Christmas Week Crowds ??

[glass slipper girl]

Line for fast passes at BTMR (12/24 @ around 1:00 PM)

And the line (yes, LINE) for the Tommorowland Transit Authority looks like this (photos from 12/24/07 @ about 3:00 PM):

 

[lawnspecialties]

Whoa. Those pictures are wild.. I pray they are dead when we go, end of Jan. lol

They WILL be far better than that. We're also going down late January (the 26th). To me, January is the best time to go.

If crowds were always like the original poster showed, we'd just start going somewhere else.

 

[princessreilly]

Thanks for sharing! We were there the first week of December and I thought it was crowded!

 

[KYCruiseCrazy]

And the line (yes, LINE) for the Tommorowland Transit Authority looks like this (photos from 12/24/07 @ about 3:00 PM):

wow i knew it would get crowded, and this pics just shows how crowded MK can get.

any others have pics from the other parks?

 

[OhioDisneyDad]

You couldn't pay me enough to want to endure those crowds! How can being there with that many people be fun? You have to wait in line for everything - I don't get it. We always go in January (we leave 1/11/08 for 10 days) and it's great. You don't have the crowds or the humidity (usually) to deal with. I always use a plan such as TGM - not that it's really needed in January - and we never wait for anything. Plus you're REALLY competing for ADRs and paying the "holiday" premium. To each his own I guess but I'd rather ride Soarin' 4 times in a row rather than wait in line for fastpasses.

 

[Luv2trav]

We went from 18th-23rd... Like many people have said the first couple days were great. It got busier on the 21st on... However if you went in early morning and avoided Extra Magic Hours parks you could get a lot done in the morning. Only thing I was dissappointed with was the MVMCP... We won't do that again.

 

[CarolinaBlue]

Okay, we just got back last night. We were there from 12/20-12/26. We went to MVMCP on 12/21 and I thought it was great. It seemed (to us) to be less crowded than when we went on 12/18/05 and both parties were sold out. We had plenty of room to walk and didn't wait more than 15 minutes for the rides. We went to Epcot on 12/22 and had no problems with crowds. On 12/23 (my birthday) we arrived at the MK at 6:30a.m., yes, A.M.! The MK had EMH that day from 7:00-8:00a.m. For that hour, we practically had the park to ourselves! We did Fantasyland and then were the first to ride Haunted Mansion when it opened at 8:00. We then headed to Pirates, stopped at the bakery for breakfast, and then on over to Tomorrowland to ride Buzz (twice), TTA (twice), and Space Mountain. I had my birthday lunch at Crystal Palace and then we returned to the resort for a couple of hours. We went back around 5pm, and yes it was crowded then. We went to Epcot on 12/24 and it was crowded, but we've been there before on Christmas Eve, so this was to be expected. We grabbed a fastpass for Soarin', did Living with the Land, the Seas, had lunch at Garden Grill, rode Soarin', and then on to World Showcase where we spent the afternoon walking around, shopping, and just enjoying the atmosphere. We left late in the afternoon and spent the rest of the evening at our resort. We did not go to the parks on Christmas Day. We did go over to the Grand Floridian to see the gingerbread house around noon. We took a boat over to Fort Wilderness for our ADR at Trail's End. We left the fort around 6:00pm and returned to our resort. Except for MVMCP, I did think that it was more crowded this year than 2 years ago. Here's the key: We were at the parks prior to opening and used fastpass when necessary. Of course if you arrive in the afternoon it will be crowded.

 

[hippiechicken]

We just got back and I didn't think the crowds were bad at all. We went to the party on the 21st and waited 15 minutes for Pooh, making that the longest wait of our trip. We did the am EMH and a couple of the pm.
I don't ever want to go in the summer again after the Holiday magic and weather!

 

[hippiechicken]

We just got back and I didn't think the crowds were bad at all. We went to the party on the 21st and waited 15 minutes for Pooh, making that the longest wait of our trip. We did the am EMH and a couple of the pm.
I don't ever want to go in the summer again after the Holiday magic and weather!

 

[Tinkerbell63]

We would love to go during a non-peak season, but sometimes we don't have a choice. Our jobs won't allow it. I can only dream about how nice it would be not having to rush somewhere to beat the crowds.

 

[Lizcakes]

They WILL be far better than that. We're also going down late January (the 26th). To me, January is the best time to go.

If crowds were always like the original poster showed, we'd just start going somewhere else.

We're also going the 25th to the 1st and just love going in January. It's all snow and ice up here (Mass.) and we will SO welcome a few "rays" and swimming, but then we will swim at Disney if it's over 68°!

 

[SqueakyMouse]

We were at WDW from the 19th through the 27th. Everyone in the family agreed that the crowds seemed much lighter this year -- even lighter than during our July visit. (Of course, this may be due to rides being run at capacity and extra staff being on hand.) The only time we got that claustrophobic feeling was during the first Christmas Parade in the MK on Christmas Day. Of course, we usually don't stay for this; but the wait time for rides after our CP brunch were not bad at all (only 20 min. for PoC) so we stayed later than planned. After the parade ended, a huge wave of people left the parks. We lingered maybe 20 minutes and were able to exit to a nearly empty bus area. Once I get my photos organized and uploaded to Photobucket, I'll post some of the nearly empty parks we found each morning. Also, we found that there were far more large, foreign family groups in the past. As a result, walkways could get quite crowded with big groups of slow-moving family members of ALL ages in the afternoons; but wait times (other than for those rides that ALWAYS have big waits in the afternoon) were very short.

 

[lawnspecialties]

We're also going the 25th to the 1st and just love going in January. It's all snow and ice up here (Mass.) and we will SO welcome a few "rays" and swimming, but then we will swim at Disney if it's over 68°!

Just don't tell anyone. We must keep this a secret.

 

[GalDisney]

I went to the Mk on dec. 26 and it was very crowded, which i knew would be the case. I did not stay too long. And today i went to DTD, very busy there too! When will i learn lol

 

[La2kw]

We left WDW on the 27th, but the 24-26th were busier than I have ever seen at WDW. We have been to WDW many times during the summertime, which is pretty busy, but these crowds were much worse. I felt sorry for all the people showing up for the week, they were going to have very crowded conditions. With the exception of MVMCP on the 18th, we had very uncrowded conditions the week right before Christmas.

 

[Disney Wanderer]

Any reports of Capacity Closings ???

 

[SqueakyMouse]

I finally got a few photos loaded onto Photobucket (not sure why it's giving me so much trouble).

Here are some photos taken in the MK on Dec. 21st at close to 10 am (park opening at 9):

 

[SqueakyMouse]

If you look closely, you can see the fairly light crowds at MGM on the evening of the 20th.

We walked right into the 2nd showing of Fantasmic about 20 minutes prior to the show. We never had to squish together as both the extreme right and left sections (along with plenty of other spaces in between) remained open.

 

[SqueakyMouse]

Here's WoD around 1:20 on the 20th. Walkways were busy and we waited 20 minutes or more for our food at WPE, but lines were short and tables were available. Worth noting: We had to wait for tables at DTD during our July trip, even though we often dined at off-peak times.

 

[SqueakyMouse]

This was taken at AK around 10:20 am on the 20th. Note how empty the walkway is around Devine. On Christmas Eve, the crowds would gather around her so tightly that she could barely move.