Is MK going to be super-crowded on May 21? (Spectro & Fireworks that night)

[Clover9990]

Please say it isn't so!!! Is the Magic Kingdom going to be a madhouse next Wednesday? It's open until 9:30pm, due to the fireworks & Spectromagic. Or will it just maybe not start getting crowded until the evening?

 

[gshoemate]

We went to MK yesterday..which was Spectro and Fireworks and it was crazy. I mean I have seen it worse but during the day the wait time for the rides were long. Then about 8:00 I decided we better go find seats for the parade...and there were none. We came walking through the castle and there was wall to wall people. We could not find a spot for the parade. We ended up sitting down at the food pavillion in Tomorrowland so we could at least have a good spot for the fireworks. We will be skipping MK on Spectro and Fireworks in the future.

P.S. we went to MK last Friday and could not believe how dead it was, wait times were ranging anywhere from 5-

 

[gshoemate]

We went to MK yesterday..which was Spectro and Fireworks and it was crazy. I mean I have seen it worse but during the day the wait time for the rides were long. Then about 8:00 I decided we better go find seats for the parade...and there were none. We came walking through the castle and there was wall to wall people. We could not find a spot for the parade. We ended up sitting down at the food pavillion in Tomorrowland so we could at least have a good spot for the fireworks. We will be skipping MK on Spectro and Fireworks in the future.

P.S. we went to MK last Friday and could not believe how dead it was, wait times were ranging anywhere from 5-

 

[Clover9990]

Thanks for your insight! Are the rides all still open until 9:30, too? We don't really care about seeing the parade or fireworks, so will the lines for the rides at least be somewhat dead in the evening?

 

[Clover9990]

Bumping...would like more opinions. TIA!

 

[DebbieB]

I was also there on May 13th and it was very crowded all day. You know it's bad when Small World's line is out on the sidewalk. Town Square was crowded an hour before Spectro. We like Tuesdays because it usually isn't crowded, but I think the Spectro/FITS factor made it crowded. Went back on Thursday May 15th and it was much less crowded, very managable. I would pick another park for the day and go to MK at night for Spectro/fireworks.

 

[nuke]

We were also there this past Tuesday May 13th. It was VERY crowded in my opinion. We left at 5pm because it was so crowded and hot and the lines were too long.

 

[epcotfan]

We attempted to go on May 6th to tour around the MK. It happened to be Spectro that night. It was INSANE! We left after about 45 minutes. Restaurants were packed. At least a half hour in line for fast food! Another day I saw wait time for Peter Pan was 110 minutes!!! I like going to the MK in the summer when the parades tend to be more regular so everyone doesn't jam into the park on parade day.

 

[luvindisneyworld]

we were there for the fireworks and spectromagic on May 13th and i have never seen so many people in all my life.i could not belive it.that was our first and last for the fireworks and spectromagic.people were so rude and would step all over you and not even say(SORRY),it was unbelieveable

 

[Clover9990]

Oh NO!! This royally STINKS...my husband took a vacation day from work that day, and we can't just go to another park...this is a one-day trip to the Magic Kingdom before our seasonal passes are blacked out. My son has speech therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and his last day is the 22nd (we get out of school early here in FL), so I can't even have my husband switch his days off to the day before or the day after. There is a *slight* chance he can switch to Friday off instead, but I doubt it's very likely since the schedule is already written and you have to go through the proper channels to request a vacation day. UGH...I am completely dreading our visit now...I can deal with the sweltering heat ANY DAY over crowds...I am so disappointed! I would have thought that the parks would be dead these next couple of weeks (except Memorial Day weekend, of course) because nobody wants to pull their kids out of school so close to the end of the year.

 

[3darlingirls]

We were there two weeks ago. My oldest DD really, really wanted to see spectromagic and the fireworks - we hadn't done this on any of our other trips, becasue we wanted to avoid the crowds. Since this was her only special request, we made it a trip MUST DO. We went on Tuesday the 6th. The crowds were really bad - but I had expected them to be. But in all honesty, I could imagine them being worse. We went to the park at 7:30, and the parade began at 8:30. We couldn't find a good viewing spot. Once we found something, people pushed and shoved their way in, right in front of the little ones! They wound up with views of peoples backs. Not so nice. We ended up standing, in a crush, near a woman who saw my daughters. She moved her stroller around and invited them up to the front by the rope. She moved over, and put her son in her lap. She and I had such a nice discussion during the parade, and all the kids had fun, too. She and her family had driven down from Michigan and they were so nice! Made up for the rude ones!! We were in Epcot that day, because I wanted to avoid MK that day - thought it would be too crowded because of the parade and fireworks. Epcot was empty, and this woman told me MK was awful. Maybe you can go to another park during the day and then just brave the parade like we did? I can only imagine what Saturday must have been like. This is really wrong for WDW to do this with Spectromagic. It is so heavily promoted. The kids see the video and think this is completely part of WDW, as it should be by the way. Having it 1-2 times a week is really poor! I wonder how the people who pay premium for rooms with views of the fireworks feel?

