Is Thanksgiving really that bad???

We flew in on Thanksgiving Day one year. Arrived around noon. Went to our resort, got checked in (BWV) and headed to DHS. Oh dear God!!! The number of people in that park was incredible. It was miserable! We did one attraction, and then left! It's the one time I had a melt down with dd! Never before, never after. But the crowds were so awful and so rude and I was tired after traveling and I was hot and just plain miserable..and dd was being a bit bratty to boot!!
The crowds were just as bad for the next three days. We went to Epcot on Friday...WS was shoulder to shoulder! I was so happy to see Sunday night come...finally the parks were manageable. And by Wednesday, they were perfect...of course, that was our departure day!
Will never, ever go over Thanksgiving again....ever!!!

@goofy4tink...how many years ago was that? It seems in recent years the only park with anything close to unbearable crowds is the MK. Most of the posts I've read in recent years always talk about the three non-MK parks as "kinda crowded but mangeable" and "no problem getting on the headliners".:confused3
 
We go almost every Thanksgiving. It's the start of my holiday season. We are not commando tourers and don't pack a ton of planning in our trips - we're more "let's see what the day holds" kind of people. We've never really had an issue with huge crowds that we couldn't handle. We in our early 50s so Magic Kingdom isn't a priority with us so can't help with crowd levels there. We haven't found the other three parks to be so crowded we've had to leave. I would definitely recommend Thanksgiving time at Disney World over the Christmas/New Year's time.
 
...and although I did not go the parks on Thanksgiving, I was in the parks immediately after, and as others have said, the MK is crazy crowded! It is really just the most magical park during the holidays because of the icicle lighting on the castle, special Christmas light projections, and the way Main Street is decorated, not to mention other things like a cute holiday stage show in Tomorrowland. It is crowded, but so worth it. I remember telling DSis it was one of the best trips to the World we ever took because it was just extra magical. Honestly, we did not even book our FP+ reservations until we got there, and we just did them from our smartphones each day and really didn't have much of a problem. I found the wait times with FP+ to be very bearable, especially considering the weather is so mild. Some days were even cold (I actually missed the warm weather, it's kind of part of the experience after all!). I remember a few standby lines at MK were SUPER long though; Jungle Cruise ("Jingle" Cruise) must have had almost 2 hours. That being said, I was not bothered by the crowds, except for at Epcot in the World Showcase. People start lining up for the evening time Candlelight Processional literally from morning and the lines pretty much wrap around the whole WS. If you actually want to have a chance of attending this event (as in sitting in the bleachers) and don't want to waste a day of park touring waiting in line, try to get the dinner reservation package at WS, which guarantees you a spot and puts you in a different line.
Osborne Lights at DHS is VERY crowded. In general, if you are used to summer crowds, you should be fine...it might just be hard to get a good spot to watch parades.
Also, we had our Thanksgiving dinner at the food court of our Disney resort, and it was around $17 per meal. It was very crowded and they were even running out of certain side dishes. We also went to Downtown Disney on Thanksgiving, and it was not too bad as far as crowds.
Good luck!

Tunetown...which Resort were you staying at?
 
We were there Wed-Sun this past Thanksgiving. DS16's high school band performed at DHS on Thanksgiving day. We traveled separately.

I was really pleasantly surprised at how manageable the parks were. We did FP+ and I picked times around the band's schedule. We were in MK on Black Friday and were able to do lots of rides. (Of course this was during the wonderful days of double dipping; I was pulling and giving away passes to Splash...)

I would go again during this time period in a heartbeat. One of the downsides, though, is the jacked up dining prices: paid a pretty penny to eat on Thanksgiving, but what are you going to do?
 

We went the week of TG in 2006. It wasn't bad at all until TG day. The worse was the day after TG. This year we are going 11/20 - 28 so coming home the day after TG.
 
What's happened in the past in nothing like it will be this year. I exepect much larger than normal crowds with the opening of the Little Mermaid ride, BOG, and especially the opening of the 7DMT.
 
What's happened in the past in nothing like it will be this year. I exepect much larger than normal crowds with the opening of the Little Mermaid ride, BOG, and especially the opening of the 7DMT.

I have to disagree; two out of three of those were in place in 2013. BOG is nearly impossible regardless of a holiday. We walked on to LM on both Friday and Saturday evenings.

I referenced double dipping FP's earlier-- I know that won't be a possiblility, but the fact that there were tons of FP-'s available last year was, I think, indicative of just how manageable the crowds were.
 
