Crowd levels this week at DL?

[Vougar]

I am planning our next trip to DL MLK week in 2016. We will be doing a 5 day parkhopper and trying to decide between M-Fri or Tues-Sat. Are crowd levels a toss-up between MLK Monday and the following Saturday?

Also, I've read on the boards that touringplans is not the most reliable for DL. Yesterday it predicted DL at a 7, but said it was actually a 5 and DCA at a 9 but was actually a 8. Even though their predictions may not be accurate how close are their "actual" numbers? Could someone comment how busy both DL/DCA were yesterday?

Thank you.

 

[junmatno]

A little info for you, MLK weekend is also the weekend if the Star Wars Half and its events, so may be more people on Monday the holiday, so Tiesday thru Saturday might be good

 

[Mysteryincorp]

We were there today and crowds were very low at DCA. We got there right at 10 and rode Goofys sk school 4 times, 'Mickeys wheel of death, Everything in bugs land, tower of terror, zephyr ride, jumping jellyfish and Ariel, ate lunch and hung out in the animation academy and went shopping and left the park by 3pm. Amazing. Other than tower of terror and radiator springs, everything was under 10 minutes at DCA.
i don't like telling people this but January is the best time to go to Disneyland. Yes there are many ride closures and not as much entertainment but you can do SO much . But shhhhhhhhh don't tell anyone

 

[mt mommy]

We were there today and crowds were very low at DCA. We got there right at 10 and rode Goofys sk school 4 times, 'Mickeys wheel of death, Everything in bugs land, tower of terror, zephyr ride, jumping jellyfish and Ariel, ate lunch and hung out in the animation academy and went shopping and left the park by 3pm. Amazing. Other than tower of terror and radiator springs, everything was under 10 minutes at DCA.
i don't like telling people this but January is the best time to go to Disneyland. Yes there are many ride closures and not as much entertainment but you can do SO much . But shhhhhhhhh don't tell anyone

LOVE JANUARY. Despite all the refurbs........

 

[ImDMous]

We were there yesterday too and it was great. We got there around 10:30, went to Space Mountain, got a fast pass for 11:15, did stand-by for 15 minutes then used our fast pass. We almost got a third ride as our car went right through the loading zone and they said they didn't have time to offload us and asked if we all wanted to go again. The lady in the back seat said no (Boooo!) so they had to send us to the left track in front of the control booth and off-load us one at a time with a little rolling staircase.

Went over to DCA around noon and got an RSR fast pass for 4:35 - 5:30. We did a ton of things at DCA; TSMM, Screamin, ToT, Aladdin, had sundaes, did some shopping, then went back to DL for Pirates, Big Thunder and Indy. The longest we waited for about 25 minutes for TSMM. We had a great day!

 

[Astylla]

We were there yesterday too and it was great. We got there around 10:30, went to Space Mountain, got a fast pass for 11:15, did stand-by for 15 minutes then used our fast pass. We almost got a third ride as our car went right through the loading zone and they said they didn't have time to offload us and asked if we all wanted to go again. The lady in the back seat said no (Boooo!) so they had to send us to the left track in front of the control booth and off-load us one at a time with a little rolling staircase.

Went over to DCA around noon and got an RSR fast pass for 4:35 - 5:30. We did a ton of things at DCA; TSMM, Screamin, ToT, Aladdin, had sundaes, did some shopping, then went back to DL for Pirates, Big Thunder and Indy. The longest we waited for about 25 minutes for TSMM. We had a great day!

Wow that sounds great ! We arrive Sunday - Saturday this coming week and are hoping for similar crowds during the week. It may rain which I am totally excited for since DH and I looooove the park in the rain !

 

[Vougar]

Thank you for your replies, I really appreciate it. We did our first DL trip from 2/7/12 (Tues) - 2/11/12 (Sat) with our two girls (ages then 4, 2). I really enjoyed going this time of year as most rides were walk-on or very minimum waits Tues-Thurs. The two rides that I remember having longer wait times were TSMM and Peter Pan. The Rapunzel meet/greet was also a longer wait. However, the crowds were definitely more noticeable on Friday and Saturday and the wait times seemed a lot longer than it was on Tues-Thurs. In hindsight, I wished that we did our 5-day park hopper Mon-Fri. However, thanks to the advice on these boards, I was able to take advantage of the fast past system on Fri/Sat which really helped.

We now have twin boys who will be turning 3 on Sat 1/23/16. As a result, our next trip will be 1/18/16 (Mon) to 1/22/16 (Fri) so we can save on park admissions before they turn 3.

I look forward to hearing about any other experiences with crowd levels this week at Disneyland.

Thanks

 

[Maddies Mama]

I vote you go during the week. I was there this past Friday through Monday since my husband was running the Star Wars 10k and 1/2 marathon and the parks were very busy due to the weekend and race crowds. It was our first time at Disneyland so I didn't know what to expect crowd-wise but I felt like from 2-5pm the parks were crazy crowded and lines were long. I was in a wheelchair with crutches due to a broken foot so our experience was slightly different due to being able to get standby return times at several rides and then being able to go comfortably wait away from the crowds and get snacks, shop, use a FP to ride another ride, etc. so it felt like we were able to do a lot more that we wouldn't have been able to do in the actual standby lines. But - if you can do it during the week, do it. We went on Friday and it was so blissfully empty before the afternoon and evening crowds came! Wish we'd have gone last week during the week and left as soon as the races were over instead of sticking around!

 

[Vougar]

Thank you. It is looking like we will probably go M-Fri with Monday being MLK day. With that said we will probably save the popular rides or rides that tend to have long wait times on Tues-Fri.

As a result, on MLK Monday or other busy days what rides/shows have the shortest wait times? I'm the type that I like to "check-off" that I've done all the rides at least once at DLR.

 

[sc426]

I was at DL and DCA yesterday. Both were pretty wuiet. At the height of the afternoon both parks were only filled to half capacity. So getting on and off rides was super easy and the longest wait time to any ride was no more then 30 minutes. My vote would be to go Tuesday-Saturday.

 

[nunzia]

We were there today and crowds were very low at DCA. We got there right at 10 and rode Goofys sk school 4 times, 'Mickeys wheel of death, Everything in bugs land, tower of terror, zephyr ride, jumping jellyfish and Ariel, ate lunch and hung out in the animation academy and went shopping and left the park by 3pm. Amazing. Other than tower of terror and radiator springs, everything was under 10 minutes at DCA.
i don't like telling people this but January is the best time to go to Disneyland. Yes there are many ride closures and not as much entertainment but you can do SO much . But shhhhhhhhh don't tell anyone

I agree..we often go in January for that very reason. Or early Sept before the Halloween stuff starts.