Is it just me or does it seem the parks arexpacked?

[recmouse]

there is no "slow" time anymore, just like there is no "off season."

ditto!

 

[gwmort]

Been here at disney world since the 17th. Came at a "slow" time of year and planned all the parks according to the crowd trackers. Magic kingdim is packed! Hollywoid studios too. It's 9:00 am and we're in line to toy story mania and it's already over 30 min. wait.
If these are 1or 2 crowd levels waht are 4,5 or 9 levels like?

If you've never seen a 9 or 10, its difficult to explain what crowded feels like.

We've been all times of year, and even Thanksgiving Day in MK. Its a different kind of park experience, still enjoyable for us (or we wouldn't do it) but very different.

I'm sure the slow times are getting less slow, thats the purpose of all those promotional people and programs. But if you've never seen the parks actually crowded its hard to relate. I had a lot of family there on the 13th, be glad you missed that fiasco.

 

[LibertyTree]

The crowds were definitely larger in September. And it was mainly due from people coming in from all over Europe. I heard Italian, French, German, Russian, etc. Talked to quite a few Brits too.

I also talked to a few CMs while we were there. They were surprised at the crowd levels and a bit disappointed too. This is usually the time of the year they can catch their breath.

I wonder what incentives they offered to foreign visitors. Free dining? Cheap rooms? Did they not offer it as much before?

Its too bad. While the crowds weren't awful, they didn't compare to the usual September crowd levels, where you have the whole park to yourself.

 

[wendow]

I agree. My husband commented that we heard by FAR more foreign languages being spoken this trip than we did English. It was kind of crazy.

We were there the 10th-18th and we made the same comment. Heard more foreign language than English. My kids thought it was way cool to hear all the different languages. Anyway, it was the case in the parks, on the monorail and at the resort.

I commented on another thread that we too felt it was more crowded this trip than last September. But I am sure, in comparison to other times, the crowds were still really low.

 

[PoohLover78]

I wonder what incentives they offered to foreign visitors. Free dining? Cheap rooms? Did they not offer it as much before?

The incentive is a very weak Dollar compared to the Euro. It's relatively cheap to vacation in the US these days for Europeans because the Dollar is losing value compared to the Euro.

 

[Autumnslight]

We were at Disney World the 19th-28th, and there were definitely a lot of international visitors. Saw a couple of large South American tour groups, but only at MK on Saturday 9/21 and Saturday 9/28, and we were able to avoid them.

MK was supposed to be a crowd level 4.something on Saturday 9/21, and my experience mostly fit my expectation of what that sort of crowd level should be.

DHS on Wednesday 9/25 was INSANE though. The crowd level was supposed to be less than 2, and it was VERY crowded in my opinion. By the time we finished signing up for Jedi Training just before 10am, Fast Passes for TSM were GONE. We also didn't make it into a single Disney Jr. show all day, as they were all full before we could get in. It was not a great experience.

One thing this trip taught me is that I definitely could NOT handle crowd levels above 5, especially in hot weather. I'll be trying to book in early December or Mid January from now on.

 

[ghtx]

I wonder what incentives they offered to foreign visitors. Free dining? Cheap rooms? Did they not offer it as much before?

The incentive is a very weak Dollar compared to the Euro. It's relatively cheap to vacation in the US these days for Europeans because the Dollar is losing value compared to the Euro.

Really? I'm not sure that's true. It looks like over the past few years the exchange rate has seen some ups and downs, but there is no apparent trend.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

We were down there from the 15th - 25th and found it to be typical for the most part for mid-September.

The only crowds that surprised me were on Monday the 23rd...that day it bucketed rain for more than 6 hours. I mean 'bring your canoe to work day' it was 'bad'. We were at BB went it was closed and then hopped over to DHS thinking the crowds would thin out. Nope....Star Tours was a walk on for DH and DD - they rode it 3 times in a row with little to no wait. But TSM had a 120 minute posted wait (didn't even look inside to find out if that was somewhat accurate - we're in the don't wait more than 15 minutes group). I was surprised at how many people stuck out the rain.

 

[angierae]

Heck, according to MDE, the wait for TSMM right now is "only" 45 minutes, whereas I've seen it well over 105. That seems like a lower crowd than what we've seen in the summer.

