How Bad are the Crowds, Really?

[starryagain]

I was there the week of Halloween last year (2019) and it was surprisingly not super crowded. I think the extra extra magic hours at DHS helped a ton in disbursing crowds. Minimal changes to hours could go a long way in easing crowds (increasing hours 20% could spread out the crowds quite a bit). I do think Disney is going to take a major hit if there is an even minor recession because they have been turning off repeat visitors at the expense of trying to suck the money out of the "once in a lifetime" visitors (especially from those abroad). So far that has led to great profits but I don't think it will last.

It is interesting because the hotel resorts still seem very well run. They are definitely making a calculated decision by not easing the crowds. I think it will cost them in the long term but I guess we will see.

 

[Remy is Up]

But there are millions of people in t bg e other category. They get 3 free fps. They see shows. They experience disney and crowded or not that is their expectation.know your audience. Will wdw adapt when they need to? Yep. But not because bloggers or people complaining on boards are loud. They change things when it's in the best I interest of the business according to their metrics.

 

[LSUmiss]

we just got back and it was insane. everyone from Louisianan was at Disney and strollers caused so many issues. Disney really needs to ban strollers.

What issues exactly did they cause? And was it only Louisiana ppl who caused it?? Btw...do your research next time. It was Mardi Gras week. It’s always packed with Louisiana ppl then.

 

[starryagain]

I always find it so strange when people are defending business decisions like every business consistently makes good decisions. Disney itself has had one of the worst Board of Directors in the history of capitalism in the US, and has made its share of idiotic decisions. There were literally books and MBA case studies written about how poorly Disney was run years ago. It's your opinion that the current business decisions are going to be profitable in the long term, but this is certainly not a sure thing. Especially if there is an economic slow down, the number of first time visitors will almost certainly decrease. There is a finite supply of people wanting to take $5-10k vacations, particularly in rough times.

I am open to being wrong myself but yeah. No reason to think Disney knows everything.

 

[Gehrig1B]

It really is all about expectations in my opinion. We are here now, arrived on Friday. Yes, it is crowded but I have had no problem with strollers and ECVs. I can also say yesterday we had a great day at Hollywood Studios, arriving about 7:20, no bag line and easy entry. Got Boarding Grop #64 and was on RotR a little after noon. Rope Dropped RNRC, FP+ Tower of Terror, FP+ TSM, rode RNRC a second time with FP, enjoyed Beauty and the Beast. We enjoyed Oga's, rode Smuggler's Run with a FP. All of this before 1:30. Scored a Frozen FP so left for Epcot and a late lunch at Yorkshire. Did Epcot Experience then rode Frozen. All of this before 5:00.

Today we went to MK... Rope Drop BTMRR, then People Mover, Carousel of Progress, FP+ Space Mountain, FP+ Buzz, FP+ BTMRR (yes, again), visited Country Bear Jamboree, scored 4th FP for Haunted Mansion, mobile ordered lunch at Casey's all before 2:00. Headed back to WL for a respite and leaving for dinner at Topolino's around 5:00 and maybe some last-minute Epcot/Boardwalk fun.

I have been here over 30 days this 12-month period and are yet to be involved in a scooter or stroller incident. Maybe I am a bit more patient than others.

And, as you can see, we are not rope drop to close, crazy on a time schedule, folks trying to squeeze every penny out of our day at the parks. We pay to enjoy the parks, not run ourselves ragged.

 

[NotTheBatesMotel]

Crowds now are much worse than they were 6 years ago. I was at Magic Kingdom briefly on Thursday. The line for 7 Dwarves Mine Train was almost 4 hours. Haunted Mansion 80 minutes. Big Thunder queue was all the way full, backing out to the Frontierland bridge. Hollywood Studios is also insane, including rope drop, now that ROTR is open. Epcot is usually slammed due to the festivals they have almost year-round now. It’s now at the point where I find it very difficult to enjoy Magic Kingdom unless it’s during an After Hours event.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

There is a subset of able-bodied people who act as though people with strollers and ECVs are second class citizens. They will cut in front of them, stop short, etc., and generally contribute to the issue, all the while complaining about how terrible those stroller and ECV users are.

