Help with MLK weekend/Which parks, which days

[SarahD112]

With college and work schedules, our trip falls over MLK weekend. Can’t be helped. We will be there Friday, January 13th until Saturday the 21st, with MLK being the 16th. Which parks are the big draws for the hokiday weekend? Friday crowds are expected to be light so no worries there. For Saturday I think AK will be best bet. But I need input for Sunday and Monday. Epcot is usually heavy with locals on weekends, and there’s an Arts Festival during that time. Hollywood Studios…new rides, small park…sure to be crowded beyond belief. So…Magic Kingdom Sunday? Except with holiday Monday, it may be as crowded as a typical Saturday. And then cross our fingers for Hollywood studios Monday? We will rope drop with the 1/2 hour early for on-site guests, and use genie+. I doubt I’ll purchase any ILL until I get a sense of the crowds later in the week. And they’d probably be a little cheaper later in the week, which matters when you’re a family of five. Anyway, have not been during this weekend before and would appreciate any insight to crowded holiday park planning.

 

[pens4821]

Last time we were there that week was 2018. We do two parks a day and both that Sunday and Monday parks were packed. Tuesday and Wednesday seemed to slow down a little (relatively speaking but still packed), but by Thursday they picked right back up for the weekend crowds.

Others that go more often than me may help more, but I don’t feel like certain days at certain parks are slower than others anymore. We were there in March this year and the two parks per day we went to didn’t matter. They were all packed all the time.

 

[ilovevacation]

I can only speak to January 2021 when we were still masking outdoors and supposedly capacity was further reduced. We left for home the day prior to MLK day. We were at MK that day (Sunday)and honestly the lines were ridiculously long. We could have been more aware/ less tolerant than baseline because we had pretty decent crowd level for the week leading up to it. We were also tuckered out by the end of the trip with having a toddler with endless energy and both adults having covid <6weeks prior to our trip. It is going to be busy. I also personally believe crowd calendars are of little help these days because you can't compare this year to the last and etc... Also, if Tron is open that will impact crowd levels as well.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

With college and work schedules, our trip falls over MLK weekend. Can’t be helped. We will be there Friday, January 13th until Saturday the 21st, with MLK being the 16th. Which parks are the big draws for the hokiday weekend? Friday crowds are expected to be light so no worries there. For Saturday I think AK will be best bet. But I need input for Sunday and Monday. Epcot is usually heavy with locals on weekends, and there’s an Arts Festival during that time. Hollywood Studios…new rides, small park…sure to be crowded beyond belief. So…Magic Kingdom Sunday? Except with holiday Monday, it may be as crowded as a typical Saturday. And then cross our fingers for Hollywood studios Monday? We will rope drop with the 1/2 hour early for on-site guests, and use genie+. I doubt I’ll purchase any ILL until I get a sense of the crowds later in the week. And they’d probably be a little cheaper later in the week, which matters when you’re a family of five. Anyway, have not been during this weekend before and would appreciate any insight to crowded holiday park planning.

I think AK is always a safe bet for a weekend so that's probably a smart move. I would take any crowd calendar/predictor your're using with a grain of salt as any Friday before a 3 day weekend will likely be more crowded than normal. imo most crowd calendars have always been pretty bad and now they're really bad post covid. Given you're at WDW for a full week, any chance your group would want to do a resort or DS day on Monday MLK day? If I was there all week, I'd probably build my week out with that being an off park day. As far as Sunday, I'd plan to do DHS, since I feel like that park is always busy so it's a grab bag no matter what day you pick.