Advice about crowds - "Jersey Week" vs. Pop Warner Week

[Candycane83]

Hmm... I'm going from Dec 3-12. I hope the chanting will drown out any meltdowns my two year old has

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Hi I've never heard of jersey week, and am so curious! Can anyone tell me what jersey week is and when it is?

- marina

NJ teachers have a 2 day convention the first full week of November which also falls during election week. So districts close schools that Thursday and Friday. Lots of them close for election day and some also close for a veterans day observance which sometimes falls the Monday after. This calls for a lot of NJ folks going on vacation that week. Many go to WDW.

Our district has two half days that week and are closed for election day and the convention. We don't close for veterans day.

 

[bethany0417]

We were there during POP warner week in 2015. Crowds were low for the most part in the parks. The only negative experience we had was on the safari at AK. A pop coach was on his phone with his wife back home nearly the ENTIRE ride. It was so incredibly rude. He said to his wife, "I'd better go, I'm on some animal ride." Some animal ride, really? It was obvious he could care less to be at Disney.
But otherwise we had an amazing trip. Low crowds, great weather. So much so we are planning another trip for 2017 for after Thanksgiving/ early December.

 

[crazedprincess]

We were there during POP warner week in 2015. Crowds were low for the most part in the parks. The only negative experience we had was on the safari at AK. A pop coach was on his phone with his wife back home nearly the ENTIRE ride. It was so incredibly rude. He said to his wife, "I'd better go, I'm on some animal ride." Some animal ride, really? It was obvious he could care less to be at Disney.
But otherwise we had an amazing trip. Low crowds, great weather. So much so we are planning another trip for 2017 for after Thanksgiving/ early December.

That's good to hear since that's the exact time we are going this year!!!!

 

[notrub98]

I have been the past two years during Pop Warner and it is simply not accurate that they are "only at the hotels". Yes, they are swarming the parks in the late afternoon and evening. Yes, they are insufferable to be around and they are largely unsupervised. With that said, they only seemed to have an impact on headliner crowds/lines in my experience (and that was significant - I would get those rides done early in the day). I would not hesitate to go that week again but just being honest that they are everywhere in the parks, they do chant in lines, and they are obnoxious as hell. But you can bob and weave them. The other strategy that worked well is going at rope drop and leaving after the 3 o'clock parade in the Magic Kingdom .

 

[nono]

You all have me so paranoid!! We booked not realizing Jersey week was going on. Should we think about moving up our trip? We would lose out on our 60 day mark, and I probably can't get all the same ADRs, but now I'm super freaked out it is going to be so crowded!! Advice? It is just my mom and me.

How'd it go for you?

Jersey Week was bad this year, esp. for folks without park-hoppers. Last Wed., park opened at 7 a.m. (EMH) and by 10:15 a.m. we had a 20 min wait (complete with The PeopleMover line starts here manually held sign) for THE PEOPLEMOVER!!!. HM was over an hour at that point. Folks we were with decided to upgrade to hoppers and we hopped. The added attraction of Holiday filming was another factor we didn't consider when discussing this thread earlier.

 

[Koz]

It really wasn't that bad this year if you had a plan and FP's in place. We were able to get to each park pre-RD and knock out everything on our list. Sure, getting there mid-morning meant that you were pretty much screwed, but otherwise it seemed to work out. The only truly "heavy" crowd we noticed was a World Showcase on Friday Nov 11th, where you were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. That being said, our only purpose for that afternoon was Agent P and to tour some of the countries, see some of the acts. We were out well before fireworks. I can only imagine how bad the crowd was getting out of there after fireworks, just because of the sheer volume of people (TP projected 8 but confirmed it as a 10). AK was projected as a 6 on the 12th of Nov by TP but actually determined to be an 8 or 9 but just because of the size of the park and abundance of shows/entertainment, you really didn't feel like it was nearly that bad.