Candlelight Processional Nights - How Does This Affect Crowd Levels

[Porsche4]

I am not interested in attending the Candlelight Processional but I was just wondering will the park be more crowded on the days that this is on offer? If we were in the parks when this was on would it pull people away from the rides? Any thoughts or previous experiences would be appreciated.

 

[Tinkaboo]

In my experience, not really. It seemed to me like two different crowds- we saw some people claiming their space first thing in the morning! I’m glad we are missing it this year, not intentionally, I just picked the following week. It really jams up the front end of the park…the second year we were there during it, I think we just went to CA that night.

 

[ParkHopper1]

Not really any more of an impact than any Holiday Weekend inside the parks...most of the ticketed guests are Club 33 members and their guests many of whom come in just for the event rather than a full park day and the die hards trying to get a view will be camped out all day.

You just have to manage park entry and exit around showtimes which can be hectic.

 

[starlite_]

Going against the flow and say that those are the only dates I promised myself to never go again. It's been a few years, pre-Galaxy's Edge so maybe it's better now but it wasn't as much that there was a lot more ppl, it's that it was impossible to move from land to land. We didn't know there was a special event going on and spent 2 hrs just moving thru the hub and trying to find food because every food line was so long we had the brilliant idea to try to eat in Downtown.

Never again for me, but I guess that if you managed to never go near the hub then you might be fine.

 

[irlandaise]

Going against the flow and say that those are the only dates I promised myself to never go again. It's been a few years, pre-Galaxy's Edge so maybe it's better now but it wasn't as much that there was a lot more ppl, it's that it was impossible to move from land to land. We didn't know there was a special event going on and spent 2 hrs just moving thru the hub and trying to find food because every food line was so long we had the brilliant idea to try to eat in Downtown.

Never again for me, but I guess that if you managed to never go near the hub then you might be fine.

Hmmm, I thought the CP mostly affected the Town Square area, as Tinkaboo noted. Are you saying that when you were there, the crowd extended all the way down Main Street to the hub? And you couldn't even walk through the Main Street shops to get out the gates to go to Downtown Disney?

 

[pharmama]

Hmmm, I thought the CP mostly affected the Town Square area, as Tinkaboo noted. Are you saying that when you were there, the crowd extended all the way down Main Street to the hub? And you couldn't even walk through the Main Street shops to get out the gates to go to Downtown Disney?

The event itself is indeed in Town Square and a large stage is constructed in front of and on the train station as well as chairs set up basically filling most of town square for the invited guests. However, there is "standby" viewing on the perimeter of the seating area and people fill the perimeter benches as soon as the park opens. As the day goes on, people will start queuing/filling in the rest of the standby viewing areas. The processional part of CP at the beginning of each performance follows the parade route so you will have people waiting around to watch that, especially in the main street area where you can also hear the performance even if you can't see much. As soon as the first performance begins, they also start queues/"holding pens" for standby viewing of the second performance. These pens will fill half (or a little more) of Main Street on the Town Square end. So all that to say my experience is that it mostly affects Town Square and Main Street. However, there is impact to the hub for the processionals I'd put that similar to a parade, but given the two performances are fairly close together and then fireworks not too long after the second one it kind of means you have parade crowd flow controls in place in the hub area for pretty much the whole evening which can make it painful.

Per usual DL crowd management, there are paths at the edges to go up and down Main Street and they do typically open at least one of the back passages. But the whole area can feel very clogged and congested/difficult to navigate- even in the stores as everyone else is also trying to use that route. On weekends we've been during CP we just make sure to stay away from Main Street/Town Square for the evening until fireworks are over (except the time I did standby viewing on a solo visit- which was AWESOME. Highly recommend planning for the second performance if you want to do this- search the threads here).

 

[starlite_]

Hmmm, I thought the CP mostly affected the Town Square area, as Tinkaboo noted. Are you saying that when you were there, the crowd extended all the way down Main Street to the hub? And you couldn't even walk through the Main Street shops to get out the gates to go to Downtown Disney?

Yup. We literally gave up going down Main Street, tried to take the Railroad to the entrance, it was closed for the event. So we had to brave Main Street and the Hub. We were able to do but it took forever.

I think the Monorail might have been closed or we just didn't think about it at the time, I can't remember exactly.

As I said, our experience might have been a one off and it was a while back, but it left a very negative impression of the event.

 

[Porsche4]

Thanks for all your input folks. This gives me a bit of an idea as what to expect which I always think is the most important thing. Forewarned is forearmed. It is just so hard having to lock in dates for this time next year trying to factor in things like Veterans Weekend, Thanksgiving and The Processional. We are hoping to secure a DVC booking at Grand Californian so it is important I lock my dates in now as I wont be able to change my booking if I am successful. Thanks again.