I 100% agree with this. I’ve been to Disney and Uni 8 times and have only once had someone ram me (repeatedly) with a stroller. When my kids were younger and I was pushing nearly 100 lbs of kids one trip in a double, carefully leaving a good space between me and the person in front of me, every 10th person used that space to jump ahead of me in the crowd. And often then stop or change directions. I could not stop that stroller on a dime and was trying to be responsible and also not injure my kids. It was very stressful. It seemed that a lot of people either didn’t know that strollers and ECVs need the space to stop or they didn’t care. They were the ones being irresponsible by jumping in front of people with vehicles. Like I said, I did have someone ramming me so those people are out there but my experience both using a stroller and not is that a lot of plain pedestrians are inconsiderate too.

 

[Thecouch]

No way disney didn't know how busy it was going to be last few weeks. They would have known by hotel bookings and amount of fastpass booked how many were going. They should have extended hours. But since they stuffed up with extra extra hours last year there trying to even it out

 

[DisLiss]

I just don't think Disney cares if it is crowded. It's not something they are concerned about because for as much as people complain, people just keep showing up. Unless they were reaching capacity on a regular basis, I just don't think they'd see it as a problem that they need to throw money at.

 

[andy_dangg]

I’m in MK right now and have been having a great time. A good strategy and hustling for rope drop will do wonders. We were able to to BTMR, Splash, Haunted Mansion, Dumbo and Under the Sea before going to Be Our Guest at 11:10. In the afternoon we focused on our FPs for Space and Peter Pan. Did stuff like Country Bears, PeopleMover, etc. Our longest wait was Small World at about 35 minutes. We’re heading to our 7DMT FP right now before shopping and fire works. Some areas were way too crowded like Adventureland (wall to wall near Aloha Isle) but overall not too bad and quite manageable.

 

[rpb718]

No way disney didn't know how busy it was going to be last few weeks. They would have known by hotel bookings and amount of fastpass booked how many were going. They should have extended hours. But since they stuffed up with extra extra hours last year there trying to even it out

I'm pretty sure WDW resorts are pretty much all filled 90+% of the time. They can't sell 110% of the resort rooms (although sometimes they may try.) Of course they would have no idea how many folks could show up that are staying offsite, or are locals driving in for the day.

Also, the number of FP+ available would not increase based on the number of guests. It would only increase if there is a positive change to park hours.

 

[Thecouch]

I'm pretty sure WDW resorts are pretty much all filled 90+% of the time. They can't sell 110% of the resort rooms (although sometimes they may try.) Of course they would have no idea how many folks could show up that are staying offsite, or are locals driving in for the day.

Also, the number of FP+ available would not increase based on the number of guests. It would only increase if there is a positive change to park hours.

By fastpass I mean that they would know ahead of time how many total fastpasses are booked. Say Hollywood studios normal Feb day there is 80k fastpass booked but for some reason 100k are booked they would know its going to be busy. They might not know how many people are staying off site at anyone time but some where between 30 and 7 days out they would have a good idea by total FP booked per day

 

[disneysteve]

So I guess the question is for people who go pretty often. How bad would you generally say the crowds have gotten over the past few years?

I haven't read all of the replies but here's my answer. For context, I've been going pretty much every year since 1978, often twice a year. And we've gone at every time of year.

The crowds today are INSANE. By far, it is the single biggest thing that detracts from my enjoyment of the parks now. We are not commando planners. We don't book our FPs or meals in advance. We enjoy strolling through the parks and winging it, taking things as they come. But that's gotten increasingly difficult in recent years because of the sheer volume of guests.

Many of the other issues that people complain about like rude guests, stressed out cast members, dirty bathrooms, long waits for food, etc. can all be traced back to the overcrowding.

I still want to go back, but I find myself enjoying our time outside of the parks as much or more than our time in the parks to a large extent.

 

[disneysteve]

By fastpass I mean that they would know ahead of time how many total fastpasses are booked. Say Hollywood studios normal Feb day there is 80k fastpass booked but for some reason 100k are booked they would know its going to be busy. They might not know how many people are staying off site at anyone time but some where between 30 and 7 days out they would have a good idea by total FP booked per day

Actually they have a pretty good idea of how many people to expect since they now sell dated tickets. In years past, they knew how many tickets had sold but had no way to know when those tickets would be used. Now they do.