 

[JessiMommy]

Here's a few pics from our trip Sept 14-21 of this year. This is pretty much what we dealt with. Again, we do rope drop, fastpass, eat lunch early and get out. We return in the evenings. We were taking these types of pics to send home to family via text to make them jealous of the low crowds.



This was taken on Sunday, Sept. 15 at about 10 AM.


This was on Tuesday, Sept. 17 around 8 AM We took monorail from TTC to MK. Had the whole car to ourselves.


This was on Thursday, Sept. 19 around 10 AM.


This was on Friday, Sept. 20 around noon. I know this is typically a crowd free ride but I think I was the only person riding in any car, lol!

 

[Fairyjen1]

We were there from Sept. 11-18 and it seemed the crowds were low. This is only my second trip to WDW , so I only have Disneyland to compare to (been there over 50 times).

We literally walked on about half the rides and the longest wait we had all trip was 30 minutes for TSMM because we decided to go through the queue instead of fast pass so we could check it out (The queue for the one at DCA is pretty sad compared to the one at WDW), so the wait was deliberate on our part. If we waited at all it was no more than 10-15 minutes.

We used both Touring plans and easy WDW to make informed decisions about what parks to go to, and we avoided any with EMH. It seemed to work well for us and are planning to go back in a few years at the same time of year and follow the same strategy.

 

[JenniferinFL]

We go most Saturdays and the only one that seemed heavier than usual was this past Saturday. But, I believe that was the first weekend of food and wine. A good opportunity really for families with kids to combine "not so scary" and food and wine. Magic Kingdom was the heaviest we've seen it in awhile. We got to the park at 1 PM and they were already parking in Zurg with the other lots full.

 

[PatMcDuck]

We got here to Disney on the 28th and parks not crowded. Last night's MNSSHP was light. Very nice indeed. Epcot was pretty quiet today, and AK yesterday was as well.

My son has a GAC pass, but with the FP+ and the light crowds, we have not used it in 3 days, except for Splash Mt on Saturday.

 

[dsneygirl]

If you've never seen a 9 or 10, its difficult to explain what crowded feels like.

We've been all times of year, and even Thanksgiving Day in MK. Its a different kind of park experience, still enjoyable for us (or we wouldn't do it) but very different.

I'm sure the slow times are getting less slow, thats the purpose of all those promotional people and programs. But if you've never seen the parks actually crowded its hard to relate. I had a lot of family there on the 13th, be glad you missed that fiasco.

I was also there on the 13th never want to experience that again. Last year we were there 09/22-10/02m, this year 2 weeks earlier 09/08-09/18 and it was significantly less busy the early weeks. I would definitely consider it slow. No lines for buses and empty restaurants I can't imagine it much slower.

 

[Nohal]

We were down there from the 15th - 25th and found it to be typical for the most part for mid-September.

The only crowds that surprised me were on Monday the 23rd...that day it bucketed rain for more than 6 hours. I mean 'bring your canoe to work day' it was 'bad'. We were at BB went it was closed and then hopped over to DHS thinking the crowds would thin out. Nope....Star Tours was a walk on for DH and DD - they rode it 3 times in a row with little to no wait. But TSM had a 120 minute posted wait (didn't even look inside to find out if that was somewhat accurate - we're in the don't wait more than 15 minutes group). I was surprised at how many people stuck out the rain.

We were at MK on Monday and it was crowded. We were also surprised at how many people stuck out the rain and how many didn't have ponchos on. We tried to hang but by 4:30 couldn't take anymore and left the park. This is the 12th Sept trip for us and it gets more crowded every year. There were a lot of international visitors there and a lot of kids. Considering schools started 2 weeks ago in the northeast we were surprised at the amount of school age kids there.

 

[canyoncam]

Heck, according to MDE, the wait for TSMM right now is "only" 45 minutes, whereas I've seen it well over 105. That seems like a lower crowd than what we've seen in the summer.

This is accurate as I walked by right about then. The entire park was relitively empty I think because of the 6:00 closing and no Fantasmic. We left right after that to Magic Kingdom and it felt slow too. Mostly 20 minute waits on the major rides. We have been here since last Wednesday hopping and this was the slowest day. But oh my hottest too!

