Crowds

[Tdisney]

How have the crowds been for anyone that has just gotten back ?

 

[danceintherain]

Fine.
The lines were short for the most part. There may "seem" to be a lot of people, but we walked on to most things by arriving before Rope Drop to hit the headliners, taking a break, and returning at 5pm or later every day.

 

[FLchick415]

I was at MK on Tuesday, and the crowds weren't horrible. Morning was the best, walked on to all the big rides. The afternoon got a little nutso, so I just wandered around, people watching. Then they let up a bit in the evening.

 

[CarrieR]

We were there LAST week - Spring Break for the NE. For the most part they were fine. We had a couple of amazing, no- crowd evenings, and one particularly crazy day at the MK. Rest of the week was moderate-to-low. We are used to holiday week crowds so it was great!

 

[iradi8]

We have been to all four parks this week. To us, the crowds are terrible. It is more crowded than we have almost ever experienced, and as you can see from my signature, we have been here a lot.

Yesterday, the line for Splash was at 40-50 minutes for a long time. We actually got in the line to wait because BTR was at 50 minutes, so we FP that one. The 40 minute Splash line actually turned out to be 55 minutes. The people with FP were constantly flowing in while the Standby line barely moved.

I noticed throughout the parks that the FP lines seemed longer. I know that they are enforcing the return times now and I wonder if that's why. We stood in a really long FP line at RNR -- one like I've never seen before. The Standby line was not even outside the building, but the FP line was long.

At KRR in AK, the FP line extended all the way back to the second building. Again, in my experience, I have never stood in such a long FP line for this ride.

All week, we've been wondering what's going on. The streets are packed in the parks. It just feels so crowded and I thought this was a good time of year to come. This is definitely one of the busiest times we've ever been here.

 

[chia92]

We were there last week and it felt pretty crowded. Wait times were at or close to an hour for most of the big rides. We did a lot of fast passes!

 

[Mommytwotwins]

We were there 4/15-4/24 and we did the best park according to touring plans,arrived at rope drop or minutes after, and used fast passes. We never waited for longer than 20 minutes for anything. There were days that we rode splash and big thunder multiple times with FP or short waits

 

[Tdisney]

So is this week crowded and last week was not ?

 

[MadisonsMomma]

I am just leaving. The crowds weren't bad at all. I did Rope drop at MK both days. No wait longer than 15 minutes until around 2pm.

 

[AndyFL]

We were there this past Sunday-Thurs and the crowd levels were really strange. At one point TOT and RRC were about 1 hr, a while later TOT was walk-on but RRC still had a major long line and it took my daughters the time it took my Wife and I to watch Beauty and the Beast with our youngest daughter for them to ride it once in the fastpass line. It seemed you had waves of people moving from one ride to another. HS's wait times made absolutely NO sense. We waited longer to see the Jack Sparrow thingy than we did in the standby line at TSM on Thursday around 11am. I hated we had to leave for home because we could have gone on TSM as many times as we wanted with little to no wait....on the way home I rechecked the wait time for TSM and it was the normal super long time....go figure. Spoke to another father while on the boat to Epcot and he said that he was in AK Tues and they literally had the park to themselves after 5pm and their child was able to just walk up to the characters for pics with no wait....said the morning was super busy. Sometimes trying to figure out why the wait times are what they are is as futile as trying to figure pi to it's fullest value.

 

[itsmeamanda]

We just got back yesterday and each day was different. Friday at MK was pretty crowded, but we still managed to get a lot done. AK on Tuesday wasn't too bad, and HS was moderately busy on Thursday.

 

[DisneyMagic3]

We just got back as well and didn't find it overly crowded. Things like enchanted tales with belle was at 20 min wait on Thursday which surprised me. We never had a wait of more than 40 mins and didn't touch any fast passes the entire week. We also don't do rope drop and mosey'd into the parks between 10-1130 with no issues or stress or saying OMG so busy.

 

[Jenny-Rebecca]

We went just for the day yesterday and it seemed quite crowded to us. We started at Epcot, which seemed fine in the morning and got quite busy. We saw that there was some type of dance competition being held there...lots of teams and groups around. We went over to Magic Kingdom around 3pm and it was even busier there. Pirates of the Caribbean was a 25 minute wait, It's a Small world was 30, even People Mover had a line...usually we saw these as walk-ons. We hadnt thought it would be quite so busy because it was predicted as a 6 on a crowd prediction website.

