Dapper Days (WDW) and Garden Rocks crowds?

[flyingenie]

A couple questions about crowds in the spring:

1) Dapper Day at Magic Kingdom is the first day of our trip (Sunday Apr 30) What are the crowds like? Most previous threads about this are Disneyland based. My priority are rides (including thrill rides) and character meet and greets. We are planning 2 days at MK. Should I change this first day to a less crowded park? Or keep MK and people watch the first day, focus on thrill rides (the dapper folk may not want to wreck their hair, I'm hoping?) then do the more tame stuff the next MK day? I like the appeal of starting at MK, but not if I'm going to have to wait in tons of lines.

2) I was planning on doing Epcot the next day (Monday May 1) which is Kool and the Gang at Garden Rocks, as well as extended evening hours (not for us). I have no real interest in this, and it sounds like this might be one of the more popular concerts. My priorities are the most popular rides, as well as eating at the Flower and Garden festival booths. Will only have one Epcot day. Should I defer to later in the week, or do the concerts not influence crowds much?

Thanks in advance!

 

[beccasmom]

We took a quick 3-day weekend trip in late April 2019 and only had time for one park - Epcot. The Dapper Dans were in full force and it was pretty crowded. I don’t remember waiting inordinate amounts of time for the attractions, but the park was buzzing for sure. The weather was glorious, and that no doubt brought out many locals as well. If I had a choice, I’d opt for a weekday visit.

 

[flyingenie]

We took a quick 3-day weekend trip in late April 2019 and only had time for one park - Epcot. The Dapper Dans were in full force and it was pretty crowded. I don’t remember waiting inordinate amounts of time for the attractions, but the park was buzzing for sure. The weather was glorious, and that no doubt brought out many locals as well. If I had a choice, I’d opt for a weekday visit.

Thanks for the insight! I'm actually leaning towards changing my Epcot day, because there are more non-ride things that I care about short lines for (ie lines for food booths).

 

[SkyGuy]

We were at Epcot when Rick Springfield was performing. I had no idea, but the masses of women wearing ”I’m Jessie’s Girl” t-shirts clued me in pretty quickly. The line for the concert started early, and I had never seen such a long queue; it was insane. That being said, I don’t remember Flower and Garden lines or ride lines being especially difficult to manage. The usual culprits were long - France booth, Italy booth (why anyone waits here is beyond me), China booth, the line to get into the pyramid and then the line for La Cava once inside. Using Genie, I’m pretty sure we rode what we wanted without issue.

 

[flyingenie]

We were at Epcot when Rick Springfield was performing. I had no idea, but the masses of women wearing ”I’m Jessie’s Girl” t-shirts clued me in pretty quickly. The line for the concert started early, and I had never seen such a long queue; it was insane. That being said, I don’t remember Flower and Garden lines or ride lines being especially difficult to manage. The usual culprits were long - France booth, Italy booth (why anyone waits here is beyond me), China booth, the line to get into the pyramid and then the line for La Cava once inside. Using Genie, I’m pretty sure we rode what we wanted without issue.

That is helpful, thank you! Makes me wonder if ride lines will be especially short during the concerts, kind of like at MK during parades and fireworks.

 

[SkyGuy]

That is helpful, thank you! Makes me wonder if ride lines will be especially short during the concerts, kind of like at MK during parades and fireworks.

I honestly don’t remember that part, BUT I will say that you don’t want to be anywhere near the pavilion when the concert is over!

 

[flyingenie]

I honestly don’t remember that part, BUT I will say that you don’t want to be anywhere near the pavilion when the concert is over!

Duly noted!

 

[gottalovepluto]

I ended up at Dapper Day in DHS in 2019 as that was simply when we planned to be at DHS. It was SO crowded. We had hoppers so we got out by lunch but it was kinda mayhem. They were climbing all of over stuff along the “roads” to take photos because the theming was perfection for them, it was shoulder to shoulder along the road to ToT and our group all looked at each other and were like “NOPE!”

Luckily we were prepared so leaving didn’t bust our day. I’d actually done dapper day at Disneyland so I knew what was possible and while it wasn’t that level of bad (which was horrendous) I would not go to a park the day the Dappers are hitting it.

 

[flyingenie]

I ended up at Dapper Day in DHS in 2019 as that was simply when we planned to be at DHS. It was SO crowded. We had hoppers so we got out by lunch but it was kinda mayhem. They were climbing all of over stuff along the “roads” to take photos because the theming was perfection for them, it was shoulder to shoulder along the road to ToT and our group all looked at each other and were like “NOPE!”

Luckily we were prepared so leaving didn’t bust our day. I’d actually done dapper day at Disneyland so I knew what was possible and while it wasn’t that level of bad (which was horrendous) I would not go to a park the day the Dappers are hitting it.

Thanks for the insight! Was it just crowded on the streets for photo ops, or were the ride waits really long as well?

 

[gottalovepluto]

Thanks for the insight! Was it just crowded on the streets for photo ops, or were the ride waits really long as well?

Rides were really long as well but it was DHS so that’s not unusual. We were supposed to FP ToT which is how we ended up in that spot when we decided to forget the FP and leave.

If you really want to MK I would- at a minimum- pay up for G+. Ideally I’d G+, ILL Tron/7DMT and do a TS for lunch to get a crowd break (or hit an MK resort for a lunch break) but budgets only go so far.

Funny enough where it really bit me at Disneyland was going back in at night. That was next level- which was saying something because I thought I’d seen the max level that afternoon No idea if MK sees the same evening firework surge though.

I had heard WDW Dapper Days wasn’t nearly as bad as DLR, some people said they barely noticed. (I think those people had too much to drink at EP but to each their own opinion lol.) For me WDW wasn’t as bad as DLR- but still I would never do the dapper day’s park at WDW again.

 

[flyingenie]

Rides were really long as well but it was DHS so that’s not unusual. We were supposed to FP ToT which is how we ended up in that spot when we decided to forget the FP and leave.

If you really want to MK I would- at a minimum- pay up for G+. Ideally I’d G+, ILL Tron/7DMT and do a TS for lunch to get a crowd break (or hit an MK resort for a lunch break) but budgets only go so far.

Funny enough where it really bit me at Disneyland was going back in at night. That was next level- which was saying something because I thought I’d seen the max level that afternoon No idea if MK sees the same evening firework surge though.

I had heard WDW Dapper Days wasn’t nearly as bad as DLR, some people said they barely noticed. (I think those people had too much to drink at EP but to each their own opinion lol.) For me WDW wasn’t as bad as DLR- but still I would never do the dapper day’s park at WDW again.

Thank you! For sure I will be getting Genie+ at MK regardless, and possibly ILL 7DMT (though selfishly I'm hoping that 7DMT goes to genie+ when tron opens and gets ILL).

Do you have any suggestions for a quick service meal on the monorail? We won't be doing table service this visit. Thanks!

 

[gottalovepluto]

Thank you! For sure I will be getting Genie+ at MK regardless, and possibly ILL 7DMT (though selfishly I'm hoping that 7DMT goes to genie+ when tron opens and gets ILL).

Do you have any suggestions for a quick service meal on the monorail? We won't be doing table service this visit. Thanks!

GF’s Gasparilla Island Grill!