Here now - Crowds are nuts

[Disney71]

.....We were there the 18th through the 27th and we didn't think it was crowded at all untill the 25th. EPCOT was very busy on Friday and Saturday with the beginning of the Food and Wine Festival, and much of the crowd in World Showcase appeared to be drunk. The drunken crowd in addition to the heat probably made the crowds seem worse than they were. ....... I am avoiding the Food and Wine Festival next year though.

Sad to say, but I think we are too. We just returned (9/19-9/27) and the drunken crowds in Epcot were just a little too non-disney for my tastes. Many times DH and I felt like we were in a bar atmosphere.... which I guess is ok for some - just not our speed. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed a couple of frozen drinks around the World Showcase, but we always remembered it was a family environment.

 

[Tabatha]

I would love to see pictures

 

[fairestoneofall]

AK today was a madhouse, and it wasn't an EMH park....maybe because it was a weekend day...I wasn't expecting that today at all!

Are you talking about on Sunday? AK was empty! Kilaminjari Safaris was 15 minutes when we used out first FPs (DH had gotten as soon as they had the FP machines fixed that morning). We got another set of FPs after riding it (for DS), but when we returned the ride was a walk-on. We waited about 15 minutes for Dinosaur and Primeval Whirl. I didn't go near EE. But nothing else I saw had much, if any, wait time.

Epcot was a madhouse on Saturday (first weekend of F&W, I know). Future World wasn't too bad, but World Showcase was packed with people. And I agree with those who have said there were a lot of drunk people. I saw several.

EMH at MK last night was insane. We got there before EMH and rides had very short waits. Jungle Cruise was less than 10 minutes (posted 20 minutes), Pirates was walk-on. This area of the park was fairly empty. We hit up Big Thunder around 8 with a 15 minute wait. We rode and got right back in line to ride again--the wait 20 minutes. While we were in line, we could tell they were opening up more of the queue for the line. When we got off again, posted wait time was 30 minutes with a huge line of people waiting to show their resort IDs. Buzz was a posted 20 minute wait (the FP return was the same as the standby wait time length, so we grabbed FP). When we returned to use our FP, the posted time was 40 minutes. Buzz was a 10-minute wait on Thursday and walk-on Friday.

 

[Callalily6]

i thought id follow up to my original post...

the lines were crazy for this time of year, but since Tue-Wen, they thinned back down to the norm.

the weather finally took a chill pill too. thank goodness. it was insanely hot even for someone used to 100 degree temps. the temp + the high humidity was horrible. anyway, it feels 15 degrees cooler today and last night was great.

this is our last day. leave in the am. wish we'd planned around the holiday there. ooops. something to remember for next time.

 

[Ktharee]

Just got back and did the MNSSHP and it wasn't crowded at all . Sat went to Epcot and was too bad for the first day of food and wine. We didn't wait very long for any rides. Maybe because we are used to summer crowds. I know are school was off fri and this mon

Curious which MNSSHP you went to. I went 9/25 and it was really crowded. All night. We found that although there were a lot of people at WDW (9/23-9/29), we didn't wait very long for attractions. We used morning EMH and fast pass and did quite well. But the restaurants were another story!

 

[princesswendy720]

I've been here since Sunday and will be here until Sunday. Sunday was really crowded as others have said. Mk emh was awful..to the pp who spoke of btmrr, it went up to 40 minutes because splash was down. The fp return time was only 35 minutes later though.

Since Monday it's been much better. Dhs on Monday wasn't too crowded, we did mnsshp on Tuesday and it also wasn't crowded. Epcot yesterday was also not crowded. We didn't wait in a food booth line longer than 2 people all day.

We've also been getting seated before our ADR time at most restaurants.

The cooler weather is great but I spoke to a cm today who said it's going to get hot again this weekend.

 

[dormouse72]

We're hitting overnight lows in the 40's up here - one place was 39...

Reading this thread I'm glad we decided to just relax at the hotel on our first day (next Saturday). I'm figuring that the crowds are going to be INSANE over Columbus Day weekend but at least that's the beginning of our vacation. We'll just go with the crowd flow and hit more stuff mid-week when (hopefully) it's quieter.

 

[Damien2213]

Its wild to see 90 plus temps when we have had very cool temps here in NC so far this week. Fall is upon us up here. I'm assuming Florida missed out on this Cold Front that came in and the pressure has pushed all the wamer weather down in Florida. Hopefully it will cool off for you guys visiting sooner than later.

On another note, I don't know why but my two trips (Easter) Adventurland has always been dead at night. I've never seen a line in Adventureland in the evening that was 10 mins or less if that. I remember my first trip well. It was almost spooky walking into Adventureland (from the Haunted Mansion area) with all the trees surrounding it. It wasn't very well lit when you first got up to it and it really was kind of creepy especially with no one around. Not sure why that section doesn't bring in the crowds late at night...but I f I get to MK and there are people lined up for a parade of fireworks Adventureland is the first place I visit.

 

[ABE4DISNEY]

Sad to say, but I think we are too. We just returned (9/19-9/27) and the drunken crowds in Epcot were just a little too non-disney for my tastes. Many times DH and I felt like we were in a bar atmosphere.... which I guess is ok for some - just not our speed. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed a couple of frozen drinks around the World Showcase, but we always remembered it was a family environment.

