Easter Crowds - Anyone there right now?

[Candace]

Thinking of going next year arriving Easter Sunday and staying through the next week. I have been many times, but never at Easter, and I am taking friends who have never been. Will the crowds be daunting? Thanks

 

[Bob P]

Yes they will. It's one of the three or four busiest weeks of the year.

 

[luvthephunk]

It's busy as can be, but if you utilize fastpass and have some patience you should still have a great time

 

[casaazul]

Don't expect to do everything. We decided to skip MK (not bad for us, we go to DL all the time) and focus on Epcot and AK! We had a great trip and I don't feel that we did not have the "Disney" experience. Epcot for a first time visitor was incredible!!!

Use Fastpass, get to parks early and plan in pool time at your resort!

 

[nbodyhome]

Today was busy at Epcot (more busy than the last holiday time period day I went, December 30th). I was going to take more pics around the park, but will do that in a couple of weeks.

 

[Xcited4Disney]

I went last year. I arrived on Good Friday and left the following Friday. Maybe it's because I'm used to crowds in NYC but I really didn't find it unbearable at all. I'm sure if I had been there during an off peak time and then used last year as a comparison, my overall view would be different. I don't know but it was all just fine for me and dd. We were at each park, used fastpasses, park hopped sometimes, and basically stayed in the parks from morning until night.

 

[SallyfromDE]

I've always avoided Easter becuase of all you hear of the crowds. But I was invited to go on my sisters Easter Disney trip last year, so I went. We all fully expected to wait in LONG LONG lines. So I went and got TGM. The best investment. I've been to Disney 20 times, but I thought I wanted us to get the most we could from the trip. By following his tips, we had no wait for most of the rides. Later in the afternoon, it was the norm, 45 min for those popular rides. I think we had about 2 FP the whole week. My neice just got back and said the same thing about her trip this time. I would nver hesitate to go back Easter Week. As long as I followed TGM!!

 

[summerlandjeff]

We just got back Wednesday the 11th, arrived wednesday the 4th so we were there for the entire Easter week.
The parks were MOBBED, not just crowded, MOBBED!!!!!
We worst was the Magic Kingdom. We were there on Saturday the 7th and got to ride BTMR (stand by) & SPLMTN(fast pass)! Every thing else was a 2 hour wait or the fast pass was sold out. Forget getting a spot for the parades! When we went to leave, they rerouted us to the back lot behind Main Street just to exit (very disappointing to see the back of Main Street, ruined the "Magic")
The best was EPCOT, I guess because it's spread out, but we fast passed Soarin' at 10:00 AM, got a 12:35 pass, came back to ride at 12:45 and the fast pass was up to 8:00 PM!! Still, we saw all of the Land and Sea, and all the sections of World Show Case.
Animal Kingdom was very crowded. Fast passed EE at 9:00, got a return of 11:55, returned at 12:00 noon and FP was up to 5:55!! Standby for safari was 30 mins (not bad) and Bug was 40 mins.
If you're going Easter 2008, remember it's early, March 23rd, so the weather could be cool.

 

[pezpam]

We also just got back last night and MOBBED is a good word for it. The parks were crowded, the Blizzard Beach sign read that they'd closed due to capacity on at least one day, standby waits for some rides got as crazy as 2 hours with no FPs left.....

With Easter being so early next year, a lot will depend (I think) on whether our schools up north give us the week off for the early holiday or stick with the usual April break. Our district has a week off in Feb, so I don't know if we'll do Feb/Mar (seems soon for another week off) or Feb/Apr breaks next year.......

 

[wild4dis]

We were there last Easter...Arrived on Wed before Easter and left the following Friday...it was very crowded ("mobbed" as was posted earlier) so having been to WDW so many times we took advantage of resort pools, relaxing time, wandering hotels, FP and EMH.......on Monday (after easter) the crowds were busy because of the school vacs, but they were bearable and not as bad as the week leading up to Easter

 

[canron]

my daughter is at pop right now..during the week she said it was the worst she ever seen it..she phones everday and she goes 2 times a year..she told us last night never again at this time..she is there for 8 days .1 hour wait for rides.food court ti packed...but she is having a good time,,,she had to wait for the second boat from the magic kingdom after fire works ,,,so she went to the poly with sister and friend and had a drink till the crowds thined out and walk to the transportation center,,and got the bus back to pop

 

[SallyfromDE]

WOW!! I guess TGM does give some good info. I made all our plans according to his recommendations. We did do MK in the morning, but left for another park. I forget which one. We had a wonderful time!! We were there Good Friday and came home the Friday after Easter.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

We were at WDW April 4-12, the Wednesday before Easter until the Thursday after. We used TGM to plan our trip. Our longest wait the entire week was 23 minutes to use a FP at Soarin' one evening

We rode everything----Big Thunder 10x, Splash 6x, Space 3x, ToT 3x, RnRC 4x, Everest 3x, Soarin' 4x, Test Track 4x plus all the other rides. The only things we wanted to do but weren't able to were Swiss Family Treehouse (lines every time we walked past) and Beauty and the Beast at MGM (times didn't work out).

Crowds were bad during the afternoon I'm sure but we were at the pool

 

[carabean]

We returned from Disney two days ago. We had a truly magical trip. Easter trips can be daunting if you do not have a plan. I strongly suggest getting to the parks early, using fastpasses if need be and then returning to the hotel around 11:30. We used the pool at the hotel or napped. Around 5:30 we headed back to the packs as masses of people were exiting. The longest wait we had was about twenty minutes for Pirates. We were able to do the major rides but missed out on the afternoon parades. Oh well can't do everything. I would definitely travel to Disney at Easter again!! Just follow the advice on these boards. We will be returning in April 2009!!

 

[nbodyhome]

I agree it's good to have a plan during busy time periods. Last December 30th, I drove down to Epcot for the day. The attractions I did hit were ones that normally aren't busy anyway (the old El Rio de Tiempo, and then the WOL pavillion).

But then I went to the Osborne Lights. I actually got there at the time they opened, said "no way", sat down for a half hour with some hot chocolate and then enjoyed them much more crowd-free. Not that there weren't ANY crowds then, it just went from being "mobbed" to being able to move freely. Just a half hour made a HUGE difference with that one attraction.

 

[dsnymomof4]

We just got back as well-arrived Saturday before Easter. It was indeed the most crowded I have ever seen. I knew it would be crowded, but to be there and look down the park and just see wall to wall people - it was just incredible. When we first arrived, the wait time for RnR was 110 minutes with fastpass return times 6 hours later! That was great if you were going to be in the same park all night, but we weren't. The best thing we did all week was go to the early EMH at MK - got lots of rides in before 10:00 when it started to get crowded. Also, we went to late EMH when MK was open until 3:00am. Believe it or not, there were still waits at 1:00am! It was crowded, but it was still fun! As long as you are prepared for the crowds and the fact that you might not get to do as many rides as you would at less crowded times, then you'll be fine. Also, take advantage of the resort facilities in the afternoons, when the parks are at their peak.

 

[marksmith]

I just posted a crowd update 4/9-4/15-busy but maneagable. I agree with previous poster carabean-plan accordingly and enjoy