I have visited on many Saturdays and they are definitely the worst, but you will be ok. Just know that you could be waiting in a food line for 20 minutes versus 5 minutes during the week
You would still have Sunday 11-when you leave for
MNSSHP. Booths probably will be open earlier.
Yes, Saturday is really bad. You would be MUCH BETTER off to do Sunday right at opening until 2 or 3. If you must do Saturday be standing at the booth you want the most around 1040 am and have a game plan of must dos.
Thanks so much to those who advised me on a weekend strategy! We were there 10/14 - 10/17, and while it WAS crowded, it was manageable. Originally I planned to do Food & Wine on Saturday only all day, then do MNSSHP on Sunday night. I didn't want to buy a two-day ticket and only spend half-days in the park, thinking that's not the best bang for my buck. But I changed my mind and it was well worth it. We had a reservation for the Parisian Breakfast on Saturday morning, so that got us to the park nice and early and in WS when the booths opened at 11:00am. Of course, we were too full to eat anything for a while, so maybe that wasn't the best strategy.
We toured around the countries before it got too crazy, heading from France to Mexico. By the time we got to Mexico, it was getting nuts (probably around 1:00). The line for La Cava was out the door of the pyramid! But the line for Gran Fiesta Tour was only 5 minutes, so we did that. After that we focused on a couple of the booths in Future World East and West and Showcase Plaza, rides and the Festival Center (wine demo was fun). Some booth lines looked long, but we didn't wait more than 5 - 10 minutes. The CM's seemed prepared for the influx. The crowds were not bad outside of WS. We left the park around 7.
On Sunday, we got there at opening and did some rides that we had not done the day before. We got to WS (Canada) at 10:30, prepared to wait until 11, but the booths for Canada and Greece opened up at 10:45. We toured all the way around WS, hitting all the booths we wanted to, and left the park by 2:30 to rest and get ready for MNSSHP. It got crowded on Sunday too, but certainly not as bad as Saturday. The longest we waited was about 5 minutes.
Going two days worked really well - we were able to try more things and not feel like we had to brave the Saturday night crowds to get everything in. Great experience, and I wouldn't be afraid to go on a weekend again.