Mondays at the park are bad. Bad!

[Skyegirl1999]

Also, in my experience, weekdays in September aren't as bad as the rest of the school year. (I think people are less likely to pull their kids right at the beginning of the year, perhaps?) The problem with a lot of September is you get really short park hours on weekdays...

 

[Cal-Pie]

I know people don't love crowd calendars, but here are touringplans "all park" ratings for Sunday-Tuesday dates in July. Mondays are bolded; included a note if there was a difference greater than one in their prediction vs. outcome.

July 1 - 3 (predicted 5)
July 2 - 7
July 3 - 8

July 8 - 3 (predicted 5)
July 9 - 7
July 10 - 7

July 15 - 5
July 16 - 7
July 17 - 7

July 22 - 5 (predicted 7)
July 23 - 9
July 24 - 8

July 29 - 4 (predicted 7)
July 30 - 8
Today, July 31 - Predicted 8

I honestly found this interesting, hope others do as well!

Interesting, doesn't look like Tuesdays have been any less busy than Mondays.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Interesting, doesn't look like Tuesdays have been any less busy than Mondays.

Well, Tuesdays used to be the "surprisingly bad" day during the week (I maintain this is because of the MM schedule). I know a lot of people who visit multiple times a week, and for the past few years, many of them simply never went on Tuesdays because "it's always ridiculously crowded on Tuesdays." That's also when I started doing DCA more often; DCA in the mornings was usually really nice on Tuesdays (and my daughter was only off of preschool on Tuesdays/Thursdays). I think Monday is just a newer addition.

I think some of it is the peak pricing system, and some of it is the pervasive "avoid the weekends" mentality. How often do we see on these boards some version of, "We'll be in SoCal Thursday-Tuesday, planning on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday as our park days since the weekend will be so crowded!"?

 

[Mickeypooh99]

It kind of depends which weekend in September, IMO. With Halloweentime/Halloween parties, there can be other things to consider...

We are going the weekend of September 21.

 

[Winnowill]

When we go for a five-day family trip, our typical plan is to leave on Friday, with park days Sat-Wed morning, rather than leaving on a Tuesday with park days Wed-Sun morning. Reason? We'd much rather get back and be looking at two days at work rather than a full week. However, now that Monday and Tuesday are so horrific, we may re-think that strategy.

 

[maleficent55]

When we go for a five-day family trip, our typical plan is to leave on Friday, with park days Sat-Wed morning, rather than leaving on a Tuesday with park days Wed-Sun morning. Reason? We'd much rather get back and be looking at two days at work rather than a full week. However, now that Monday and Tuesday are so horrific, we may re-think that strategy.

That original plan was a good idea! Useless for my profession (nurse), but smart for the M-F 9-5 crowd.

 

[pharmama]

We are going in late August and had planned to be in the parks Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday, with Saturday being a non-park day. At the recommendation of others on another thread, I'm thinking of making our ticket a 5 day PH instead of 4, and spending part of Saturday at the park and just a little bit on Monday. With Monday being our last day before flying home on Tuesday, I hate to not visit the park at all. Are evenings a little better on Monday's than the daytime hours?

I'm not sure if you picked up on the CHOC walk comments earlier in this thread but since you said "late August".... If that means the weekend of Aug 25/26 I would definitely consider making SUNDAY your non park day. That Sunday morning there is a 5K fundraiser for Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) in the parks in the morning before the park opens. I would expect the parks to be quite busy afterwards. DD9 and I will be there that weekend and have decided to join the walk and just go with the flow (We are frequent visitors so we don't need to maximize every moment and the CHOC-walker rate at GCH is fantastic!) but since you have some flexibility I'd avoid the parks that day.

 

[traciruns]

I'm not sure if you picked up on the CHOC walk comments earlier in this thread but since you said "late August".... If that means the weekend of Aug 25/26 I would definitely consider making SUNDAY your non park day. That Sunday morning there is a 5K fundraiser for Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) in the parks in the morning before the park opens. I would expect the parks to be quite busy afterwards. DD9 and I will be there that weekend and have decided to join the walk and just go with the flow (We are frequent visitors so we don't need to maximize every moment and the CHOC-walker rate at GCH is fantastic!) but since you have some flexibility I'd avoid the parks that day.

Thanks so much for this tip! I had no idea about the walk and that is the weekend I was commenting about in the previous post! I think we have decided to grab a 5 day park hopper so we may be able to play with our plans a little more. Trouble is, we've got a 10:00 reservation at the Plaza Inn that morning. Ugh.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

... Trouble is, we've got a 10:00 reservation at the Plaza Inn that morning. Ugh.

Don't worry too much about this. Just give yourself plenty of time to get through the turnstiles and to PI that morning. The esplanade will be very crowded with walkers at the ticket booths, but as long as you allow extra time to get where you're heading, you should be fine.

 

[kyrkea333]

So would you choose CHOC walk sunday over the monday. We have the choice. We were planning a beach day sunday to avoid ChOC, should we switch it up?

Yes, I'd really like to know this as well!

ETA: Never mind, I see as I got to the end of the thread that it's been answered!

