait a long time for rides. we rode several things two times in a row.

[karenrarintogo]

We were in WDW Sept. 14-19 and it was definitely busier than Sept. 06. In general, waits were twice as long as last year, I thought. There were a few times when the lines were minimal, and it seemed related to the time of day. We found late afternoon had the lowest lines.
We did a walk on to Tower of Terror late afternoon. Kali River Rapids had about a 10 min wait one afternoon. Almost a walk-on on Maelstrom one late afternoon. Living with the Land was a walk on late afternoon.
Soarin, even with a fast pass, was always at least a 15 min wait. Between 11 and 3, it reminded me of summer, with the crowds. :mickey:

[Marker]

These conflicting reports are interesting. :confused:

I thought so too. Perhaps a matter of perspective, or just circumstances.

I was there from 9-21 - 9-25. I was very pleased with the size of the crowd. I don't recall a posted Stand-By time of more than 20 minutes, and often the actual wait was more like 5 or 10. Several time my daughter and I joked that the 10 minute wait posted was the 10 minutes it took to walk to the loading spot.

As many have said, Soarin' had the longest wait, 40 minutes. But, as Disney Magic would have it, as we walked up to the fast pass kiosk, someone gave us 2 past passes that were good right then.

As for restaurants, yeah, they were busy, but I saw at least 2 occasions of people walking up and putting their name in with no reservation and getting "reasonable" wait times, once at Kona, and once at Biergarten.

Now, on Saturday, my daughter hopped over to Magic Kingdom and said it was pretty crowded.

So maybe it was where you happened to be whether or not it was crowded. But overall for us, the crowds were very managable.

[karenrarintogo]

...I continue to remember our experience in Sept."
Midafternoon, Magic Kingdom Fantasy Land had about 20-25 minute waits, with the exception of "IASW, which didn't have a wait at all when we were there.
Expedition Everest was about a 15 min wait early Sunday afternoon, which wasn't bad at all!
POTC was about a 10 min wait before 11 am.
Splash Mountain was a 25 min wait early Friday afteroon, but fast pass was down on this ride.
Only did BTM with a fast pass and that wait was about 5 minutes.

[Sean Riley Taylor's Mom]

Wow...I had a completely different experience. The parks were crowded when I was there last week. We visited from September 15 - 25 and were very surprised at the crowds. I went to two Little Ones EMH mornings at MK and both were packed. I didn't get to ride Dumbo once with my DD because the line was so long. If Disney offers free dining again next year I don't think we'll be coming back in September.

ITA. It was much more crowded then we were used to in September. We have gone around the second/third week for the past ten years and it was definately more crowded then in years past. We were there the 13-22nd.
We even asked the DVC guy at the AK when another usually slow time of year was. AK seemed the worst to us.
We still had a wonderful vacation. SSR seemed very quiet and we were pleased with a lot of wait times but, the crowds seemed unusually large then what we are used to seeing during this time.
Put it this way...We have never, ever had a wait for Maelstrom in Norway. We had a 25 minute wait there on Weds the 19th. ;)

[CaptSmee]

Wow...I had a completely different experience. The parks were crowded when I was there last week. We visited from September 15 - 25 and were very surprised at the crowds. I went to two Little Ones EMH mornings at MK and both were packed. I didn't get to ride Dumbo once with my DD because the line was so long. If Disney offers free dining again next year I don't think we'll be coming back in September.

September is still one of the slowest times of the year at WDW...avoid EMH's and you will avoid most of the crowds!!!

[cal5755]

We were in the MK on the 20th & 21st and had the same experience - we pretty much walked onto everything. Our longest wait was Peter Pan for 10 minutes and Buzz Lightyear maybe 8 min but there seemed to be a ride breakdown as some guests rode through again and we were able to walk right back on again with no wait.

We were also there on the 20th. Exactly right on the wait times.... we did FP splash mountain but the wait was never long either.

We had a blast the night of the 20th waiting out the rain for the spectromagic and wishes. So much fun hee hee. We videotaped people running down mainstreet for the buses lol.