Disney has caused the crowding problem in a number of ways. As noted, they've added festivals and special events (RunDisney, for example) to increase the crowds. They've also reduced park hours, often to accommodate more hard ticketed events. The Halloween and Christmas parties run more nights than ever, for example, so that's more nights than ever that MK closes early to regular guests. More people are trying to squeeze their park time into fewer hours - hence greater crowding. And even the hard ticketed events are much more crowded than they used to be from all reports I've seen.

 

[Remy is Up]

I’m in MK right now and have been having a great time. A good strategy and hustling for rope drop will do wonders. We were able to to BTMR, Splash, Haunted Mansion, Dumbo and Under the Sea before going to Be Our Guest at 11:10. In the afternoon we focused on our FPs for Space and Peter Pan. Did stuff like Country Bears, PeopleMover, etc. Our longest wait was Small World at about 35 minutes. We’re heading to our 7DMT FP right now before shopping and fire works. Some areas were way too crowded like Adventureland (wall to wall near Aloha Isle) but overall not too bad and quite manageable.

Glad.you had a great day. My wife had a great saturday as well. Nice to see a positive post amid all the negativity and complaining.

 

[andy_dangg]

Glad.you had a great day. My wife had a great saturday as well. Nice to see a positive post amid all the negativity and complaining.

It was a great day! We had to camp out a spot for Happily about an hour before, but enjoyed the fireworks before getting a Jungle Cruise night ride and one more ride in BTMR. Heading back to POR tired but happy.

 

[Boopuff]

My DD did the DCP last year. I know that she was hired for the Summer season (a lot of new hires started with June dates - college finishes up in May) So I'm guessing that once Summer hits, hopefully extended hours (for free!) will come back!

 

[LSUmiss]

No way disney didn't know how busy it was going to be last few weeks. They would have known by hotel bookings and amount of fastpass booked how many were going. They should have extended hours. But since they stuffed up with extra extra hours last year there trying to even it out

I think they’re preparing ppl to want to pay for FPs!

 

[FeaturePresentation]

I haven't read all of the replies but here's my answer. For context, I've been going pretty much every year since 1978, often twice a year. And we've gone at every time of year.

The crowds today are INSANE. By far, it is the single biggest thing that detracts from my enjoyment of the parks now. We are not commando planners. We don't book our FPs or meals in advance. We enjoy strolling through the parks and winging it, taking things as they come. But that's gotten increasingly difficult in recent years because of the sheer volume of guests.

Many of the other issues that people complain about like rude guests, stressed out cast members, dirty bathrooms, long waits for food, etc. can all be traced back to the overcrowding.

I still want to go back, but I find myself enjoying our time outside of the parks as much or more than our time in the parks to a large extent.

My feelings exactly, and we're planners.

The important distinction is that these crowds go beyond long lines for attractions. We've waited 15+ minutes for multiple bathrooms. The walkways are jam packed. It's difficult to find a place to relax and breathe. Someone is always trying to push past you or sit right next to you. It's nearly impossible to take a leisurely stroll and absorb the scenery. We have to keep our toddler confined to the stroller a lot since there are so few places to roam.

We're having fun but are doing maybe 30% of what we used to. We've found ourselves taking the usual afternoon break but not going back afterwards. You can plan around lines with FP+ and ADRs, but you can't plan around wall-to-wall people.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

My feelings exactly, and we're planners.

The important distinction is that these crowds go beyond long lines for attractions. We've waited 15+ minutes for multiple bathrooms. The walkways are jam packed. It's difficult to find a place to relax and breathe. Someone is always trying to push past you or sit right next to you. It's nearly impossible to take a leisurely stroll and absorb the scenery. We have to keep our toddler confined to the stroller a lot since there are so few places to roam.

We're having fun but are doing maybe 30% of what we used to. We've found ourselves taking the usual afternoon break but not going back afterwards. You can plan around lines with FP+ and ADRs, but you can't plan around wall-to-wall people.

Agree, just returned from a week long visit and the jam packed walkways was a big issue. We go every year and know how to plan our day, but there's no getting around the hoards of folks making it difficult to just walk from point A to point B. It just makes it not enjoyable.