Anyone else waiting for the CARS land craziness to calm before visiting?

[Carolynleanne]

... Or am I the only one who isn't willing to deal with the crowds. Were hoping to experience it next year (just went a mont or so back aswell...)

 

[Escape2Disney]

Sort of. I'm sure the hype will be around for a year or so, and I'm not waiting that long! We did change plans from summer to early December though in the hopes that it won't be as bad as opening week!

 

[jdb in AZ]

I'm allergic to crowds so we're waiting til early February.

 

[fctiger]

Well I'm one of those head cases that will be there opening day lol. NORMALLY I would wait it out at least a few weeks, but going with a friend and he loves all the opening day stuff. And to be honest, it is fun just being around the craziness. We are both excited just to be there on the 14th. Watch the media around, catch maybe a few celebrities, watch the REAL hardcore fans as they line up and spend the night on the ground for the night (no I wont be THERE lol) and just see how it all goes down! There is an excitement of just watching the excitement frankly!

That said, honestly by the end of the summer, early fall the park will fall into low season like everything does that time of year. September wont be very busy at all. Slightly busier, maybe, but like all things it will fall into its usual cycle. Kids still have to go back to school and parents only have so much vacation time. I say if you dont want to go at opening, but dont want to wait a year either, go after Labor day weekend. It will still be lines, but nothing out of the ordinary. I suspect by the end of August the crazy rush will be over!

 

[SilentFeline]

I'm with you. My next trip will be to celebrate my graduation and I won't be done with school until May of next year, so my boyfriend and I will be going some time between the end of May and Christmas of 2013. Hopefully the crowds will be manageable by then. We could barely stand the crowds on the MLK holiday on our January trip!

 

[HydroGuy]

... Or am I the only one who isn't willing to deal with the crowds. Were hoping to experience it next year (just went a mont or so back aswell...)

Finding Nemo Sub Voyages in 2007 brought huge crowds that summer and four hour waits. Toy Story Midway Mania brought crowds in 2008. WOC brought crowds in 2010. Star Tours and Little Mermaid brought crowds in 2011.

If you wait until "the crowds die out because of something new" you will never go. Folks waiting until the fall or next year for the crowds to die out - well, they always die down some then anyways. It is not because interest is lost in new things but because low season kicks in.

Most likely is that DL crowds this summer will look much like they normally do in summer. They might even be down a little. DCA crowds will be up but as DLR29 has speculated elsewhere they have a 12 acre expansion in Cars Land to handle 5000+ more people. So outside of CL crowds may look fairly normal.

The threads over the last few months about "insane crowds at DLR" - well, those threads happen just about every year at this time. And folks still go and aside from the particular new thing everything else just looks pretty normal and nothing at all like "insanity" - which in recent summers has meant quite manageable crowds.

The closest thing I have seen to summer insanity - if you want to call it that was in summer of 2005 during the DL 50th anniversary celebration. And Space Mtn had just re-opened and BLAB had just opened. That summer felt much more crowded than any summer since then. And, by the way, that was one of our best trips ever. So insanity - when it exists - does not equate with misery.

My two cents.

 

[2boysmom1998]

I agree with HydroGuy, there will always be something new. I am going to be there the week of June 19th. I made my travel plans before I knew about Carsland opening. We will make the best of it. We were there last year the week after Star Tours and Little Mermaid opened. There were Grad Nights that week too, and the crowds weren't that bad.

One year we made the mistake of going to the Magic Kingdom on a Saturday. That was the worst experience I've had w/ crowds at a Disney Park. I gauge all my Disney visits off of that. That was bad!

 

[subtchr]

I agree with HydroGuy, there will always be something new. I am going to be there the week of June 19th. I made my travel plans before I knew about Carsland opening. We will make the best of it.

This.

Exact same thing here - we made our CA visit plans for June 20 before I did any research into current DLR news. It was the time that fit best with my DH's work schedule.

And although I'm not crazy about crowds (who would be?), I am very excited to see all the changes to DCA. We first went to DCA in 2002, and in spite of the lukewarm reviews, we LOVED it. The atmosphere, the attractions, the "feel". And we have not visited since 2006, so we were fortunate to have never been there with all the walls up.

We are also doing several things that should help mitigate our negative experience with the crowds:

- Staying at GCH. Still expensive but the military discount helps a lot, and to us it is worth it, giving us...
- MM to DL on Thursday and EMH to DCA on Friday. We are early risers anyway, and being on east coast time, it will be very easy for us to hit the ground running before 7:00 am. Now, I know others will, too, but there are also a lot of people who have the best intentions, but when that alarm goes off at 6 am on vacation, especially after staying out late the night before, aren't leaping out of bed. An hour or two head start on the masses is a good thing.
- A great place to spend some recharge time in the afternoons. Starting at 7 am means by the time the crowds really kick in late morning or early afternoon, we can head back for a swim in one of those amazing looking pools, or to chill in the awesome lobby or even a little nap time. Then back out refreshed for the evening - with FPs in our pockets!

