Is October crazy crowded?

[Aspencreek]

Have been to Disneyland a bunch of times but only to WDW once about 15 years ago. Thinking of heading back finally for a week-long trip, and one of date windows that would work is late October ( between 21st-30th ). We now avoid DL in October due to crazy crowds, but is WDW any better or similarly packed? Thanks in advance!

 

[elvispursley]

October used to be pretty quiet but now sees an influx of crowds. Schools have fall break, have been in session long enough that parents don’t feel bad pulling their kids. Food and wine is in full swing not to mention MNSSHP closes the parks early several times a week (although MK crowds tend to be a lot less crowded than nonparty days). It definitely doesn’t seem as busy as Thanksgiving/Christmas week.

 

[Kooks and Bay Bay]

Yes its quite busy especially the closer to Halloween you go.
Lot's of MNSSHP. Plus Food and Wine.
And the weather is not as hot.

Basically October and summer have switched places these days as far as crowds go.

 

[Aspencreek]

That's what I was afraid of. Same thing at DL. Years ago it was a great shoulder season, now (for us at least) it is a no-go.

 

[gottalovepluto]

October is a very busy time at WDW. Not sure if it's as bad as DL, i would revise your title to include Disneyland somehow try to snag someone who has done both recently. I would go but budget for LLMP/SP and plan on being at the park for early entry. The nice thing about WDW is there is a lot more space for people when walking around so it doesn't tend to feel as jam packed with higher crowds as DLR to me. (Xmas/Spring Break-Easter aside).

 

[dizneedoll]

We went the last week of October last year and it was not bad at all. It wasn't empty but I never felt like any of the parks were crazy crowded either. And Im DL local and it was no where near as bad as DL gets.

 

[Disnsyncey]

I went once and it was SUCH a busy week that MK changed their opening to 8am (back when we had EE and could get in an hour early) so we were walking up to the turnstiles at 6:40 and SO MANY PEOPLE.......

 

[OKW Lover]

WDW has done a great job at leveling out the peaks and valleys of park attendance over the years. Outside of holiday periods you'll find similar crowd levels no matter what month you go.

 

[tinkerbella16]

We went last October and it was not bad at all. But we also went the week after Milton came through, like literally that Friday things opened back up and we were able to fly out as scheduled. A lot of people canceled/rescheduled their trips, so I know that definitely played into it.

 

[neverlandsky]

Did October 2017. Never again.

 

[Upatnoon]

Disney World is always busy.

When you visit during party season, they concentrate crowds at Magic Kingdom on non-party nights and also disrupt the extended evening hours if staying at deluxe resort.

This can have a domino effect across all the parks and make planning more challenging.

This is also peak hurricane season, which can disrupt visits.

My 2 cents is if you want to go then, go, but just be aware that visiting during party season needs different planning.

 

[mamarachel429]

Every time I go it's crowded, no matter the time. Just saying

 

[stinkpickle]

We've had decent luck with crowds targeting the week of Halloween. It's usually a slight lull between Columbus Day week and Jersey Week. It's definitely not empty, though.

 

[kylenne]

We went the last week of October last year and it was not bad at all. It wasn't empty but I never felt like any of the parks were crazy crowded either. And Im DL local and it was no where near as bad as DL gets.

October's a tricky one because the last week is generally not as bad, but early to mid Oct has gotten downright crazy, esp. the week of Indigenous Peoples Day. Years of the internet beating the drum about October being slow, a pair of extremely popular seasonal events, (Food & Wine and MNSSHP), and an increase in fall school breaks I think made October more desirable.

Disney World is always busy.

Demonstrably untrue. This is a fallacy that's repeated online a lot but has no basis in actual fact. There are fewer slow times than there once were, but they still exist--they're just not the same ones as in years past, and the ebbs and lows are a bit harder to predict. May is still generally dead (this year was the busiest I've ever seen it during Memorial week, but I think that was down to Epic's rising tide lifting the Disney attendance boat too). And summer in general has not seen consistently peak crowds since before covid. There's a lot of factors behind that, but mainly a combo of weather and higher tickets and rack rates. Disney offering so many aggressive discounts for this time frame is for a reason, and it's not because it's busy.

The bit about party season is correct, though.

 

[vinotinto]

We live in Atlanta and our school district and the ones near here have Fall Break: either the full week of Indigenous People Day or the weekend and Monday and Tuesday. And my kids are in colleges in 2 other states (south and mid-west) and they also have that same Monday and Tuesday of Indigenous People Day off for Fall Break. We've been 9 times in that time frame and it is extremely busy, definitely as busy or busier than other holidays. In particularly MK gets to be wall-to-wall people in the evenings because MNSSHP closes the park at 6pm and everyone that wants to watch fireworks goes on the nights that it is open late.

