Checked out early - Parks too crowded.

[cindyfan]

.... If people are happy to do a cheap craft or watch a movie or anything else they can do at home while paying thousands of dollars to do something else, then good for them. For some (most?) of us, it's not in the realm of a reasonable suggestion. Advice on how to maximize touring time would be much more appreciated.

exactly!!! love your response! Best response on this thread!

 

[dizzneebabe]

Everyone has their own tolerance level when it comes to crowds and heat. However, you are a FL resident, have passes that don't expire until Nov and are not going to go back b/c a Spring Break week was crowded? That, I don't understand. While I don't like the new FP+ (we find ourselves riding less and less after the initial three picks), we can always find something to do; even if that means just hanging around by the pool. We are FL residents, too and that's the beauty of it--we can always return another time relatively easily.

 

[Sparkly]

That would probably help some, for sure. For us, we are fortunate right now in that we don't have to go in peak season. And we ALWAYS rope drop. Beyond that, it just is what it is and we leave for the day when it gets to be too much. I don't think the park will ever be so crowded that I want to leave and go to my resort to make a friendship bracelet .

So..what's the problem then? There's lots to do outside the parks that doesn't involve friendship bracelets..AKL is nice to look around and so is AOA, or you could go to Disney Springs and go bowling or see a movie.

 

[Dismama2boys]

So..what's the problem then? There's lots to do outside the parks that doesn't involve friendship bracelets..AKL is nice to look around and so is AOA, or you could go to Disney Springs and go bowling or see a movie.

Not a problem, really. Looking around the resorts is a completely different suggestion than "go do a craft." I truly don't care how others spend their vacation time, other than to have an opinion that the suggestion that doing a craft instead of going to a park is not a substitute that I, or many, would find acceptable. Visiting other resorts or going to DS is at least not something one can do at home for less than a dollar.

 

[mbrown2097]

Right now wait time for LwtL is 25 minutes and SSE 15 during a reported crowded spring break. I'm not sure where your usual experiences are coming from.

You do realize that last week is not the same as this week, right?

 

[AngiTN]

Not a problem, really. Looking around the resorts is a completely different suggestion than "go do a craft." I truly don't care how others spend their vacation time, other than to have an opinion that the suggestion that doing a craft instead of going to a park is not a substitute that I, or many, would find acceptable. Visiting other resorts or going to DS is at least not something one can do at home for less than a dollar.

Pretty sure look around at the resorts was suggested several times. Not just go do a craft

 

[Sweettears]

You do realize that last week is not the same as this week, right?

Still spring break. Not sure what your point is. My quoting wait times was in response to a PP that was suggesting wait times of 60 minutes was normal.

 

[anniemae]

I think so many things make forecasting crowds unpredictable, like the cold snap last week that closed the water parks. Now the wait times stabilized a bit. Who knows what the rest of March and April will hold!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

We were there this past week also, primarily for NCAA games, with some park time added in. DS stayed offsite with his team (and ultimately had very little down time), while the rest of our family stayed at Disney. At one time I had a few hotels booked, some being offsite, as we weren't sure who was coming with us, and had chosen different hotels for different reasons, but ultimately we chose to stay at Disney for the bus transportation so DD could meet up with friends also staying at Disney. Point being, I'd been watching and fooling around with hotels and resorts for quite a while. Disney resorts had been booked pretty solidly for last week for a long time, and off-site resort prices had climbed steadily. I managed to book one of the last available affordable WDW rooms I saw in the middle of the night one night in late Feb. So we knew it would be busy. We have been to WDW when all resorts were full at least a couple of times before. Somehow this seemed worse.

DH and I think that consumer confidence has something to do with it. It's had a positive impact on other things like home buying and businesses, we think it would affect travel spending, too. Which might explain why parks seemed busier now than before when resorts were full. And absolutely, the weather impacted parks, they even mentioned it on the local news, saying that water parks were closed and local indoor places were super crowded, like movie theaters and such. We were at Disney Springs the other night and Ghiardellil was completely packed inside, we waited for what seemed like forever to get an ice cream. I've never seen it that crowded before. I also haven't seen it mentioned, and not sure if it was an issue here, but Disney had that special on park tickets - one of each park for the cost of two. We had those tickets, as did our friends. I wonder if people felt because they had the tickets, they wanted to go, even if it was, say, cold, raining, or crowded? (We let one day go as we were just beat from all the running around we had to do for games and DD and I also got colds from the plane.) We were told by a CM on Thursday night at MK that the night before (Wed) they had to keep the park open an hour later than posted closing time as so many people were still in lines. We were able to get a lot done after crowds thinned out later, and DD and DH had gone to RD that morning and they got a lot done then as well. But our friends went in a little later and as long time veterans and DVC owners they felt the MK should've been closed on Thurs from what they saw. (DH and DD had left by then.)

For us it was a bit of an unusual trip as we weren't exactly sure of what DS's schedule would be, or when or if he'd be joining us, so it was a little hard to plan in advance. We didn't buy his one day park ticket until last minute when we were sure he could come with us. We had one ADR a different day where we thought he could come with us, and he couldn't. So it was weird. We were at all the parks we went to at rope drop. Twice (@ HS and Epcot) we ran into trouble with magic bands that caused a 20 minute or more delay at Guest Services (primarily from waiting in line) and that was a huge problem on a week like this. The Studios was the worst for us. An hour into opening RnRC and ToT had 120 minute waits posted. RnRCs single rider line was closed. Honestly, in many of the queue areas, I've never seen larger crowds (including on LwtL!). Of course we managed to have a good time anyway. Our strategy might be different for subsequent years, though, if we go again during spring break. We'll see how it plays out for the rest of the year.

