Is there really no slow season anymore?

[KimBean]

ABSOLUTELY I agree! From 1993-2000 we would go the week after New Years and over the half the rides would literally be walk on. NO lines over 15 minutes anywhere.

Since 2005 I have gone 3x/year - late April/early May, mid August and early December. The crowds for August have remained the same or even lessened a bit. December used to be almost vacant (except for MVMCP!). I can remember COUNTING the number of people at Osborne Lights and there being less than 150! Late April is a nightmare with the Cheer Whatever it is and school end of year trips--early May is still very manageable, but without FP you'd still be waiting close to an hour or more for headliners.

Hotel rooms were easy to acquire and AP discounts were deep. Until 3 years ago I had NEVER paid more than $84 for a room at a value--3 years ago I paid $132 for standard room at Music.

In the past, rope drop was a food idea but not a necessity - I don't go NEAR the MK now after 11:30 am.....

I feel like you are making the opposite point with the person you are agreeing with. Confused.

 

[ThistleMae]

We went two years ago Thanksgiving week. We had a rain night at MK and no one was in the park, we literally ran from ride to ride and got right on. It was dumping and we had a blast. Thanksgiving day was mobbed, I mean wall to wall people everywhere. I think the key is it is just so hard to predict whether the parks will be crowded or not.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I see a lot of people say that WDW doesn't have a slow season anymore. Do you really think that's true?

I'm not sure it's perfectly true yet, but I do assume it's the goal.

The company wants to make as much money as possible, while keeping people happy enough to return repeatedly. Therefore, they try to even out the crowds with things like free dining in seasons that used to be slow, and advertising strategically, like this:

Plus, you can't discount foreign guests. Sure, here in the US we tend to avoid traveling near to the start of School (just after Labor Day in a large part of the US) or again just after the Holiday's) but that's not the case in the rest of the world. So Disney does promos outside the US to attract foreign guests when the US guests aren't as likely to travel. They've done a darn good job to keep their numbers up at a level they are happy with just about year around.

I agree. Life has changed. People are more in control of their schedules. 10 years ago I could go to the grocery store in the middle of the day on a Tuesday and be 1 of 3 people there. Now it is jam packed and mainly men. Life has changed. People are multi tasking their work and home life. I feel like we are seeing this same change at WDW. There isn't a dead time to go to the store, but Friday nights and Saturday mornings aren't as terrible as they used to be. No real dead times at Disney. But summer is no longer wall to wall people.

This is true, too. People expect more flexibility in their lives now, and I think like more people are willing to take their kids out of school.

My opinion is there IS slow times, but they are constantly changing. Used to be September, early December, Etc. But last year summer was slow. Its ever changing. I just try and pick when I think it will be good and go in with a good plan.

And I think it will keep changing, like a pendulum swinging, until they find as good a balance as they're going to get.

What about early/mid May? Never been during this time, but with my daughter starting college soon we will have to switch from going in September trip to going after she finishes with school. Seems like a good time with good weather and decent crowd levels.

We used to go in mid May years ago, before DS was in school, and we loved it! Reasonable crowd levels (at least then) and good weather. - It was warm enough to feel like we were in Florida, but not "daily rain shower" season yet.

 

[stinkpickle]

I thought July was always packed with the International tour groups?

The economies in South American countries ain't what they used to be

 

[AngiTN]

The economies in South American countries ain't what they used to be

Quite true. Where you used to have 5, 6 groups now you may have 1 or 2. So they are there just in quite smaller numbers