[karenrarintogo]

...one of the longest waits we had was The Great Movie Ride--it was very close to 30 min, and that was just after doing a walk on at Tower of Terror. Was surprised by this! :confused:

[Eeyore's My Favorite]

We just got back from 3 days at WDW and were amazed at the low crowds. Biggest crowds we saw were @ AK on Tues. (25th). MK was basically a walk on to everything on the 26th (we didn't do the big rides), Haunted Mansion was a walk straight into the first room - no waiting at all - which totally amazed me. Epcot was amazing - of course Soarin' had a wait, but not much of one. Walked right onto the new Nemo ride (it was cute & I definitely wouldn't wait to go on it). MGM today (27th) was quite busy - I forgot how small the park is compared to the others. Plus it was HOT, HOT, HOT - so that possibly added to the feeling that MGM was crowded.:mickey:

[Spaceship Tigger]

Crowds we saw from the 15th through the 23rd, while still not high, were much larger than what they were back in 2005. That year we walked on everything we wanted or had up to 10 minute waits. This year we only walked on a few rides and most had 10 to 20 minute waits after the first half hour or so. Any time we went over to Epcot in the afternoon the waits for Test Track and Soarin were an hour or more each. Most days we had to hit everything we wanted during the first hour or so to avoid the lines.

This is definitely not the September of old - we have video of us in the parks in 2005 with only a few people around. This year our videos show us dodging crowds that are much larger.

[kmo84]

I was at Epcot on the 9th and I'd say the crowds were moderate. Waits for everything were minimal. We were able to Fast Pass Soarin' twice.
We got rained out by 6pm, though.:(

[tinksmom02]

I dunno, we just got back yesterday (trip reports to come soon!)...many of the posted wait times for standby were 20 min. but were actually considerably shorter. We FPed a lot of rides. Soarin' was always at least 35 minutes standby. And Dumbo was posted as 10 minutes but was actually more like 25. It seemed that there were a lot of people in the parks last week (and ugh, WS for opening day of F&WF? What was I thinking???), but the lines seemed to move very quickly. We got a lot done, so I guess that the parks weren't that crowded.

TS were ridiculously busy, though...we waited 40 minutes for our Ohana ADR (and we were 30 minutes early!) and 30 minutes for BOMA (but they lost our ADR after we checked in :confused:), 20 minutes at CP, etc. We did get same-day ADR's for Marrakesh, though...only TS in Epcot availabe that day, but it turned out to be a good meal!

I think that my problem is that I'm comparing last week to our trip at the end of January into February. WDW was a literal ghost town during that time. We walked onto everything with little to no wait (longest wait of the whole week was 20 minutes for Peter Pan's and 45 minutes to meet the Princesses in Toontown). Walked onto Soarin, walked onto SM, We didn't use FP at all during that trip! And we were seated early or right on time for all of our ADR's.

So, compared to that trip, last week was crazy busy! But, I've never been there during the summer, or holidays (and never will!), so I know I've never really seen it crazy busy!

[MickeyandTink]

I dunno, we just got back yesterday (trip reports to come soon!)...many of the posted wait times for standby were 20 min. but were actually considerably shorter. We FPed a lot of rides. Soarin' was always at least 35 minutes standby. And Dumbo was posted as 10 minutes but was actually more like 25. It seemed that there were a lot of people in the parks last week (and ugh, WS for opening day of F&WF? What was I thinking???), but the lines seemed to move very quickly. We got a lot done, so I guess that the parks weren't that crowded.

TS were ridiculously busy, though...we waited 40 minutes for our Ohana ADR (and we were 30 minutes early!) and 30 minutes for BOMA (but they lost our ADR after we checked in :confused:), 20 minutes at CP, etc.

I'll second Tinksmom02. We got back on Saturday and did not find the lines to be too bad with a few exceptions. We went to MK on Saturday and it was very crowded. HM was a 40 minute wait and many other rides were at least 15-20 minutes (except for FP, that helped a lot). AK wasn't too bad except for KS. We got to the park at 9:15 and still had almost a 45 minute wait. The rest of the rides/attractions weren't too bad, though. MGM wasn't too crowded and Epcot was almost a walk on everywhere (except for Soarin, which usually had a 40-60 minute standy, but only 15 -20minutes or so for us FP people).

The CS was awful at AK and MK. It took over 45 minutes at Flame Tree to get our order and almost 30 at Columbia house and Cosmic Rays. I blame that on the very limited choices available. Dinner was mixed, but we had some meals that took almost three hours from the time we checked in until we got our bill paid. I'll post more in my trip report section later.

[Mnchknbrat1982]

we was there around the same time as Tinksmom02 actually met up with Christi and family one day. We were there from the 22-27th. Went to all of the parks. The ride lines were not bad at all, most said wait times of 20 minutes. And we were on within 5-10 minutes. The only park that I thought was pretty busy was MGM. However, compared to our last trip crowds were very light! Last trip it was nothing for 1.5-2 hour waits. We only fast passed 1 ride the whole trip and that was soarin. We also did the segway tour at Epcot..........awesome! I do not think we will be doing the dining plan again. They changed a bunch of menu's on me. And I looked at them right before we left. The most wait we had was at the Whispering Canyon Cafe and that was 40 minutes past our ADR time and we checked in 15 minutes early.