 

[blanq]

We also were at MK on May 13th, and I have to agree with the others who were there...the place was nuts! We actually spent the day at MGM and that was not crowded. We hopped over the MK, mainly to have dinner a LTT, but we did do space mountain (only 5 minute wait at 5:00 pm). When we got done with dinner, we did the Tiki Room. Adventureland was a zoo by then, and the Jungle Cruise was a 45 minute wait. We decided to leave and head over to Epcot (which was the deadest I have ever seen it, by the way!). Anyway, we left MK about 7:15, and there were already tons of people lined up on main street for Spectro. I think with limited Spectro showings, you just have to expect it is going to be a zoo at MK on the evenings it is showing. My suggestion, if you really want to see Spectro, is to only go to MK for that and skip the rides. Spend your day somewhere else, and just pop in for the parade.

 

[Clover9990]

I think I need to clarify something. We DON'T want to see Spectro, the fireworks, or any of that shebang. All we want to do is do the park commando-style, like usual, and get in the most rides that we can. We usually go to the Magic Kingdom on Tuesdays for our one-day trips, and it's normally very manageable, crowd-wise. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it...we're definitely going to the MK, because it's a quick one-day trip (we live about 2 hours away from Disney)...our kids have been looking forward to this for a month now. We don't even need to go on all of the rides...these are our must-dos:

HM
TTA
Peter Pan
Cinderella's Carousel
IASW
BTMRR
SM
Buzz Lightyear
Barnstormer
Pirates

It's just that I don't want it to take until 8:00 at night just to do all of our must-dos (we can normally ride all of these rides, and ride some of them a few times, by 5pm or so). We're avid users of FastPass, but I dread the long lines you all are talking about, and dread the madhouse in the restaurants at lunchtime, etc.

 

[DebbieB]

Here's what we did. Got fastpasses for PP since that line was the longest. I think it was about 11:20, the return was 12:50-1:50. We then went and did HM, which was only about a 10 min wait, Hall of Presidents (get out of the heat), Small World, about a 15 min wait and then go back to PP for our fastpass return. TTA and the carousel shouldn't have much of a line. We didn't go to Tomorrowland last Tuesday, but I would head over there and get a fastpass for either SM or Buzz before doing TTA and then standby the one you didn't get the fastpass for. We fastpassed Splash Mt, it was about a 40 min standby with the fastpass return about an hour away. Then we went over and did Pirates, about a 20 min wait, shopped some and then went back to Splash. We then took the train around to the front of the park and went back to OKW for a break (about 3:00pm), went offsite for dinner. Came back about 7:30 for Spectro, found some standing room near where the parade starts.

 

[disneywith6kids]

We were also caught up in one of those spectro nights in May and it is scary. With 6 kids we almost lost one-thankfully we had dollar store glow in the dark necklaces around them so we were able to find her. Anyway my advice-be the first one in the park even if you have to wait an hour and 1/2 to get in. At rope drop (walk quickly) to Space mountain and get on as may rides as you can, then get over to adventure land and use fast pass. Then get out of there while you still can-Best wishes!

 

[apagano]

I was there on the 13th as well. Here's what worked for us:

1. Arrived about 11am (I would suggest getting there much earlier)
2. Hit Tomorrowland, grabbed Fastpass for Space Mountain
3. Saw Alien Encounter and rode Buzz Lightyear (short waits)
4. Rode Space Mountain
5. Headed for Fantasyland, rode Small World
6. Off to Adventureland. Rode Pirates (20 min wait)
7. Had late lunch at Pecos Bills. Plenty of tables available.
8. Hit Frontierland. Both Mountians had a 40 minute wait, so we picked up FPs for Big Thunder, waited 40 minutes for Splash Mountain, then rode Big Thunder.
9. Left the park around 5pm for a hotel pool break.
10. Returned around 8:00, found a great spot for Spectro near the Hall of Presidents.
11. Between Spectro and FITS, we rode Peter Pan with no wait.
12. Watched FITS from Fantasyland. During this time the rides near us had no waiting.
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    It was hot and fairly crowded, but it was not that bad. Just have a good plan, arrive early and make liberal use of Fastpass.

 

[mmmom]

I had never seen Spectromagic on my 4 previous trips and was thrilled when they added one show first week of May so my daughters could experience it. Big mistake- we parked my dad in his wheelchair and daughter in stroller over 2 hrs before pardae time on Main Street and were overcome by crowds as parade was to begin. There were definitely not enough CMS for crowd control and I was afraid a riot might break out as hot tempertures as well as crowds had people on edge. I think Disney does a disservice by scheduling only one showing a week and forces this mad rush mentality b/c everyone wants to experince the nightime magic. If I was going again, I would avoid MK completely that day, not even if you were to skip parade. Defintely took the thrill out of the parade for me.

 

[Clover9990]

Thanks again so much for all of your advice! There's a chance we might be able to switch days and go to the Magic Kingdom on Friday instead, but I'm concerned about crowd levels that day, too, since that's the kickoff of Memorial Day weekend. If you have any advice about that issue, here's the thread: http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=375479

Thanks once again- you all are a HUGE help, and we really appreciate it!!

 

[alansh]

I'm glad I didn't try the MK on 5/13. Instead, I got a 10pm seating at the California Grill, showed up early, and watched the fireworks from there. After the fireworks there was a mass exodus, so we got our table immediately.

We went to the MK on Thursday, 5/15, and encountered little in the way of lines (20 min. or less on everything).

 

[Deah]

gshoemate


we sat at the food pavilion in tommorowland too!!!

The fireworks were great!!! We were all the way up against the railings closer to the right side.

It was so so busy that night though!!!!!