It's late Jan...why so crowded?

[danimaroo]

I rode Expedition Everest 3 times in a half hour this morning, did Kilimanjaro Safaris with a 10 minute wait, then rode EE a 4th time with an FP and was out of the park before 11. The crowds aren't too terrible if you can avoid the tour groups. I've definitely been having a blast this trip. Only one day I found a park to be really crowded, and it was the day after Obama was here, in Magic Kingdom.

Guess it is all about perspective? Definitely am enjoying the heck out of this weather!

 

[ppony]

I'm not quite sure where or how I was disrespecting your opinion by sharing our experience. I just stated mine, which happened to be different from yours. We thought it was quiet, never experienced the "masses" that you speak of. I'm sorry your trip was that of ridiculous crowds and longs waits.

It's interesting how people can be at the same place, at the same time and have 2 totally different experiences. I was under the impression that this forum is to share those experiences for people to use in their planning, I didn't think they all had to be the same...I'll go back to lurking.

I do apolgize! By quoting you, it certainly appeared all of my words were for you, they were not. Very sorry.
My ire just got up when people think those that felt crowded were just not seeing it from the right "perspective". From my 5'5" frame, my persective was heads heads and more heads. I even lifted my phone up as high as I could to take pix to show when I got back. I'm a Doof though (pun intended) and I can't seem to figure out how to get my pix OFF my phone to show.
It may not have ben Christmas crowded and heck, maybe everywhere else in the World was nice and relaxing, it was just not where I was in most places (expect Epcot...yes, even at Soarin' at 10 AM w/ no fastpass ).

Anyway, momma2gap, I DEARLY apologize. My post was abrasive and not composed well. I'm GLAD you got to experience it far differnt from what we did.

 

[NEW-B]

We just got back after staying at POP the 18th-24th. The brazilian tour groups were as bad as everybody has said, but at least they all wear the same bright colors so you can pick them out from far away. We tried to avoid them as much as possible and did a pretty good job. I also noticed they used the single rider line most of the time. I've been during June and during spring break and I will take this over those times any day. The longest wait was 40 min for TSM on wednesday evening. We may have also just gotten lucky and missed the masses but we did everything we wanted multiple times, used fastpass maybe 4 times, and never got there before 9:30. We also went to Universal and did Harry Potter 4 times with only a 20-25 min wait each time, in the afternoon no less. Weather was perfect also.

 

[jerlove]

Posting live from the quiet pool in Jamica at the CBR.

Spent the day at AK the park felt crowded but it was not reflective in the wait times. We walked on the safari at around 9:30am and then 15 min wait at EE at around 11am. The longest line we saw and did not get in was for the train to the observation station it looked like it would take at least 2 trains to get every body up there.

 

[natfrac]

Crowds are the reason we did not go this January. The past few years have been crowded during the past 2 weeks of the month. I took a picture last year of the stand by time for TSM, as it was 240 minutes!

 

[ppony]

Crowds are the reason we did not go this January. The past few years have been crowded during the past 2 weeks of the month. I took a picture last year of the stand by time for TSM, as it was 240 minutes!

And I thought 2 hours was bad Monday.

 

[CathrynRose]

The weather was amazing this trip! So much warmer than last year!

I was listening in on a CM talking to a couple about the weather. It's unseasonably hot this year.

:

YES!!!




Just a few more days, for me!

 

[logandsol]

I agree that it depends which park you're in. AK was very crowded yesterday in my opinion. The tour groups seemed to be following our tour plan, bumping all of the wait times up. We did our best with RD, FP and being flexible. We still left at 2:00 due to shear exhaustion of trying to avoid people.
Today at MK however, we did a TON before 4:00, even with starting late because of Tangled meet and greet being delayed by 30 mins. I only saw 1-2 tour groups.
Not sure if we picked a less crowded park or the other groups didn't follow our touring plan?

 

[Tbella]

what months do the tour groups tend to come to Disney?

 

[crelange1]

We just came back I miss it already! It was definitely more crowded than I anticipated, but very managable. The only really crowded day was MK, the day after Obama was there. You couldn't move, plus Splash was down and Big Thunder closed. All of the other days/parks were managable as long as you avoided the tour groups! Weather was awesome! WL seemed empty.