 

[btk2333]

this is a really hard question to answer for most people because everyone has a different idea of what "crowded" means. We tend to go at peak times (Christmas, Spring Break, Fourth of July) and rarely feel that the parks are "crowded" because we get there for RD, make use of FP, leave in the mid afternoon and head back later at night. We never end up waiting more than 20 minutes for anything even at peak times. If we were there from 11:00-5:00 every day I"m sure we would be miserable and never want to go back. Also, if we were to be there now, we would probably feel like it was completely empty. However, everyone has a different frame of reference and different expectations for "light" and "busy" times.

A 50 minute line for Splash or Thunder Mountain does not necessarily mean crowds were high. What was the wait for the non- E-tickets? The E-ticket rides are always going to have long waits in the middle of the day because they are so popular. The real difference between peak times and non-peak is that that 50 minute line for Splash, Thunder, Toy Story, Everest, etc will end up being double or triple that (yes- 100-150 minutes) and the lines for things like Small world will be at 50 minutes too.

It is also important to pick your park days wisely. If a park has early magic hour at 8:00, and you can't be there by 7:30, avoid that park and go somewhere else. The park will be jam packed with people who planned to be there at 8:00 but got a late start. There are lots of other tips and crowd calendars (personally, I like the easyWDW ones because he has written explanations... no offense touringplans, I still have a subscription to you guy!) can give you the best idea of how to choose parks.

 

[Waddler]

We were there last Sunday (4/21) through yesterday (4/28).

Crowds varied a lot. On Monday night, EVERYTHING at the MK was near walk-on. We were even allowed to stay on Splash Mountain a second time at 9 pm. Otherwise, I'd say crowds were a little higher than "average". With some strategizing, we were generally able to ride everything with 15 minute waits or less.

The only exceptions were the fastpass return lines for both Soarin' (15 minutes) and Test Track (40 minutes!) mid-day on Monday. All other fastpass return lines were very short (<5 minutes) for the rest of the trip.

With a little planning, you can outsmart most of the crowds. It's just not as carefree as our normal late-January or early December timeframes.

 

[DisneyBum303]

Just got back from AoA 4/20-4/27. I don't think the crowds were bad at all. Got a little busier later in the week (lots of teenage schools groups), but we never had any serious waits. MK surprised us the most. We mainly went in the evenings and the lines were really short. We did not do much in fantasy land, but even the little mermaid ride was practically walk on. There were several times when having a fastpass seemed a waste, since standby was just as fast.

Now to planning next year's vacation!!

 

[connorlevismom]

We are sitting at the airport waiting to go home and I have to say, I am glad. We were here from 4/18-4/28 and it was more crowded than it usually. We go this week every year and IMO, it was way more crowded! The school and cheerleader groups were EVERYWHERE! It started with choir groups everywhere. Then it was choir and band kids. Then it was choir, band and cheerleaders! We went to DHS yesterday and the cheerleaders were very annoying. Sitting all over the floors in stores, sitting on displays so you could not look at the stuff on the rack-it was annoying. It seemed like more and more kids were coming the last two days, so we are glad to be leaving because it was getting crazy.

 

[Kath816]

Just back this morning. As previous posters said, there were a LOT of school groups. We took a quick trip because our niece's h.s. band played in the afternoon parade at Magic Kingdom on Thursday. They were great! It was busy, but manageable. Last night at Epcot was crazy. The dance groups and cheerleaders were getting dropped off at back gate by the busload, one after another. The area by Rose and Crown, Canada, and back gate were very crowded. (We are Boardwalk DVC members and I've never seen that before.) Lots of kids at all the parks from Weds. through Saturday when we were there. The ones we saw were all very well behaved.

 

[Maleficent Dragon]

My co-worker is there now and she told me that the crowds are much higher/larger than anticipated. She said the last two years have not been nearly as crowded.

 

[ibrokeitmommy]

I am getting nervous! I'm hoping the cheer groups clear out by next weekend. I realize that anything can happen but we very strategically chose the first week in may for weather, lower crowds, and flower and garden. I've noticed a big increase in wait times since Friday and it's scaring me!