The only other bad thing we experienced on the trip was the day we went to MGM we decided to go to Boardwalk after our dinner reservation at Le Cellier. We had no problem getting there. However, getting back to our hotel was a nightmare! We had to catch a bus from Boardwalk to Downtown Disney. That took 45 minutes for 1 bus to come! Then once at Downtown we had to transfer to the French Quarter bus. In total it took us over 1.5 hours to get back to our room. And then we had to deal with very rude guests at the Boardwalk! I think Disney needs to do something with transportation here. We should of just called a cab!

[MouseHouser]

We were there. As always, crowds were bigger at the parks that had Extra Magic Hours. If you like it quiet, avoid these. We had no problem what so ever with lines at any theme park, including MNSSHP.

Otoh, the Disney resorts and restaurants were full due to free DDP. We booked everything 4 months out and still had problems getting the prime dining times. Oh, and Le Cellier was fully booked for dinner. We went for lunch.

[MouseHouser]

Oh, and agree with the previous poster: The buses were a bummer. We stayed at POFQ. Guess it's bearable if you're part of the one-park-a-day crowd. I think most people are, and that would have made all the dif.

But we're early risers, and like to hit to the parks early, before it gets hot. Yet we LOVE to see the fireworks each evening, so we take a midday break back at the resort. But four bus trips per day is just too much.

It was rare that we got door to door in a half hour, and sometimes it was a full hour. And getting on the bus first at POFQ is a curse. If we had gotten on last, we wouldn't have had to spend an extra 12 minutes every trip cruising all over POR picking up their peeps.

But again, if you don't feel the need to park hop as we do, the bus is prob fine for you.

[brogan54]

we to were there sept 20 to oct 3 and found it was extremley busier thans when we were there 2 years ago. on tues oct 2 there was a 70 min wait for soarin alone. i don't think the free dining is worth the crowds that time of year.

[spinnerf]

I was there last week as well 9/25 to 10/2 and can completely agree that the parks were empty! My daughter went on Peter Pan 4 times, small world 3 or 4 times. There was just no lines. I timed my wait for expedition everest at 9 minutes in the standby line. I rode Space mountain twice in 20 minutes. If your planning to go next year I would check the callendar for the Jewish holiduays in sept/oct since alot of us in the northeast have no school then and avoid those weekends, (this may be why those who were there earlier in sept had bigger crowds) otherwise it was like a private visit to the parks.

[TerriV8489]

I'm so new to this and am afraid to ask but what's EMH's?

[Dyanna]

Extra Magic Hours where certain parks on certain days are open for up to 3 additional hours to what is posted as actual closing times.

[Jeff G]

These reports vary. I wonder if it's based on following EMH's? We followed a plan to avoid parks with EMH from the 22-30 and couldn't beleive how dead the parks were. We've been going every September since 2000 and I would say that the crowds we hit this year were very similar to September 2001 (just after 9/11). The longest line we encountered was SplM all week and it was at most 5 minutes. We rode EE 4 timesin a row on Tuesday morning at 10:00 walking straight on and half our cars were empty. I can't imagine it any more quite than that.

The only time we hit an big crowds was on Friday, 9/28 at EPCOT in the evening and it was packed. It was the first day of F&W and an evening EMH. An interesting note that same afternoon we were at MK and it was empty. At 10:30 we were able to walk on PP (it's unheard of). We also did Buzz 4 times in a row and walked straigh on everytime.

Another interesting note, many lines posted 20 minute waits but when we entered there were no waits. ToT one time had 20 minutes but we walked straight into the screening room. SM had 20 minutes and when we got to the loading area they were sending cars empty.

[JohnHMCWYG]

To be truthful, I don't like it when the parks are somewhat empty. Back in 2005, we walked onto everything. It was cool, but not so much fun.

Another example of how bad it can be without a crowd: When we went to the 50s Prime Time Cafe in 2005, it was easy to get service. There wasn't much of a crowd, and so our waitress, who was supposed to be our "sister", was out of character. We talked to her about the crowds and she said that the 50s Prime Time characters only come into effect when there are a lot of people there.

Since I've been there so many times, I don't mind the crowds.

Sincerely,

John Kilduff

[jarajam]

We just got back last night from our week long trip. Lines were VERY light! Our longest waits were The Great Movie Ride (25 min ) and Rock and Roller Coaster (25min) but it was the first day the coaster had reopened after rehab so that was to be expected! We got straight on Soarin,(about 30 min after the park opened), but right after we rode it, the wait time went up to 60 min. On most of the rides we were able to go again and again and again back to back with very short waits (like 5-10 minutes tops!)

[mickey001]

we usually go during the spring but september of next year.....