Now that I'm back at my computer I'll post a bit more. Back in January we did AH at Hollywood Studios and absolutely loved it. We loved having the park to ourselves and being able to cram an entire days activities into 1 night for about the same price. For this trip we did Animal Kingdom AH on Monday night and Villains last night. Animal Kingdom was the same after hours that we loved before. Low crowds, a short line for Flight of Passage and no other waits throughout the park. This time we have my mother-in-law with a mobility
scooter as well and getting around the park was a breeze.
Last night we arrived at 6:15 and got lined up. Immediately we noticed a huge like to get into the park before we even got there and it continued to grow. This was different as at Animal Kingdom there were maybe 30 people in line at 7:00 when they let us in. There were a few hundred when we got let in at 6:37 last night. Magic Kingdom was crowded which was to be expected since the day crowd was still there but we did our 3 fast passes for Splash Mountain, Ariel Meet and Greet and Under the Sea. Those were by far the 3 shortest lines we waited in during our evening. 10:00 hit and the crowds didn't shrink. Getting around with the scooter was extremely hard all the way until the event ended as walkways were congested. We used to let the kids ride whatever they wanted but we had to be choosy this time to make sure we got the rides we wanted the most. They wanted to ride Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan and Tomorrowland Speedway but they all had 20 minute waits and looking at the queues those wait times looked accurate. Then they wanted to do Buzz Lightyear and it was the same. We waited about 25 minutes for Space, 20 for Big Thunder, 15 for Jungle Cruise (which appeared to only be running 2 boats and even after our boat was full we had to wait for the other one to get back). We ended up skipping 6 or 7 rides that we wanted to do. We stopped by the hub at the end of the night to watch a bit of the last show and the entire area was crammed with people. Moving down main street at the end of the night was very slow and difficult with the scooter. We stopped in the Emporium on the way out and they had way too few registers open for the crowd. After leaving the park the Ferry's were not enough to get people out in a timely manner. As far as I'm concerned, Disney took a good thing and absolutely ruined it by charging more for increased crowds.