Gregandmel
10-12-2008, 10:11 AM
Hi there! Just got back yesterday (10/11) from our stay which was 10/5 through 10/11 and thought I'd give you a report on crowds. Our #1 goal was avoiding crowds as much as we could which is why we picked October to go...but since there really isn't a "slow time" at Disney - really put some strategizing into things. So....here were some of our game plans: (BTW - we have 2 boys - ages 8 and 17)
#1. We avoided the park that had the emh in the a.m. I know a lot of people love them, but it just wasn't for us.
#2. Tried to hit the park that had the emh the EVENING before.
#3. Got at the park at rope drop every day. Very important in my opinion. You can make a lot of headway the first couple of hours.
Day #1 Monday - Hollywood Studios (had the emh the night before (SUnday night) and MK had the emh in the a.m. this day AND Monday is listed as a good day to go to HS). HS was DEAD! It was awesome. There were people there, of course but nearly everything was walk on (other than TSM) or 5-10 minute wait. Very enjoyable. We were there from 9-3pm (with 1 hour spent at Sci-Fi for lunch) and were able to do everything and even did TOT 4 times and RNRC 2 times.
A lady in front of me was on the phone while we were in line at TOT talking to her friend who was at MK that day and said that MK was so packed it was miserable and they were thinking of just leaving. Note: MK had the emh that a.m. AND Monday is listed as one of the busiest days to visit MK. We left HS feeling like we got a REALLY good 1st day in!!
Day #2 - Tuesday - Magic Kingdom. Picked this day because MK had the emh in the pm the night before - AND Epcot had the emh in the a.m. that day. We had 8am ressies at CP and were at the front of the line at Adventureland at rope drop by 9am. OMG - it was awesome that day! We were at MK from 9-1:30pm and literally were able to do the entire park!! Everything was walk-on or 5-10 minutes. We were able to to do:
POTC - 3 x
Splash Mountain - 2x
BTMR
Haunted Mansion - 3x
Peter Pan's Flight (we did FP on this, but standby was only 15 minutes!!)
It's a Small World
Mickey's Philharmagic
Snow White's Scary Adventure
Space Mountain - 2x
Buzz Lightyear - 2 x
Lot's of shopping! Again - we were only there for 4 1/2 hours. The CM were talking about how busy it was on Monday and how light it was on Tuesday! So it was a really great and enjoyable time for us. We didn't race through the park either -once I figured out the crowds weren't bad, we could stop and smell the roses.
Day #3 - Wednesday - Epcot - No particular reason for this park - I think Animal Kingdom had the emh in the a.m. this morning and since there was a MNSSHP the night before, thought people might be sleeping in. Anyways - another great day. We were at Epcot from 9-1pm and were able to do everything with only 5 minute waits on everything! (we used FP for Test track though, but it only had a 20 minute stand-by)
We split Epcot out and stayed only until lunchtime and went back to the resort. We went back at 5:30pm that evening to walk around WS and we had dinner ressies at Rose & Crown at 7:40 and ate dinner and watched Illuminations. Very awesome.
So - Monday Tuesday & Wednesday were great. Thursday and Friday were much busier! I attribute part of that to the long holiday weekend coming up (Columbus Day.) We went back to HS Thursday a.m. and it was noticeably busier!!! Only there till about noon and that night we did MNSSHP (there were a lot of people there and it rained quite a bit, but it was fun)
Day #5 - Friday - Animal Kingdom. Holy cow - it was PACKED by 10am!! We were there at rope drop and went straight to EE (got a fp before we went on so we could do it again) Stand by went to 10-15 min so did it a second time and then used our FP for the 3rd time. We were going to go straight to Dinosaur, but our 8 year old was getting tired and hot so we decided to meander over to the Jungle Trek walk-through. Boy am I glad we did!!!! As we exited - guess who was there to greet us?? The Dream Squad with Dream Fast Passes! What a blessing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were able to use those passes and do KS, Dinosaur, It's a Bug's Life, Kali River Rapids and EE one more time and we were out of there by 2:30pm. If we didn't have the FP badge, not sure how much we could've done. It was VERY H-O-T that day and crowded. Everything had a 40-70 minute wait.
Sorry this is long, but wanted to share details of some things. There is no recession at DW!! But felt like with some strategizing, we were able to really have an enjoyable time with minimal waits on things. I'm sure it won't work everytime, but it did for us. We had a great time (we stayed at the WL - it was incredible!)