 

[skyblue17]

We ended up sticking with Monday, rather than miss out on our Tuesday plans (they would not have been movable) and ultimately, it was fine! Obviously, not going often, we don't have much of a reference point but we rope-dropped, used MaxPass and left around 10pm and had a very satisfying day, getting on each of our main rides at least once (all of the Bigs!). We hopped from DCA to DLR quite a few times, including leaving for a dinner break at La Brea Bakery, and never experienced a long line for re-entry (longest was about 15 deep and were in within minutes). The parks themselves were crowded, yeah, but FastPass return times were good and we only waited in a few standby lines of longer than half an hour, which was helpful in passing the time to the next FastPass anyway. Note that we don't do shows or parades on one day visits, though, so not sure how that was affected! Just wanted to share an experience, so I had been a little worried about it!

 

[Elk Grove Chris]

Monday August 6th was pretty busy after noon. Early it wasn't terrible, except for the humidity. We had Maxpass and did 12 rides before noon, but only 3 the rest of the day (4 hour break in room from 2-6).

8am opening-50 deep at gates by 7:40. We walked on to Start Tours, FP for Space. Space was down, walked on to Star Tours again. Did Buzz, 5 min wait. Pinocchio was a walk on, as was Snow White. Alice was a 10 min wait. Space Mountain FP turned into multi-pass. Got FP for BTMRR, did standby for BTMRR, 10 min wait. Used FP for BTMRR. Got FP for Indy, did standby for Indy, 15 min wait. Used FP for Indy. Got FP for Roger Rabbit, rode RR around 10:30. Used multi-pass for Space at 11, got FP for Space (7:00 pm return time). Lunch at BB 12:20. Break to room until around 6. Shopped MS stores, used FP for Space, did not get another FP-most were done for the day. Walked over to CA, Indicoaster, 25 min wait at 8, did twice. Left CA at 9 for third shower of the day.

 

[SeiterClan]

I know people don't love crowd calendars, but here are touringplans "all park" ratings for Sunday-Tuesday dates in July. Mondays are bolded; included a note if there was a difference greater than one in their prediction vs. outcome.

July 1 - 3 (predicted 5)
July 2 - 7
July 3 - 8

July 8 - 3 (predicted 5)
July 9 - 7
July 10 - 7

July 15 - 5
July 16 - 7
July 17 - 7

July 22 - 5 (predicted 7)
July 23 - 9
July 24 - 8

July 29 - 4 (predicted 7)
July 30 - 8
Today, July 31 - Predicted 8

I honestly found this interesting, hope others do as well!

This is really interesting! Now I'm curious... could you PM or comment here about what the TP predictions & actual ratings were for August 2nd-4th of this year? We have never been in the summer but thought they were not very crowded days at all! TIA

 

[adelaster]

This is really interesting! Now I'm curious... could you PM or comment here about what the TP predictions & actual ratings were for August 2nd-4th of this year? We have never been in the summer but thought they were not very crowded days at all! TIA

Sure! Here's a continuation of the Monday-Tuesday data.

July 29 - 4 (predicted 7)
July 30 - 8
July 31 - 7

August 5 - 4 (predicted 7)
August 6 - 8
August 7 - 7

August 12 - 3 (predicted 6)
August 13 - predicted 6
August 14 - predicted 5

As a reminder, this is the resort-wide crowd level, as that tends to roughly match the parks.

Your requested dates:

Thu, Aug 2 - 8 (predicted 8)
Fri, Aug 3 - 5 (predicted 7)
Sat, Aug 4 - 5 (predicted 7)

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Sure! Here's a continuation of the Monday-Tuesday data.

July 29 - 4 (predicted 7)
July 30 - 8
July 31 - 7

August 5 - 4 (predicted 7)
August 6 - 8
August 7 - 7

August 12 - 3 (predicted 6)
August 13 - predicted 6
August 14 - predicted 5

As a reminder, this is the resort-wide crowd level, as that tends to roughly match the parks.

Your requested dates:

Thu, Aug 2 - 8 (predicted 8)
Fri, Aug 3 - 5 (predicted 7)
Sat, Aug 4 - 5 (predicted 7)

Pretty interesting stuff. I was at DL on 8/5 and crowds were very light, I agree with that 4. I’m going this Sunday with a friend (doing the Pixar Bring a Friend deal) and I hope the trend of mellow Sundays continues.

 

[LilyJC]

Pretty interesting stuff. I was at DL on 8/5 and crowds were very light, I agree with that 4. I’m going this Sunday with a friend (doing the Pixar Bring a Friend deal) and I hope the trend of mellow Sundays continues.

We’re also considering heading over this Sunday, but I’m curious to see if it’s going to be a bit more crazy due to PhotoPass Day. Some of the options are pretty cute! Both SoCal APs are still blocked, so hopefully that will help...?

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/b...te-disney-photopass-day-at-disneyland-resort/

 

[SeiterClan]

Sure! Here's a continuation of the Monday-Tuesday data.

July 29 - 4 (predicted 7)
July 30 - 8
July 31 - 7

August 5 - 4 (predicted 7)
August 6 - 8
August 7 - 7

August 12 - 3 (predicted 6)
August 13 - predicted 6
August 14 - predicted 5

As a reminder, this is the resort-wide crowd level, as that tends to roughly match the parks.

Your requested dates:

Thu, Aug 2 - 8 (predicted 8)
Fri, Aug 3 - 5 (predicted 7)
Sat, Aug 4 - 5 (predicted 7)

Thank you! This confirms how I felt about crowds for our 3 days. I definitely thought Thursday was the most crowded as well but with Max Pass we were still able to do so much!