How crowded is it right after Thanksgiving?

[daybreaker]

We have two travel dates in mind.

Nov 26th to Dec 5th --OR-- Dec 4th to Dec 12th

The first date would give us one extra full day, but would be the weekend immediately after Thanksgiving (on the 25th, trip starts the 26th). How crowded does Disney World get the Fri-Sun after Thanksgiving?

We've been there on the 2nd week after Thanksgiving before (the 12/4-12/12 dates), and know it isnt crowded. I'm just worried about tons of people spending their Thanksgiving vacation at the parks, and crowding it, but that one extra day would be nice.

So- thoughts? Are the crowds right after Thanksgiving heavy? Are they heavy enough to wait a week and just skip the extra day? Or, are they not heavy at all, and we're going to have an awesome super-long, crowd-free trip?

Thanks in advance!

[FigNewton]

Crowds on the weekend immediately following are still high. They settle out some beginning Sunday evening but the week after has been getting more and more crowded every year. I would go the Dec 4th week even with Pop Warner being around and avoid the weekend immediately following Thanksgiving.

[Nadjalu]

Thanksgiving weekend is very crowded but on Sunday it starts thinning out.

We arrived on that sunday last year and whoa it was crowded but monday we saw a huge drop in people.

[Pooh&OurHunny]

I was wondering the same question. 2 dates I'm trying to decide for December but waiting for any deals to come...

[sharonabe]

We went Dec 1-5 just last month. It was more crowded than we had expected, but it was still no where near summer crowds and seemed less crowded than our trip during the first of April a few years back. The only thing that had long waits were the expected rides: Space Mtn, Peter Pan, Soarin, Toy Story Mania. That Friday at MK was really crowded! It was raining all day, and we kept expecting the crowd to thin out, but it never did. We even waited 30 min for Small World that day. My suggestion is to stay away from MK during the parade taping even if it is just performance taping. Since it rained that day, the taping was cancelled, but apparently the people with tickets to watch the parade were still allowed to visit the park. That Sat at Epcot was also VERY crowded...almost to summer crowds. We waited 40 min for Spaceship Earth and that was in the afternoon.

[DisneyNDecember]

The answer to your question is - it gets more & more crowded each year !!!

[Cinderumbrella]

We flew down the day after Thanksgiving in 2009 and stayed for 10 nights. We did go to MK on Friday night (which wasn't horrible) and we skipped the parks altogether on Saturday. We did MK all day Sunday and it wasn't too bad, but more crowded than I remember it being that day in 2006. We did Pop Warner week in 2008 (AKA, 2 weeks after Thanksgiving) and it did seem a little lighter than what we just experienced in 2009. I hope to do Pop week again in 2010

[daybreaker]

Originally Posted by Cinderumbrella

We flew down the day after Thanksgiving in 2009 and stayed for 10 nights. We did go to MK on Friday night (which wasn't horrible) and we skipped the parks altogether on Saturday. We did MK all day Sunday and it wasn't too bad, but more crowded than I remember it being that day in 2006. We did Pop Warner week in 2008 (AKA, 2 weeks after Thanksgiving) and it did seem a little lighter than what we just experienced in 2009. I hope to do Pop week again in 2010

Yeah, we went the week before Christmas in 2007 because that was right after our wedding. (Married on Dec 15th, flew out on the 16th just 5 hours after the reception ended) It was empty until we started hitting the 21st/22nd. Then it got super packed.

Then in 2008 we decided to go a week earlier. It was Pop Warner week, but not crowded at all. (Apparently we were there at the same time!)

So this year we were wondering if going even earlier would wind up catching huge crowds at the end of thanksgiving. From the replies here, it looks like it'll be really crowded for the first 3 days, but not bad for the next 6, if we decide to pick that date.