 

[maxiesmom]

exactly!!! love your response! Best response on this thread!

Not really. Many people have suggested how to maximize touring. However if you are still miserable staying where you are miserable makes no sense. Much smarter to go relax, swim, anything else you may actually get some enjoyment out of.

 

[Dismama2boys]

Pretty sure look around at the resorts was suggested several times. Not just go do a craft

Yes, it was. I was responding specifically to the "go do a craft" comment. I thought that was clear?

 

[Dismama2boys]

Not really. Many people have suggested how to maximize touring. However if you are still miserable staying where you are miserable makes no sense. Much smarter to go relax, swim, anything else you may actually get some enjoyment out of.

You've missed my point entirely. No one said touring advice wasn't given. The part about spending thousands of dollars on a vacation to do a craft was the point. Based on the number of likes comments along those lines are getting, many others do get the point, and agree.

 

[erc]

We were there this past week also, primarily for NCAA games, with some park time added in. DS stayed offsite with his team (and ultimately had very little down time), while the rest of our family stayed at Disney.

Awesome. I hope your son enjoyed the experience even if they didn't win. I can't tell you how disappointing it is to see empty seats at these games. Bring a regional to Boston and there won't be empty seats. This is my favorite time of the sports year besides the Super Bowl.

 

[Vandrusiek]

I don't know if I could ever leave Disney early because of crowds, or any reason other than an emergency! That might be because its such a special treat as we dont get to go very often. So when we have lines, the hubs and I have games on our phone and in our bag to play while we wait. If the line is just too long to handle, we move on. Lines suck but I'd rather be in a long line at Disney, then at work!

 

[ckb_nc]

We hit ML Thursday as well - late FP that started at 5. Biggest problem we incurred was the Resort Monorail was totally unreliable much of Thursday evening. We missed our late FP time as we took forever to get back from GF, and ran into the Fireworks crowd. Managed to watch Wishes close to the Terrace and make ito to Space Mountain. Honored our FP (CMs were really gracious with them all week thankfully). Huge FP crowd; I have never seen such long lines for FPs at the major rides at MK in my life. Still had a great time. Surprised my two college age DDs and was just thankful as their Dad to spend a couple of days in WDW with them as those days are harder to find.

 

[erc]

What is express transportation?

https://www.disboards.com/threads/n...ay-or-29-week-schedule-page-1-post-1.3563694/

 

[hippiechicken]

I wish I spent my Spring Break at a crowded Disney as opposed to a week at home...

 

[jettagirl]

We are here now too and, while I don't think I'd resort to checking out early, I can understand the temptation. We arrived on Tuesday and crowds seemed pretty insane to me right through to Friday. We saw 50+ minute waits for Figment on Wednesday. As a result, we only did our 3 fast passes that day. We were at Magic Kingdom on Thursday and did very well in the morning but didn't do anything in the afternoon except the People Mover (and, for that, the line extended far past the regular queue...past the elevators for Astro Orbiters). We tried to get a 4th fast pass but failed since the only return times were past 9 pm and we have 2 small kids so we just went back to our resort. We were at Animal Kingdom Friday and tried to have lunch at Pizzafari but bailed when we saw the line extended way out the first doorway.

That being said, the crowds, to me at least, have seemed much more manageable over the weekend. We were at HS yesterday and MK today and were able to do everything we wanted and even had the option for 4th fast passes with decent return times. It's definitely warmer now so perhaps that's part of the reason (people are taking pool days now)...and March Break is over for many so hopefully that means lighter crowds for those arriving soon.

This is the first time we've travelled to Disney World for March break and it's doubtful we will come again at this time. It's definitely the busiest I've ever encountered.

 

[k5thbeatle]

Yesterday we checked out of Bay Lake Towers and left Walt Disney World a day early. The hotel was great but my family of four could no longer take the crowds in the Parks.

I get that it is Spring Break, we have Florida Resident Annual Passes, but having school-age kids means we can only visit during vacations and weekends (we only take our kids out of school for Emergencies). We do plan hotel, dinner and FastPass reservations months in advance; so please do not judge.

On Wednesday evening March 15, Space Mountain had a Stand By time of 215 Minutes before it broke down just after the 9PM Fireworks. Sorry, but 30 minutes is my limit for any ride; I wanted to come back in Fall to try Pandora but now we are not going to bother and let our Passes lapse in November.

Can anybody comment on having a similar experience wanting to check out early?

I probably wouldn't have left but that being said I can certainly see and understand why someone would. After a multitude of WDW visits (going back to 1971 for me) we decided to give it a break back in 2014 for several reasons including some cited above.

 

[memo10]

I just have to add that we went the day after this was posted (FL Res APH as well). We got to MK at about 8pm and it was definitely crowded, but we managed to accomplish 8 attractions in the few hours until the park closed. We actually changed and made additional fastpases in the park after 8pm which I thought was pretty impressive. It was an extra magical night... sometimes it's worth sticking it out until the bitter end!