I'm at Disney World generally every 3 months or so, since I live a 3 hr drive away and have
DVC. The crowds at all the parks have changed since Covid - one of the stranger things I noticed is that often the parks can feel quite packed - negotiating down Main Street or Hollywood Blvd, or stopping at food & drink spots in Epcot, it often feels really packed, shoulder to shoulder at times, and long lines for drinks and food...really very few 'down times' like there used to be where some months would be nearly empty. BUT - ride standby times have been surprisingly low much of the time. I never buy any of the LL passes or extra cost passes for any rides when I go, so if I want to get on a ride, it's walk-up standby only. With few exceptions, I can get onto just about any ride within 30 minutes or less. There have been times where I'll see Haunted Mansion at 50 min, or Space Mountain at 60 min - but skipping it and circling back later in the day, I'll see a 20-40 minute wait time for the same rides. I've seen Kilimanjaro at AK run 60 min on some busy feeling days, then 2 hours later it's 10 minutes.
Also, one of the most packed, crowded feeling parts of Disney World since Covid is usually Disney Springs, especially evenings. It seems like there are a lot of people still coming to the resorts, and the parks, but not trying to cram onto rides all day...or skipping the parks (maybe hitting other theme parks, taking more 'resort days', etc. There have been times I walk into a park and think 'ugh' - this is going to be a packed day and I'm not going to get on any of the rides or get any food...then I actually start pushing through the crowd and find I can hit most of the rides I want and generally get food or drinks just by being flexible on times or locations - I'll pass one quick serve spot that looks way too packed, and find another where only 2-3 people are waiting ahead of me. Skip prime lunch hour, and I can usually score a snack or quick lunch food.
Now, some recent days have been surprisingly nice with park crowds - this Mid-June I was there, and my first day at MK had that packed, crowded street feel but no problems getting on rides...then second day at Epcot, and it was much more wide-open, no heavy crowds milling about, and most rides were almost walk-on (10 minutes or less for everything except Frozen, Galaxy, and Soarin...and even Soarin was only 15 min and Frozen was 40). The only thing that felt a little more crowded were the food booths, that all seemed to have lines of 20+ people. If you just wanted a beverage, most of those spots like Oasis and Refreshment Port were 5 people or less.
Next trip is mid-September during Food & Wine - generally I find the same for all parks in September - they feel packed, but it's more just people milling about the common spaces - and any rides with long waits will fall and rise throughout the day - so if it's long, circle back in an hour or two. Epcot will feel a lot more crowded of course, and all the food and bar lines will be long as they always are, but I expect rides won't be bad, and reservations for restaurants are usually easy to score since so many are doing the food booths all day.