I'll stop now - any questions, let me know. I hope all of you with upcoming trips have a really enjoyable time!!!
#1. We avoided the park that had the emh in the a.m. I know a lot of people love them, but it just wasn't for us.
#2. Tried to hit the park that had the emh the EVENING before.
#3. Got at the park at rope drop every day. Very important in my opinion. You can make a lot of headway the first couple of hours.
Day #1 Monday - Hollywood Studios (had the emh the night before (SUnday night) and MK had the emh in the a.m. this day AND Monday is listed as a good day to go to HS). HS was DEAD! It was awesome. There were people there, of course but nearly everything was walk on (other than TSM) or 5-10 minute wait. Very enjoyable. We were there from 9-3pm (with 1 hour spent at Sci-Fi for lunch) and were able to do everything and even did TOT 4 times and RNRC 2 times.
A lady in front of me was on the phone while we were in line at TOT talking to her friend who was at MK that day and said that MK was so packed it was miserable and they were thinking of just leaving. Note: MK had the emh that a.m. AND Monday is listed as one of the busiest days to visit MK. We left HS feeling like we got a REALLY good 1st day in!!
Day #2 - Tuesday - Magic Kingdom. Picked this day because MK had the emh in the pm the night before - AND Epcot had the emh in the a.m. that day. We had 8am ressies at CP and were at the front of the line at Adventureland at rope drop by 9am. OMG - it was awesome that day! We were at MK from 9-1:30pm and literally were able to do the entire park!! Everything was walk-on or 5-10 minutes. We were able to to do:
POTC - 3 x
Splash Mountain - 2x
BTMR
Haunted Mansion - 3x
Peter Pan's Flight (we did FP on this, but standby was only 15 minutes!!)
It's a Small World
Mickey's Philharmagic
Snow White's Scary Adventure
Space Mountain - 2x
Buzz Lightyear - 2 x
Lot's of shopping! Again - we were only there for 4 1/2 hours. The CM were talking about how busy it was on Monday and how light it was on Tuesday! So it was a really great and enjoyable time for us. We didn't race through the park either -once I figured out the crowds weren't bad, we could stop and smell the roses.
Day #3 - Wednesday - Epcot - No particular reason for this park - I think Animal Kingdom had the emh in the a.m. this morning and since there was a MNSSHP the night before, thought people might be sleeping in. Anyways - another great day. We were at Epcot from 9-1pm and were able to do everything with only 5 minute waits on everything! (we used FP for Test track though, but it only had a 20 minute stand-by)
We split Epcot out and stayed only until lunchtime and went back to the resort. We went back at 5:30pm that evening to walk around WS and we had dinner ressies at Rose & Crown at 7:40 and ate dinner and watched Illuminations. Very awesome.
So - Monday Tuesday & Wednesday were great. Thursday and Friday were much busier! I attribute part of that to the long holiday weekend coming up (Columbus Day.) We went back to HS Thursday a.m. and it was noticeably busier!!! Only there till about noon and that night we did MNSSHP (there were a lot of people there and it rained quite a bit, but it was fun)
Day #5 - Friday - Animal Kingdom. Holy cow - it was PACKED by 10am!! We were there at rope drop and went straight to EE (got a fp before we went on so we could do it again) Stand by went to 10-15 min so did it a second time and then used our FP for the 3rd time. We were going to go straight to Dinosaur, but our 8 year old was getting tired and hot so we decided to meander over to the Jungle Trek walk-through. Boy am I glad we did!!!! As we exited - guess who was there to greet us?? The Dream Squad with Dream Fast Passes! What a blessing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were able to use those passes and do KS, Dinosaur, It's a Bug's Life, Kali River Rapids and EE one more time and we were out of there by 2:30pm. If we didn't have the FP badge, not sure how much we could've done. It was VERY H-O-T that day and crowded. Everything had a 40-70 minute wait.
Sorry this is long, but wanted to share details of some things. There is no recession at DW!! But felt like with some strategizing, we were able to really have an enjoyable time with minimal waits on things. I'm sure it won't work everytime, but it did for us. We had a great time (we stayed at the WL - it was incredible!)
I'll stop now - any questions, let me know. I hope all of you with upcoming trips have a really enjoyable time!!!