georger
08-26-2009, 03:51 PM
Just a quick trip report from our trip to the "World". Our past trips to Disney have been in September, but this year we decided to go the first week of Free Dining.
Never again will we go in August. The parks were mobbed. We are the type who get to the gates before the park opens and get everything done before the crowds arrive. Well this year, the crowds were there at park opening. At DHS, the entire mob walked quickly to Toy Story. My son and I ran ahead and got fast passes while my wife and youngest son followed behind several hundred (looked like thousands) of people. After a 10 minute wait for fast passes, the standby was already at 40 minutes. And this was at park opening. Fastpasses were gone by noon.
Just to hit the highlights, we saw Testrack at 180 minutes one day (we never saw it less than 60 minutes), and the majority of rides at the Magic Kingdom were never less than 60 minutes. As an example, we were there at park opening, raced to ride Peter Pan, came back out and the line was already at 30 minutes. There was even a 30 minute wait at Spaceship Earth! In our previous two trips to the World, we have never, ever seen more than a 5 minute wait for that ride.
I don't know the reason, but on several mornings, there were Mears buses that took us to the park instead of the traditional Disney buses. Someone in line wondered if Disney underestimated the crowds and had to get other buses to take people to the park. Those Mears buses were a lot more comfortable than the Disney transportation buses. I could get use to that.
We were able to do everything we wanted to do by using fastpasses and getting there early, but our next trip will definately be in September.
Never again will we go in August. The parks were mobbed. We are the type who get to the gates before the park opens and get everything done before the crowds arrive. Well this year, the crowds were there at park opening. At DHS, the entire mob walked quickly to Toy Story. My son and I ran ahead and got fast passes while my wife and youngest son followed behind several hundred (looked like thousands) of people. After a 10 minute wait for fast passes, the standby was already at 40 minutes. And this was at park opening. Fastpasses were gone by noon.
Just to hit the highlights, we saw Testrack at 180 minutes one day (we never saw it less than 60 minutes), and the majority of rides at the Magic Kingdom were never less than 60 minutes. As an example, we were there at park opening, raced to ride Peter Pan, came back out and the line was already at 30 minutes. There was even a 30 minute wait at Spaceship Earth! In our previous two trips to the World, we have never, ever seen more than a 5 minute wait for that ride.
I don't know the reason, but on several mornings, there were Mears buses that took us to the park instead of the traditional Disney buses. Someone in line wondered if Disney underestimated the crowds and had to get other buses to take people to the park. Those Mears buses were a lot more comfortable than the Disney transportation buses. I could get use to that.
We were able to do everything we wanted to do by using fastpasses and getting there early, but our next trip will definately be in September.