 

[canyoncam]

Here's a few pics from our trip Sept 14-21 of this year. This is pretty much what we dealt with.

http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/jessimommy/media/1-1.jpg.html
This was on Thursday, Sept. 19 around 10 AM.

http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/jessimommy/media/3.jpg.html
This was on Friday, Sept. 20 around noon. I know this is typically a crowd free ride but I think I was the only person riding in any car, lol!

I passed out today when I saw the line for this! They had the chains up for a line backing up to Astro Orbitors! But I think they had a staffing issue as it cleared up soon and everything else was 20 minutes or under ( except Small World and I think that is because Peter Pan is closed).

 

[savannie]

Here's a few pics from our trip Sept 14-21 of this year. This is pretty much what we dealt with. Again, we do rope drop, fastpass, eat lunch early and get out. We return in the evenings. We were taking these types of pics to send home to family via text to make them jealous of the low crowds. http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/jessimommy/media/4.jpg.html This was taken on Sunday, Sept. 15 at about 10 AM. http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/jessimommy/media/2.jpg.html This was on Tuesday, Sept. 17 around 8 AM We took monorail from TTC to MK. Had the whole car to ourselves. http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/jessimommy/media/1-1.jpg.html This was on Thursday, Sept. 19 around 10 AM. http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/jessimommy/media/3.jpg.html This was on Friday, Sept. 20 around noon. I know this is typically a crowd free ride but I think I was the only person riding in any car, lol!

I think Rope Drop and "most" recommended must make a HUGE difference. Our schedule was usually 10-2, break, then 5-close. We had a 2 year old who didn't adjust to the one hour time change too well, so we never made it to rope drop. It looks like you did the most recommended park every day. We did that some days, but did the other recommended park on other days. It's amazing what a difference in crowds you had! I rode People Mover about 4 times, on all different days. It was always full, though it never had an actual wait. There were times at MK and AK where I felt like I couldn't breathe because crowds were so tightly packed around me. We rode the ferry 3x because the monorail lines were all the way down the pathway. But, you know, the smallest thing can change crowds quickly. One 30 minute shower took AK from 60 min. wait times to walk ons for everything.

 

[wendow]

I think Rope Drop and "most" recommended must make a HUGE difference. Our schedule was usually 10-2, break, then 5-close. We had a 2 year old who didn't adjust to the one hour time change too well, so we never made it to rope drop. It looks like you did the most recommended park every day. We did that some days, but did the other recommended park on other days. It's amazing what a difference in crowds you had! I rode People Mover about 4 times, on all different days. It was always full, though it never had an actual wait. There were times at MK and AK where I felt like I couldn't breathe because crowds were so tightly packed around me. We rode the ferry 3x because the monorail lines were all the way down the pathway. But, you know, the smallest thing can change crowds quickly. One 30 minute shower took AK from 60 min. wait times to walk ons for everything.

We did RD every single day and were even there 30-45 mins early in case the park opened early. DHS opened 30 mins early the day we were there!! We went to the most recommended park every day but one and it was the next most recommended park. We had our touring plan in hand and we were ready to go. Even with all that, the people mover was never empty for us, parades were hard to find spots for and even outside of normal meal times, most restaurants were busy. We saw those same monorail lines all the way down the path. Buses were jam packed as were monorails. My dh stood on almost every single monorail ride b/c there were no seats.

We are not seasoned vets like so many here are but we were there almost exactly 1 year before and imo, crowds were just higher than the previous year. Having said that, our touring plan worked perfectly. We rarely had to wait more than 5-10 mins for attractions. Most of our waits were at DHS. Some of our longest waits outside of DHS were ETWB and waiting for characters. There seemed to be a lot of characters without PP photographers which made the waits much longer.

But after seeing a low crowd time feel so busy, I simply cannot fathom going at a truly busy time. I did it as a kid and I remember those super long lines.

 

[Bama_C]

Have never been before on the week of Halloween, and I know we are avoiding MK on that particular day. But, are we "in for it" in regard to the crowds? We have mostly been during September with the exception of one trip during Spring Break MANY years ago and our trip last December. I am just wondering what the last week of October and first week of November will look like as crowds go.

Any experience???