I'm at
MNSSHP now (the 2nd party, Aug. 24th). It's 10:10pm & it's been crowded all night. Until now we'd only been doing rides, no characters, parades or candy. And the rides were not walk on or very short at all fyi. It's fireworks time in 5 minutes, yet we passed
7DMT 10 minutes ago,
and it still had a posted wait of 40 minutes (with visible line to match). We waited about
20 minutes for Big Thunder at around 7:30 tonight. PP had a
35 minute posted wait, so we skipped. Barnstormer and Winnie the Pooh had lines. We're waiting in a thick crowd at the hub for fireworks, no different than the fireworks crowds on other non-party nights.
These crowds have nothing to do with inexperienced CMs or characters or trick or treating. It's just crowded.
Not really interested in debating expectations with the park-touring pros btw. I posted this to share our experience with others who have never been but have heard about short ride waits during parties & other easy experiences, as those descriptions of the parties abound online. I'm sharing my firsthand experience to let them know that those descriptions are inaccurate.
But these are good times. Any given day on my trips 7DMT is 90+ minutes a good part of the day, BTMM often 45+ minutes and PP 70+ minutes.
BUT a more crowded party can impact character lines and candy lines AND inexperienced CMs absolutely impact the operation and control and movement of said crowds.
Popular rides will not be a walk on during parties. Those wait times look to be about the usual length for parties (ie: much lower than regular park hours)
THIS^ is the party world now and the last few years. I don't think the overall opinions of folks the last few years is that rides are walk on.
If you truly are only interested in rides, the parties are not the way to go ... do DAH. There is a reason these nights dwindle during party season ... force your money elsewhere.
Yes, they used to be complete walk ons all the time...we started going to the parties in 2008 (always Sept. parties) and until the last few years almost all rides were total walkons...as in there were many years wed ride splash or thunder mountain and wouldn't even have to get off to reride.
Yup, started going in 2006 and always felt like a very private experience. I would say since 7DMT opened the parties grew considerably as folks tried to use them as a way to ride.
Overall crowd levels should have no bearing on an attendance-capped, hard-ticket event. Disney directly controls that, so what we see at the parties right now should not be a function of how many people are currently vacationing at WDW.
It does impact the numbers of folks at Disney, crowds make it harder to do all and they are trying to box in some extra rides by booking. The more people that go to Disney, the bigger this party will get.
This really isn't a matter of opinion. If Disney caps the event at 20,000 for argument's sake, the number of people in the parks during regular hours has zero impact. The entire question revolves around reports that Disney has or is overselling these parties, or is raising the attendance cap. People are buying tickets based on Disney's approach to these events in the past. If I spend $600 for a capped event, the cap will always be a part of the value equation. Without that, you just can't see the same amount of shows/characters/attractions. Sure it will fluctuate (under the cap), but what we are seeing now seems to represent a significant increase as indicated by the people who are in a position to know.
Disney can't oversell something that has no external cap other than capacity. They have never announced a cap, never will and as someone who has been to many "sold out" parties the last 10 years, that "cap" has grown. They sell how many tickets they want to sell, and that could even change based on which night, which month etc. I bet the dates with the lowest prices may even have the largest capacities because more guests might be willing to pay. What everyone here is expressing pure opinion .......... Again, if Disney has more people booked, going to parks, unable to get all their rides done ......... why wouldn't they raise the number of tickets sold so those guests looking for an angle to get on rides and willing to buy them.
We were there too. It was very crowded from 4:00 on. There was a long line for Jack and Sally almost immediately after 4:00. As of 10:00 people were saying there were still 3 hour waits for them. At 6:15 CMs told us the wait for Seven Dwarves was over 3 hours. Line for Pooh and friends was also extremely long. We waited 30 - 40 minutes for Jafar and about the same for Aladdin and Abu. About 30 minutes for Jane and Terk. Those were the only characters we met. The treat lines were a lot longer than I expected. They did move quickly about 5 minutes to get through each. However the long lines looked discouraging and often times my kids just wanted to walk past as the line visually looked really daunting. The first parade was packed. As others have said about 5 people deep. Fireworks was slightly better. Rides were longer waits during party then we experienced earlier in the day in some cases. Pirates was about 35 minutes whenever we checked, 7d was at 60 minutes at one point and yes Big Thunder was down which was also disappointing. Kids were disappointed as it seemed everything they wanted to do required a very long wait which is difficult for them to do especially when the party is short and they are not old enough to last until park close. PhotoPass lines were long as well, we chose not to spend our time there and didn’t do any of them. It was also raining for a bit which didn’t help. With those types of waits it seems that you really have to pick a couple of things you really want to do and accept that you wont experience most of the available entertainment. Which would be ok if the cost was a little more manageable but the cost for a family of 5 to attend and then only experience a few things is really not great value in my opinion. All in all we had an ok time in the end, I wouldn’t say it was a bad experience but I will say it was a disappointing experience and I think you really have to levelset your expectations going into the party to enjoy it. I think the biggest issue is that the kids were so excited at the start of the party but in the first few hours after going to various events only to realize that the waits were long everywhere it was tough to recover. Last year’s party was similar but many events were cancelled due to bad weather, so we chalked the crowds up to that. After 2 disappointing experiences in a row I don’t think we’d go again which is too bad as I love the idea of a Halloween party at Disney World.
Just a few thoughts, having gone since 2006.
- Meeting 7D has ALWAYS been hours long, with line closing long before end of party.
- When Jack & Sally started they were hours long and in last few years started early to make up for lines.
- Pooh lines, always long due to their cute costumes, but made worse since last few years they severely cut their greet time.
- Candy, we wait until towards end of night because the lines are shorter and we don't have to haul it around.
- Parade is highlight to many, it's been years since second parade was less crowded.
- Photopass is very special and popular.
- Popular ride lines no longer short, shorter than daytime, but easily eat up party time.
I hear you, I had said in 2015 I was done. Other than Hocus Pocus addition, it had not changed at all but get more crowded. BUT I went from 2 parties a year to 1 because DS loves it so. Going again this year, but while I used to buy my tickets as soon as they went on sale, I don't have them yet.