If you can go in July, August, or September (avoiding 4th of July week and Labor Day weekend), you will encounter lighter crowds. Don't get me wrong, it's still a LOT of people, but the sticky 100+ degree heat does help keep some people away, and the hours uninterrupted by the parties also help.

p.s. - I don't think the non-holiday weeks in October may be as bad as that particular week, but you will still need to work with the effects of MNSSHP at MK.

 

[buzzgirls&dad]

I agree with many of the previous poster about how busy October is with all of the events. There is one more to add this year and that is the run Disney event that has been moved from Nov to Oct 23-26 (Wine & Dine marathon). I think this event will catch many long time October goers off guard. This will also make Sat at Epcot extremely crowded as I believe there is and after hours party for the runners. Early morning traffic patterns will also change so allow extra time to get to parks and breakfasts if in the area.

 

[ucf_knight]

Have been to Disneyland a bunch of times but only to WDW once about 15 years ago. Thinking of heading back finally for a week-long trip, and one of date windows that would work is late October ( between 21st-30th ). We now avoid DL in October due to crazy crowds, but is WDW any better or similarly packed? Thanks in advance!

Yes it’s super busy. Please stay away. I always go this time of year so the less people the better. OP, I’m sure you’d love one of the amazing summer days in august when I’m not at the parks. Please consider August. Thanks!

 

[CalSea12]

I agree with many of the previous poster about how busy October is with all of the events. There is one more to add this year and that is the run Disney event that has been moved from Nov to Oct 23-26 (Wine & Dine marathon). I think this event will catch many long time October goers off guard. This will also make Sat at Epcot extremely crowded as I believe there is and after hours party for the runners. Early morning traffic patterns will also change so allow extra time to get to parks and breakfasts if in the area.

Yep not looking forward to this... but I also cannot change my dates. Booked Pop so I can avoid traffic as much as possible.

 

[SkyGuy]

October's a tricky one because the last week is generally not as bad, but early to mid Oct has gotten downright crazy, esp. the week of Indigenous Peoples Day. Years of the internet beating the drum about October being slow, a pair of extremely popular seasonal events, (Food & Wine and MNSSHP), and an increase in fall school breaks I think made October more desirable.



Demonstrably untrue. This is a fallacy that's repeated online a lot but has no basis in actual fact. There are fewer slow times than there once were, but they still exist--they're just not the same ones as in years past, and the ebbs and lows are a bit harder to predict. May is still generally dead (this year was the busiest I've ever seen it during Memorial week, but I think that was down to Epic's rising tide lifting the Disney attendance boat too). And summer in general has not seen consistently peak crowds since before covid. There's a lot of factors behind that, but mainly a combo of weather and higher tickets and rack rates. Disney offering so many aggressive discounts for this time frame is for a reason, and it's not because it's busy.

The bit about party season is correct, though.

We went May 10-15 this year - we generally go for about a week somewhere within the first two weeks of May when not too many schools are out for the summer. We were shocked at how busy it was. It was also hotter than we usually experience. My kid walked into AK and said that this doesn’t look like any May he remembers. Throngs of people everywhere on all of our days - except for our preview day at Epic. The calmness was welcome.

 

[kylenne]

We went May 10-15 this year - we generally go for about a week somewhere within the first two weeks of May when not too many schools are out for the summer. We were shocked at how busy it was. It was also hotter than we usually experience. My kid walked into AK and said that this doesn’t look like any May he remembers. Throngs of people everywhere on all of our days - except for our preview day at Epic. The calmness was welcome.

May was definitely very strange this year, and I really think it was down to more people coming down for Epic because I can’t think of any other reason. Typically unusually high crowds at generally off times can be explained by ticket deals, FL resident offers driving up local attendance, etc. but none of those were factors this time. I really think people were planning trips for Epic and going to Disney too.

We come down just about every Memorial Day week because my birthday falls during it, so we were down 5/25-6/3. Usually the starts of those trips see slightly elevated crowds but there’s a mass exodus on the holiday itself with tons of people checking out from the resorts to fly home, and the rest of the week is a ghost town until the people whose kids get out the first week of June start showing up on the weekend to start their trips. That was definitely not the case this year though. Wednesday MK EEH was so crazy we only got 3 rides in and then dipped back to the Poly. HS was a zoo the whole week. Even AK was busy on 5/30. I’ve never seen anything like it on those May trips before.

I am back on Wednesday for July 4th weekend and it had me spooked enough to buy LLMP for all my planned park days and not just MK/HS as normal. It hasn’t been crowded like the other holidays in some time but I’m not taking chances. I typically do a solo Labor Day weekend trip every year and I’m wondering if that will be higher than usual too. At any rate it just reinforces my belief to always plan for high crowds and strategize your touring accordingly bc you never know. We were fine on that last trip bc of that.