How are the crowds this week?

[Alicenwonderment]

I think you may see that unbearableness this coming week. I seem to remember people saying that Christmas week last year was a little lighter than expected and then the first week of Jan was completely slammed. It was because a lot of kids had the week after New Year’s off. The way Christmas falls this year a lot of kids will have that full week off again (my kids do) so it may get busier.

Wow! I'm surprised you all get that much time off for Christmas. Schools here got released early last Fri 12/22/17 for snowstorm and will be back in school Tuesday January 2.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Wow! I'm surprised you all get that much time off for Christmas. Schools here got released early last Fri 12/22/17 for snowstorm and will be back in school Tuesday January 2.

My kids are Never. In. School. My dad told me stories about walking uphill both ways in snow storms. I tell my kids that I only had a week and a half off at Christmas, 2 days off for Thanksgiving, went to school on Columbus and Presidents days and the Tues after, didn’t have a random 3 day week in May, and didn’t have early release every Fri. And we started and stopped approximately the same weeks they do. They are horrified at my lack of days off as a kid.

But back to the original point , two weeks off at Christmas is apparently pretty common. It just varies whether it’s before or after Christmas.

 

[Donalyn]

Those pictures are very scary to me.

We were in DL over Veterans weekend in 2016. It was so crowded at night at DL that I didn't want to be there. That is saying something, because in a perfect world, I'd be a rope drop to close person. But even that was not as bad as the pictures above. Crazy!

 

[MrKnight]

just wondering how bad the crowds are. We were there this week a few years ago and it was shoulder to shoulder in MK.

The week between Christmas and New Years (the week we are in currently) is one of the busiest weeks of the year. Expect extremely heavy crowds in all parks and sporadic closures due to capacity, especially at MKP.

 

[theriouxfamily]

Similar to us, Libby. We arrived 12/21 and had no issues with crowds at all until Christmas. And to be honest the only crowd issues we experienced were Christmas night at MK (specifically because we wanted to see the crowds) and last night at DHS. The FP+ lines were about 30 mins long.

Overall though I have to admit I’m a bit confused now when people talk about the crowds being unbearable during this time. I think if you sleep in and arrive at the parks at peak they may be but we must have missed most of the action by being there for park open, out by lunch, and back at night with an open mind and a watchful eye on FP+ availability.

We are here now and you are exactly right. Mornings have been fine and then afternoon clogs up pretty bad. By that time though we are simply on chill mode and just take it easy.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

This seems light compared to how packed Universal is this week!

Oh my goodness! Watching videos right now and it's scary-crowded. Harry Potter area looks almost impassable.

 

[Herding_Cats]

We were in MK on Tuesday and morning was pretty decent and as expected it filled up after lunch. Yesterday (28th) at AK was bonkers. One of the CMs working EE said it was “the busiest day they’ve ever had” for whatever that’s worth. We were in the park by 7am (8am scheduled open) and on NRJ by 725. We could have ridden it at least 2 more times as basically walk-ons because everyone was in line for FoP. All of the roads between the “continents” looked like the above pic of Tomorrowland by 1pm. The only 4th+ fp available after 1pm was it’s tough to be a bug and primeval whirl.

 

[anomamatt]

We are still here. Still crowded but we are still finding it perfectly manageable. We are in DHS and FPs today were quick. We have done 5 FPs Each so we are plugging along. Crowds are heavy at chokepoints but it’s really not awful by any means. I was worried about this trip and the crowds, but so far so OK.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

We are still here. Still crowded but we are still finding it perfectly manageable. We are in DHS and FPs today were quick. We have done 5 FPs Each so we are plugging along. Crowds are heavy at chokepoints but it’s really not awful by any means. I was worried about this trip and the crowds, but so far so OK.

That's great to hear, anomamatt. Except for that Tomorrowland picture above, most pictures and reports say it's manageable.

But across town at Universal? Whoooooaaaah. No thanks! People are fighting and cussing each other out...no room to view the castle projection show...etc.

 

[anomamatt]

That's great to hear, anomamatt. Except for that Tomorrowland picture above, most pictures and reports say it's manageable.

But across town at Universal? Whoooooaaaah. No thanks! People are fighting and cussing each other out...no room to view the castle projection show...etc.

Going there (universal) on the 31st so that isn’t good to hear...

 

[kyanmama]

Overall though I have to admit I’m a bit confused now when people talk about the crowds being unbearable during this time. I think if you sleep in and arrive at the parks at peak they may be but we must have missed most of the action by being there for park open, out by lunch, and back at night with an open mind and a watchful eye on FP+ availability.

This was our first family trip to Disney World (not just at Christmas-- first ever) so we have nothing to compare it to. We were there 12/22-12/29. I was prepared for wall-to-wall, shoulder-to shoulder crowds. Most days, we went to the parks early and left shortly after lunch, returned or went to different park for dinner. On these days, we found the crowds way lighter than we expected (again, didn't know what to expect). Never waited longer than 10-15 minutes in lines (but we had planned well, I guess).
On the days that we did not take afternoon breaks, AK and MK were packed-- like hard to even move at some points-- but that's what we had come to DW expecting. Even on those days, we had fun We didn't find Epcot or HS insanely busy or crowded at all.

 

[Disneylover99]

This was our first family trip to Disney World (not just at Christmas-- first ever) so we have nothing to compare it to. We were there 12/22-12/29. I was prepared for wall-to-wall, shoulder-to shoulder crowds. Most days, we went to the parks early and left shortly after lunch, returned or went to different park for dinner. On these days, we found the crowds way lighter than we expected (again, didn't know what to expect). Never waited longer than 10-15 minutes in lines (but we had planned well, I guess).
On the days that we did not take afternoon breaks, AK and MK were packed-- like hard to even move at some points-- but that's what we had come to DW expecting. Even on those days, we had fun We didn't find Epcot or HS insanely busy or crowded at all.

People love to post photos of mid day crowds in bottle neck areas this time of year.
Glad you had a good time! It's my favourite time of year to go.

 

[Klayfish]

We are still here. Still crowded but we are still finding it perfectly manageable. We are in DHS and FPs today were quick. We have done 5 FPs Each so we are plugging along. Crowds are heavy at chokepoints but it’s really not awful by any means. I was worried about this trip and the crowds, but so far so OK.

Yep, same here. We've been here since 12/20, going home on 1/1. We just got back from HS today. Yes, it's very busy...I've never seen HS as crowded as it was today. However, it's quite manageable. The only truly "crazy" park, IMO, is MK at night. We were there last night...but even as crazy as it is, you can get things done. We were in AK yesterday morning, used all FP+. At 3pm, I grabbed a FP+ for the kids for 7DMT. The FP+ window was 6-7pm. We didn't step foot into MK until 6:30pm, and walked out at 8:15pm. In that time, the kids did 7DMT, Speedway, Tea Cups, Space Mountain, PeopleMover. All except Peoplemover were via FP+. DW and I did rides of our own. We then hopped to the Poly to watch fireworks from the beach. Got there at 8:50pm. I am dead serious when I say we were literally the only ones on the beach...not a single other person. Sadly, it was cloudy so some of the fireworks were obscured, but it was still cool to see.