We arrive the day after Thanksgiving. Right now, EasyWDW is recommending MK over EPCOT. MK is open until 1am, EPCOT starts the Candelight Processional that night. If I plan late afternoon FP+, and just plan to do most things late at night, do you think we'll be ok? Figure we won't be getting into the park until probably 2 or 3 in the afternoon and if its insane, I'd even hold off and do maybe AK and go to MK later with a Park Hopper?
 
We are arriving on Tuesday afternoon and staying through Friday, so I too am curious about planning & crowds! Thanks everyone for the input.

Our plan is to arrive at SSR late afternoon on Tuesday and head over to DHS for a few rides (FP+ helps us out here!), dinner, see the Osborne Lights.

Wednesday, head to MK for rope drop, back to SSR for midday break and lunch, back to MK/monorail resort for dinner and MK evening.

Thursday, AK for the day. Lunch at AKL restaurant, dinner at DTD.

I think FP+ will help us get in the "must-do" rides while managing the crowds. Especially on Wednesday -- if we FP+ a few rides in the morning and hopefully get more set for the evening.
 
We went 2 years ago for Thanksgiving and I didn't think it was too bad. We arrived the Tuesday evening before and stayed until the Monday after.

We arrived at the parks at rope drop every day and used touringplans.com to decide on which day for which park. We never had any long waits and it was great to see the Christmas decorations. It really got us in the holiday mood!

We went to Epcot on Thanksgiving day and it wasn't crowded at all, then we had an early dinner at Boma (we were staying at AKV). The dinner was great because they had traditional Thanksgiving items as well as Boma's regular offerings on the buffet.

We also did MVMCP on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and it was awesome. It was not crowded at all!
 
What's happened in the past in nothing like it will be this year. I exepect much larger than normal crowds with the opening of the Little Mermaid ride, BOG, and especially the opening of the 7DMT.

I have to disagree; two out of three of those were in place in 2013. BOG is nearly impossible regardless of a holiday.

mrsR123 - I was thinking exactly the same thing. I was kind of scratching my head thinking, haven't 2 of those been out for quite awhile? :confused3

And regardless, those are all MK attractions, so that wouldn't have any bearing on the other parks. I already expect the MK to be a madhouse on Thanksgiving, and plan on going nowhere near it.....
 
We went Thanksgiving 2013, checked in Tuesday of Tdy week and checked out 12 days later. We mentally prepared ourselves for the worst crowd levels imagineble. Maybe thats why we were so pleasantly surprised. We had an awesome holiday week as others have mentioned utilize rope drop, one day we rode Test track 5 times, we rode 4 times at park opening within 90 minutes and then later in the morning with FP+. After 11a.m. we visited character lines and then returned to the resort for pool and rest. We avoided the early entry parks, we feel this just makes the crowd levels worse in that park. We had a blast, ran into some rude guests but thats the norm, sadly.

The first week of Dec, ehhh we felt the crowds were worse.

Would definitely do it again without hesitation.
 
We went 2 years ago for Thanksgiving and I didn't think it was too bad. We arrived the Tuesday evening before and stayed until the Monday after.

We arrived at the parks at rope drop every day and used touringplans.com to decide on which day for which park. We never had any long waits and it was great to see the Christmas decorations. It really got us in the holiday mood!

We went to Epcot on Thanksgiving day and it wasn't crowded at all, then we had an early dinner at Boma (we were staying at AKV). The dinner was great because they had traditional Thanksgiving items as well as Boma's regular offerings on the buffet.

We also did MVMCP on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and it was awesome. It was not crowded at all!

How crowded was the Thanksgiving dinner at Boma? Did the AKL(in general) seem fairly booked up?
 
How crowded was the Thanksgiving dinner at Boma? Did the AKL(in general) seem fairly booked up?

I'm not the one you asked but we ate at Boma one Thanksgiving night and it was packed. Very crowded and very loud. We had bad service but it may have been because of the crowd. This was like after 7, maybe? Earlier may have been better.
 
How crowded was the Thanksgiving dinner at Boma? Did the AKL(in general) seem fairly booked up?

We ate early, maybe around 5:00 and it was full but not crazy crowded. I have no idea about how booked the resort was, but nothing was too crazy - pool, restaurants, gift shops, etc all seemed busy but not outrageously so.
 
AKL may become an actually semi-popular resort once AK becomes a night-time park and then(of course) when Avatar opens in 2017.:thumbsup2
 


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