12/25/18+ here now!

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We are having a similarly fantastic experience today. Been to both Epcot and HS (here now) and didn’t arrive at EP until 11 am. Been on 12 rides so far (all FP except for a 5 minute wait for the muppets), ate at Minnie’s seasonal dine, and at JBJM now. This has been an epic day and an incredible trip! Will post more details soon, but I can’t believe how much we’ve managed to get done, and how many extra FP+ we’ve pulled!
 
Glad everyone having a good trip. I would think many guests putting off trips till Star Wars lAnd opens ?
 
I'm here now as well and today was our Epcot day. We went twice. We entered the park right at 9:00, left at 3:00. Had dinner at the resort and came back for a few hours. I have never been during Christmas but it is now my favorite time to come! The kids love it, the wife loves it and we have had the best time. Crowds haven't been a problem for us at all this week. Here is a link to my post about today with park pics. https://www.disboards.com/threads/12-25-christmas-day-at-epcot.3725763/
 
We arrived at studios at noon yesterday. Did our 3 FPs then scored 2 for TSM, 2 RNR, 1 TOT, and 1 VOLM. We walked past 2 hour lines for all but Mermaid. We could have got a few more for evening but we had the Jingle Bell, Jingle Bam party and ran out of time. Crowds at HS were larger than last year on Christmas Day, but still a great day.
 
Didn’t seem to be that horrible... next year will be quite interesting to see!
 
After some thought considering it was Christmas day yesterday and I fully expected MK to be awful on the crowd meter, I was pleasantly surprised. The only issue with crowds the past couple of days was that there are so many people in the parks who dont go often or ever and they do not like to follow rules. Then when cast members enforce the rules, they get upset. More than once I watched cast members both days explaining to people, you cant take strollers or wheelchairs/scooters down the lines. The wheelchair/scooter I understand people not knowing, but, the stroller people tend to be the worst.
 
I've seen photos from MK yesterday..it looked miserable!! My dd works at PotC...when the wait times there are 80+ mins, you know it's crowded!!! She told me on Monday, that their standby line was back to the entrance to Jungle Cruise. I didn't hear from her yesterday once she left for work. She did have to take a more roundabout way to work due to the traffic on World Dr!!!
 
Before we left MK yesterday, the line for HM was all the way over to the area around the riverboat. They had filtered it down the ramps and back up the steps. Splash Mountain was backed out to past BTMRR and had every one of the inner loops for the line open. Space was backed up to the area around the raceway. By 430 getting in and out of any of the lands from the hub was awful. That being said, prior to 2PM, the park was easy. Not overly crowded, easy to get FPs, and pretty laid back. Thats why I think there were a lot of first timers or people who assume once FPs are made they cant change the FP or adjust the time. We walked into magic Kingdom at 555AM and had zero FPs. We started making them around 7 and between 8 and 130/2ish we had used 12. So while it was crowded, due to it being a lot of people who did not know how to use the system, FPs were available if you just refreshed. We were standing in the FP line for BTMRR at 1245 and I pulled a 7DMT at 1:20. I was able to consistently move FP times up even after they were made and we just went from FP to FP riding stuff and having fun without waiting in Stand by Lines. Had it been a lot of "low end" attractions, I would have said oh well and people watched. But when you can pull Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, BTMRR, POC, HM, Jingle Cruise, Pan, and even 7DMT just by refreshing and watching for 2 or 3 minutes, it makes it well worth it.
 
Just got into Epcot at rope drop headed to soarin getting ready to ride took about ten minutes. According to our bus driver the road to magic kingdom was slammed yesterday even though the parks were not as bad.

We'll try to answer any questions if we can, have a great day!
 
I saw that haunted Mansion was shut down for technical problems sometime yesterday which may explain why the line was so long
 
Before we left MK yesterday, the line for HM was all the way over to the area around the riverboat. They had filtered it down the ramps and back up the steps. Splash Mountain was backed out to past BTMRR and had every one of the inner loops for the line open. Space was backed up to the area around the raceway. By 430 getting in and out of any of the lands from the hub was awful. That being said, prior to 2PM, the park was easy. Not overly crowded, easy to get FPs, and pretty laid back. Thats why I think there were a lot of first timers or people who assume once FPs are made they cant change the FP or adjust the time. We walked into magic Kingdom at 555AM and had zero FPs. We started making them around 7 and between 8 and 130/2ish we had used 12. So while it was crowded, due to it being a lot of people who did not know how to use the system, FPs were available if you just refreshed. We were standing in the FP line for BTMRR at 1245 and I pulled a 7DMT at 1:20. I was able to consistently move FP times up even after they were made and we just went from FP to FP riding stuff and having fun without waiting in Stand by Lines. Had it been a lot of "low end" attractions, I would have said oh well and people watched. But when you can pull Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, BTMRR, POC, HM, Jingle Cruise, Pan, and even 7DMT just by refreshing and watching for 2 or 3 minutes, it makes it well worth it.
I agree that there were a lot of first timers yesterday who didn’t know a thing about reservations or fp’s. One of the worst lines I saw Christmas Day, was the line at Be Our Guest at about 9:30am. The line to check in was huge and then virtually everyone who checked in, did not preorder and had to line up to the right. The line was spilling out into the pathway near Enchanted Tales. I’m sure it took an hour or more for those people to actually order their food.
 
I hope you are right about guests waiting for the Star Wars opening since we are heading to WDW over Spring Break next year...maybe the crowds won’t be bad.

I'm hoping for this as well. We'll be down twice in the summer - the first week will be during a normally busy time (mid-June).
 
I'm hoping for this as well. We'll be down twice in the summer - the first week will be during a normally busy time (mid-June).

I would think for those who do not frequent yearly to WDW, that they will be putting trips off until star wars land is open. I am hopeful as well this upcoming Spring trip will not be so bad, watch out for the year 2020. Im sure the crowds will be pretty much insane all year long lol
 
I just think crowd sizes dont matter as much as proportion of crowd who knows how to use FP and refresh. Seems like the more people in the parks, the less proportionally who know how to use the system.
 
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