We had this problem the last time we were there for F&W. The CMs just couldn't keep up with the trash and people were partying pretty hard. I think a lot of college age locals had rolled in for a Sunday night party. It's pretty bad when you're dodging the beer cups with your strollers.

 

[KatMark]

Sorry to hear about the crowds. We were there the 18th through the 22nd and we basically walked on every single ride. The only rides we waited in line for were Soarin' (less than 20 minutes) and Toy Story Mania (50 minutes). Everything else we walked up and were on the ride...and we went to Extra Magic Hours as well. I think there are definitely more people there with the Food & Wine Festival.

 

[Anonomom]

We just got back home a few hours ago, we were there from 9/27-10/1, and we thought the crowds were fine. The parks felt mobbed, but we didn't encounter long lines anywhere. I think the longest we waited for anything was 30 minutes for the fairies on Tuesday right before MNSSHP (well, the indoor rides at MK were also mobbed on Sunday right after the rain, but that's to be expected, I think). It got to the point where we were so spoiled that we'd pass up a 20-minute wait as "too long."

I plan on posting a full summary tomorrow -- it was a great trip!

 

[Disney71]

We had this problem the last time we were there for F&W. The CMs just couldn't keep up with the trash and people were partying pretty hard. I think a lot of college age locals had rolled in for a Sunday night party. It's pretty bad when you're dodging the beer cups with your strollers.

Yup..... lots of college age locals pouring in to "wine and dine"..... smoking and drinking, they seem to forget there are strollers and little ones everywhere. I know the CM's were trying, but they were just not enough CM's to keep up with the crowds - maybe because we were there one of the first days of FW?

 

[Capt. Barbosa]

Have a friend in WDW now, she text mssgd me that they walked on to SE at EPCOT and were headed to ride Mission Space so I gave them a 1/2 hour before I mssgd back to see how they survived they had rode Mission Space twice and were leaving for test track.

 

[DisTwix]

We were there from Sept 25 - 30th, specifically going then for the overlap of free dining with F&W @ Epcot. We found PM EMH to be waaaaayy to crowded, and will avoid them at all costs in the future. The days where we got to the parks at or near opening, we were walking onto rides, had no problems. We mostly followed TGM's recommendations for what parks, what days and found his crowd levels to be on the money.

We had ADRs @ the Yachtsman, SciFi, Les Chefs and Tokyo Dining, and the longest we waited was about 15 minutes (and that was @ the Yachtsman, and we'd shown up about 30 minutes EARLY). I really enjoyed eating at some of the places I normally don't, but just don't think I'd ever take the free dining option again. I'd rather get my AP discount, and not feel the pressure to eat all that food. I was so full all the time that I didn't even try much of anything at F&W and definitely didn't have as many cocktails as I'd planned!

Our plan was --

9/25 - arrive onsite, go to HS, attended first showing of Fantasmic, which was great as always (got there not quite an hour early, and got GREAT seats), then rode TSM (30 min wait)

9/26 - AK in the AM... went straight to EE, no line, then to Kali, no line (rode twice since we were completely SOAKED after the first shot), then It's Tough to Be a Bug (minimal wait), then Safari (waited about 20). Left AK by noon, and headed over to Epcot. Had 1:30 ADR @ Tokyo Dining, which was fantastic (such good sushi), and then wandered the F&W. We already had FP for Test Track, wandered over to Soarin @ FP... rode them later that night (FYI - the FP line for Test Track was a minimum 30 min wait all day - just goofy). Food & Wine was definitely busy, and it POURED rain late in the evening, but we had a great time.

9/27 - HS early, avoided TSM since we'd done it Friday, and FP ToT, rode RnRC on standby (20 min).... we had 1:30 ADR's at SciFi (which was fun, food was surprisingly good)... the park seemed busy, but not packed. We hopped to MK for the EMH around 4pm and the place was MOBBED. We managed to ride Pirates, stood in line a little for Buzz before ditching it (the line was about 40 minutes), rode TTA, wandered over to ride BTMMR (20 min) and then ditched. We did get taco salads from Pecos Bill, which was quite exciting. FYI... they were only running ONE monorail when we left... 45 minute wait to get back to the TTC. GAH.

9/28 - Planned down day... hung out by pool, had 6:15 ADR for Yachtsman, which is a fantastic restaurant. Amazing service, amazing food. After, we wandered the Boardwalk, headed to Epcot... and ended up leaving, because we'd planned on being there in the AM...
9/29 - Epcot AM... we got there around 9:30 and the park was empty, but TT was already @ 30 min. We FP'd, headed to Soarin, but they were so soon that we FP Soarin as soon as we got over there. We wandered the World, first to ride Maelstrom! and had a 1:30 ADR @ Les Chefs (which was good, great ambiance, we had fantastic seats at the windows, but I was more impressed with the amazing sorbet I had than the food). That evening we did MNSSHP, as the Flinstones (I was Pebbles!), and what a fantastic time that was. SUCH fun. Found the park to be busy/crowded, and lines for photos with characters to be long, but the ride lines were complete walk ons. We did Micky's Philharmagic, BTMRR (2 times), SM, Buzz (2 times), Goofy's Barnstormer, Small World and HM and STILL had time to hit all the candy stops, see the parade and fireworks and Villains show.

9/30 - DTD (which was quite busy), then airport, then home!