Help! How bad is Thanksgiving week!

[rkrushing4]

My family is probably going to Disney the Saturday before Thanksgiving till the Saturday after Thanksgiving. My oldest DD20 is in Penn State and this is her break week and her only week she can go. I look at it as a vacation with her and crowds is better than a vacation without her and no crowds. I have the DH convinced but still worry about the crowds. We have been there before Labor Day twice and it was crowded and hot. Of course that was our 1st and 2nd trip and after 5 more trips we know how to work the parks. I would love anyones opinions on this week and any tips you have to share to keep the DH happy around the crowds. We also have a DD16 going with us.

 

[MHSweb79]

Two words: ROPE DROP. Two more words: ROPE DROP. And finally, two last words: ROPE DROP.

If you can get your crew up & out very early in the a.m., you will beat most of the crowds for several hours. Then you can go back to your resort for a rest & swim, and then head out again around 4pm for dinner and evening attractions.

If you can't get there early, then you should think about trying evening EMH. The later you stay the lower the crowds will be.

Getting there early in the a.m. during peak crowds like Thanksgiving week will also ensure that you can get FP's, which will most likely be gone by lunch time for all the major attractions.

 

[Buzzsgramma]

I will just say having been there (BWV) Thanksgiving 2009..with 14 family members (8 adults 6kids) the earlier in the wk u start at the parks the better..
.We did do Epcot on Thanksgiving Day. Use rope drop, FP & make all your ADR'S..it should be okay...We managed and had a great time...

 

[gzh6464]

We went 2 years ago the week of T-Giving. Had our T-giving dinner at Citricos.
It was great. There's always something holiday esque on the menus.

With respect to crowds yes it was busy but with planning it was manageable. Utilize Rope drop, FP, EMH, baby swap (if you have a small one) etc. The week of T-giving and the weekend just after the holiday are very busy but what was amazing was one night EMH in MK was way into the AM (1 or 2 am). After Wishes the park cleared out and we flew thru some biggies like Space. Mtn.

If you have that stamina great, if not take a break midday and come back. Late EMH (and early ) were great (if you're staying on site)...otherwise...Rope drop it will be busy!

Place is nicely decorated for the holidays and we saw the Turkey Bush pardoned for T-giving in a parade they had on T-Giving. He lived in Toontown the rest of the week.

 

[Rosetta89]

i found your post mom! it will be ok. see they said it isnt that bad dad will deal with it lol! only 8 months!!! cant they go by any faster!

 

[Starr W.]

It's so bad at Thanksgiving, we are going for the 5th year in a row.

 

[Rosetta89]

It's so bad at Thanksgiving, we are going for the 5th year in a row.

ha ha ha that is great! cant wait till my mom reads this one

 

[toddinboston]

we did T-day week '05...the first half of the week, from sunday to wednesday was fine, although tuesday AK was crowded for some reason...did turkey-day at MK...I was expecting the worse, something like mardis-gras type crowds but it wasn't that bad...we were at MK at rope drop, went staight to kiddie area behind CC (fantasyland??) and had the place to ourselves for almost 2 hours...

 

[cg1200]

Very encourging thread. We too are making our first trek during Thanksgiving. We've been about 7 times in the last 10 years but only once during a peak season (President's Week). We feel we are pretty experienced tourers at this point. We are always there for rope drop and use our FP's/baby swaps wisely. We are hoping for the best also.

 

[Disney_Jill]

We went this year, I planned the trip the Friday before Thanksgiving and we checked in that Sunday! LOL We stayed Sunday through Friday. It was not bad at all. We did do rope drop every day except Thanksgiving day and that was the best thing we did. It rained that Wed. and we went to MK and the crowds were unbelievably low! We left around 1, went back to the hotel to dry off and change, and came back at 5 and stayed until after the 2nd showing of Spectro. Thanksgiving we went to AK, we got there early but not RP (maybe 1 hour after?) because we had such a late MK night. It got crowded later in the day, we left around 5 and ended up giving away our EE fast passes (they were gone for the day). Friday we went to MK at rope drop and it was great, we did everything by 11:30 and then headed out to drive home. It was getting packed that day, the crowds were just coming and coming in MK that morning.
It was such a wonderful week and we had a great time. The weather was nice (except for the rain day but that wasn't downpours, just a steady light rain). Our Epcot day (I think it was Monday, maybe Tues) was great. We rode TT and Mission Space about 5-6 times (some w/FP some standby).
We met some people who had been there for 2 weeks and they said the week before that the parks were empty and everything was pretty much walk-on! Another bonus for going that time of year is that all the Christmas decorations are up, which is the main reason I went.

 

[supersuperwendy]

We are going to brave Thanksgiving week this year also! It's our baby's first birthday so we r gonna take it slow and break ourselves of our commando style!

 

[adaygaby]

We will be there on Thanksgiving week as well. Great responses!

DS and I are looking forward to our trip.

 

[nettii]

Were going the crazy T-giving crowd as well!

 

[PFHite]

Two words: ROPE DROP. Two more words: ROPE DROP. And finally, two last words: ROPE DROP.

Agree 100 percent. We went over the week of Thanksgiving in 2009 and I just booked plane tickets for a return trip that same week this year.

We did rope drop every day and didn't have any problems with crowds until the afternoon. In fact, on our second day in the MK on the Monday before Thanksgiving, we rode Splash Mountain twice (then got a FP for a third ride later in the day), BTMR twice and POTC once, all with waits of less than 5 minutes.

I will say that our first day in the MK (on Sunday), the crowds got rather large by about 2 p.m., but since we got there at rope drop we had done everything we wanted to do that day.

We did DHS on Tuesday and Epcot on Thursday and Friday. Again, getting there early saved us. We were done with our top attractions well before crowds arrived. We did stay late at DHS (for the Osborne Christmas lights) and on our second day at Epcot (for CP), but it never got to the point that we felt overwhelmed by the crowds (well, maybe a little after CP).

The Christmas decorations were up. Not sure if they were complete, but the ones that were up were spectacular. We love that part because our previous trip had been in the spring, so we loved being there near the Christmas holidays.

Enjoy your trip.

 

[ILVPoppins]

This will be our third time at Thanksgiving. We love that time of year.

 

[TerrytownGrl]

We last visited during TG week 2008 and we'll be there again TG week this year!

The only thing I wonder about is that the UG's crowd calendar for TG 2008 was 7's and 8's. But for TG 2010, the crowd calendar predictions for this year were just upped to straight 10's I hope those figures get revised down. Perhaps they will when the park hours come out in May.

See you guys Thanksgiving Week!

 

[Starr W.]

We last visited during TG week 2008 and we'll be there again TG week this year!

The only thing I wonder about is that the UG's crowd calendar for TG 2008 was 7's and 8's. But for TG 2010, the crowd calendar predictions for this year were just upped to straight 10's I hope those figures get revised down. Perhaps they will when the park hours come out in May.

See you guys Thanksgiving Week!

UG thought 2008 was 7/8 on the scale! Then I know a 7/8 is pretty easy, because 2008 there was a dramatic drop in the crowd compared to 2007. Last year was slightly busier, but not 2007 size crowds. We rode all the major rides multiple times. Space Mountain was acting flukey coming off the rehab, but it was down for awhile on MLK day too.

I'd take UG with a huge grain of salt, they had both weeks of Easter(which is traditionally busier than TG) rated pretty low(8's) and then a few weeks ago boosted it to 10's.

This will be our 5th TG at WDW.