How busy are the parks on "low" crowd days?

[slford00]

We're taking our two older kids (6 & 4) for an 8 day trip around Labor Day this year, with these dates picked specifically because they are projected by TouringPlans to be the lowest crowd level days of the year. However, I've been to Disney enough to know that there are no "slow" days at Disney. I've been on crowd level days listed as 3-4 and still felt like there were a ton of people there, and I know the premium attractions will always have a wait without FP.

For any of you who have experience with early September crowds, what type of experience is realistic to expect as far as crowd size, wait times, availability of FP+ later in the day, rope drop, etc? I've already made the ADRs we want and selected our park for each day, and now I'm starting to work on plans for touring, but I'm not quite sure what to expect.

 

[mesaboy2]

It's very difficult to answer your questions with much specificity--I'll just say early September is among the least-crowded times of the entire year to go.

 

[Alesia]

It really depends on choosing the right days for each park and having a good touring plan.

If your average crowd level is a 3 for the day, the park with EMH could be a 5, whereas the park that had EMH the night before will be closer to a 1.

And I cannot stress enough the importance of a good touring plan. We always go when the crowd level are in the 7 - 9 range and we very rarely wait for more than 20 minutes for anything, and never more than 30 minutes.

 

[UMNNic]

We went last year for a week the first or 2nd week of September. Hollywood Studios & Epcot were almost dead (although it was sprinkling our Epcot Day). We literally walked onto every ride at Epcot without more than a few minute wait. Our longest wait was for the character meet & greet - and it was maybe 10-15 minutes.

Our MK days were slightly busier, and the "big" rides did have waits, but we rode the smaller rides (Dumbo, TeaPots) over & over with no wait in between. We even rode Space Mountain without a wait. We never went at rope drop, but usually within an hour after, and have photos of the Castle with no one in them but us! We were pleasantly surprised at how few people there were.

 

[Jjplantgeek]

We were there Sept 2-9 in 2014, right after Labor Day. It was fabulous. Low crowds, walk on pretty much everything except 7dmt and A&E, but even those werent difficult making them RD priority on our 2 MK days.