- Speaking of FP...over several WDW visits, we became pretty advanced FP tacticians . Now that they have closed the late use loophole at Mickey's Florida digs, we are happy to hear that has not yet occurred at DLR. (I know, I know, some people say they have been turned away late at certain attractions - if that is the case, we will smile and accept it!) And with the added benefit of easily accessible parks and non-connection between them, I can see us in the evenings with quite a few in our pockets.

- We are doing the F! dessert package and a WOC dining package as well. While I realize we still have to be early to optimize those, especially WOC, they do add a layer of reassurance about the evening shows.

I will definitely report back after our trip. I have been at WDW between Christmas and New Years, so I know "shoulder-to-shoulder, can't even walk down the sidewalk" crowds. I hope everyone has a great time no matter when they go!

 

[larina]

We're waiting until next February. We were going to go in October, and I still may try to pull that off, but it isn't looking promising in terms of schedules for us, and I think we may appreciate it more if we wait a bit. Two trips last year may mean no trip this year.

 

[perlster]

Someone needs to tell Disneyland that "there will always be something new". That memo didn't get to park management.

 

[ValpoCory]

We are waiting until January to go, but not specifically to let Cars Land crowds to go down. We like to go to Disney while most U.S. kids are in school so lines in general are shorter. Our kids are young, so staying up past 10pm is not a factor anyway, so the shorter hours in the "offseason" do not bother us.

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

We've been going every year or so, after "new" things come open... did not go after Little Mermaid however in anticipation of Cars Land... We'll be there early December... I am expecting it to still be busier than our Oct and May trips however, just hoping it isn't too nuts--we want to see the Christmas decor this time, and in truth you would never catch me in DL in the heat of the summer... or pretty much any time all the schools are out... but that is just me!

 

[lwilkison]

... Or am I the only one who isn't willing to deal with the crowds. Were hoping to experience it next year (just went a mont or so back aswell...)

We are waiting a little bit to go only because we can't get time off work until later in the year...the bonus is we are going in October so there shouldn't be all the hoop-la...but as Hydroguy says we went as well with the Anniversary and that was a great trip with all the hype that was up. Crowds can be great and besides everything was open.

 

[lwilkison]

Someone needs to tell Disneyland that "there will always be something new". That memo didn't get to park management.

That is why Walt Disney left one spire of the castle unfinished...because he never wanted the DLR to be finished!

 

[darph nader]

We're waitin until early Dec ourslves.

 

[DisneyMomma81]

Would you consider a late Oct visit waiting? We'll be there Tue-Thur 10/23-25

 

[cfrith5]

Finding Nemo Sub Voyages in 2007 brought huge crowds that summer and four hour waits. Toy Story Midway Mania brought crowds in 2008. WOC brought crowds in 2010. Star Tours and Little Mermaid brought crowds in 2011.

If you wait until "the crowds die out because of something new" you will never go. Folks waiting until the fall or next year for the crowds to die out - well, they always die down some then anyways. It is not because interest is lost in new things but because low season kicks in.

Most likely is that DL crowds this summer will look much like they normally do in summer. They might even be down a little. DCA crowds will be up but as DLR29 has speculated elsewhere they have a 12 acre expansion in Cars Land to handle 5000+ more people. So outside of CL crowds may look fairly normal.

The threads over the last few months about "insane crowds at DLR" - well, those threads happen just about every year at this time. And folks still go and aside from the particular new thing everything else just looks pretty normal and nothing at all like "insanity" - which in recent summers has meant quite manageable crowds.

The closest thing I have seen to summer insanity - if you want to call it that was in summer of 2005 during the DL 50th anniversary celebration. And Space Mtn had just re-opened and BLAB had just opened. That summer felt much more crowded than any summer since then. And, by the way, that was one of our best trips ever. So insanity - when it exists - does not equate with misery.

My two cents.

Thank you HydroGuy! You just made me feel a lot better about coming this July! We were there in the summer of 2005 as well, and it was busy, but not terrible. So hopefully we won't encounter too much insanity this year!

 

[Magalex]

We were planning to have our first visit to DL this summer but we held off because it was unclear when Carsland was going to be open. So we are planning July 2013. We live in Pittsburgh, PA & are WDW vets. We are going to WDW in a few weeks & jumping over to Universal Orlando. But I am very excited about next year

 

[nannyz]

We were also there for the 50th anniversary (my husband was there the year DL opened so we had to be there for the 50th). The crowds were manageable.
We're going this summer and plan to devote one day to the CarsLand madness and spend the other 5 days elsewhere.

 

[Liray777]

We decided to just do the World this year and save DL for next spring