We're planning on visiting MK on a day when the crowd level is an 8... and my husband HATES crowds. We will have our 5 year old and 2 year old with us who aren't great at waiting in lines. But we have never seen Happily Ever After and I'm determined to see it, and this crowd level 8 day is the only day when we can make it happen (due to
MVMCP- the other days we're there MK will have Holiday Wishes.)
We will have our 3 fast passes and I got a Harmony Barbershop and Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique reservation. Breakfast at BOG although I'm hoping with luck I can switch it to lunch. Does anyone have any recommendations or tips on how to handle crowds and not be miserable? I got a Touring Plans account to make personalized plans but obviously their predictions are not guaranteed, so I want to have a backup plan for how to enjoy ourselves if it gets really nuts.
We were in WDW last week. We saw HEA fireworks on Thursday of that week, when crowds at MK were predicted to be an 8, I think. On that particular day, I noticed crowds (but it's all relative, you know) around noon. But it wasn't wall-to-wall people like I've seen in pictures during Christmas, for example.
Park opening that day was 9:00 am. We got into the park a few min after 9 am.
If you & your crew can make it for rope drop, then it's worth it. We didn't make rope drop, but we were still in the park before a lot of other people. I have photos of Fantasyland, Frontierland, and Adventureland first thing in the morning and it's just wonderful how empty it is. See
https://www.disboards.com/threads/j...0-yr-but-im-finally-back-home-to-wdw.3687111/.
We, too, used Touring Plans. I'm glad we used it because I thought it was really useful. We wanted to minimize wait times as much as possible. Touring Plans helped with that. Instead of printing out the TP itineraries, I used their Lines app. You can set up your own customized park touring plan and you can mark each step as "Done!" when you complete it. What I learned is that we took longer to walk around than I had anticipated (because we were tired). Or we'd want to stop in a store or 2 along the way. That sort of thing, you know? So instead of immediately going to the next "thing" on the original list...and doing it "late," I'd click the
Optimize button. 45 sec later, Touring Plan would recalculate our itinerary for that day and I'd take us to the new next "step" on the list.
Doing that helped A LOT!
When I got additional FP once we'd used all 3 of our original FP, I added it to the Touring Plan for the day and then click
Optimize and follow the plan. I did that all day long. And I did not have my nose in my phone the whole day. Instead of using my phone to entertain the kids while waiting in long ride lines, the time we spent waiting in ride lines overall was short enough that we just did what normal people do and we actually talked to each other. So all day long, the only times I had my phone out was to use Touring Plans. And it wasn't a big deal, in my opinion. It did not detract from our experience.
My husband, as well, hates to wait in long lines. Touring Plans helped with that a lot. I booked and paid for ahead of time, the HEA dessert party with garden party viewing. It was TOTALLY WORTH THE EXPENSIVE PRICE! Really. We had enough room in the fireworks viewing area to sit down and spread out. In our case, the dessert party began at 7:45 pm with fireworks at 9:15 pm. We checked in at 7:40 pm and went to the viewing area at 8:35-8:40 pm. We snacked during what would have been our normal dinner hour and just loaded up on desserts, cheese, & fruit in the dessert party instead.
It was money well spent. We would not have seen the fireworks otherwise because neither DH or I are interested in investing 2 hours of time stamping out & protecting our turf in the hub with the rest of humanity. I saw people starting to get their fireworks viewing spot before 7 pm that night! I think that's insane.
One thing to keep in mind, though, that normal ADRs have a cancellation policy of 24 hours ahead of time, but the fireworks dessert party cancellation party is more than 24 hours beforehand. It's either 48 or 72 hr, I think. So just keep that in mind. If you cancel after that time frame, you won't get a refund.