 

[ppony]

Granted, this is a narrow part of Fantasyland, but it was pretty much like this around half of Frontierland and didn't loosen much until passing the teacups on the other side of the land. Then it was back to jammed around Tomorrowland. This was the 20th, the day after the Prez visit. I knew it'd be yucky that day and I was right.

 

[Colleen27]

The crowds were definitely more than I'd expected too, but the traffic patterns were weird. On our AK day the walkways were packed but the wait times for Everest and the safari peaked at 40min and nothing else had any lines worth noting. There were just a lot of people walking around.

The construction at the Magic Kingdom made the park, especially Frontierland through Liberty Square and into Fantasyland, feel more crowded than it was. Again, wait times were manageable but navigation was a challenge on congested walkways. At 4pm we waited 10min for the Magic Carpets and Jungle Cruise was posting 30min. Between standby/baby swap, fastpass/baby swap, and a second set of FPs we rode Splash 5 times with a total combined wait of maybe 30-40min. The lines for Space were bad at times but it was up and down the day we were there which always makes for a mess, but by midnight it was a walk-on.

 

[ppony]

Again, wait times were manageable but navigation was a challenge on congested walkways. At 4pm we waited 10min for the Magic Carpets and Jungle Cruise was posting 30min. Between standby/baby swap, fastpass/baby swap, and a second set of FPs we rode Splash 5 times with a total combined wait of maybe 30-40min. The lines for Space were bad at times but it was up and down the day we were there which always makes for a mess, but by midnight it was a walk-on.

Not discounting your experience at all... this is mine...
I didn't bother w/ Splash Mtn, but I'd also bet that the liens for that weren't like they normally would have been because BTM is down and there's not much more to go back there for otherwise. The ride times for Buzz was over an hour when we were in it and the time said over 2 hours at SM. Man, I wish I had taken a pic! Tomorrowland was by far busy and long lines both days we visited. Except the people mover. that was a nice walk-on. The Astro Orbiter too only had about a 40 minute wait. But that's longer than I'd want.

 

[DisneyLoverUSA]

We just got back and was really expecting super low crowds but found there were more ppl at the parks this trip than there were in October of last year.

The funny thing is we didn't have any waits on most rides. We WAKED RIGHT ON to Forbidden Journey when the posted wait time was 30 minutes. It takes about 6 or 7 minutes to walk the whole queue line but once we got up to the loading zone we stepped right onto the ride.

We got in the standy by line for Soarin when the time was posted for 50 minutes and we were through the line and on the ride 25 minutes later. SO I have had a few experiences of NOT having to wait the posted stand by time.

I walked right onto ToT, walked right onto RnR. We didn't even ride TSMM this time because the kids weren't with us.

We did see a lot of BTG's. I had no idea January was a popular month for the tour groups but I have since read they go to school Feb through November. So they are out of school December and January and get off one or two weeks in July I think it is.

Our experience with the tour groups wasn't bad. They were broken up into groups of about 15 or 20 ppl all with the same kind of or color of shirt on. The leader walked around holding that group's flag so you could see them coming through the crowd.

 

[Starlilly]

we just got back from a trip spanning January 27 - February 4 and we were VERY SUPRISED at how CROWDED the parks were! at MK on Saturday the 28th it was VERY BUSY, 30+ minute waits on all rides, 50+ all headliners....these were the same crowds and wait times ive experienced in JUNE!!!!

AK on sunday the 29th was so busy it was difficult to even walk around!

we did not revist MK durring the week, and the crowds in Epcot and Hollywood Studios were much more managable, making for a much better experience.

On Friday the 3rd we went back to MK, and it was THE WORST DAY OF THE ENTIRE TRIP. Magic Kingdom was absolutly packed, wait times for all rides were around 50 minutes or more. there were SO MANY DANCE GROUPS it was completly out of control, the kind of crowds you see in the summer time.

to top it all off, we were staying at Carribean Beach Resort, which just so happened to be the main hub of many dance groups, complete with "dancer moms" overruning the food courts, dance practice in the parking lots, and buses loaded with squeely teenage girls


will someone please let me know if this is normal for January? This really took me by suprise and Im curious if truly there is no "slow" time for dinsey anymore, or if this was a fluke year and its normally not like this...?

 

[ppony]

will someone please let me know if this is normal for January? This really took me by suprise and Im curious if truly there is no "slow" time for dinsey anymore, or if this was a fluke year and its normally not like this...?

I don't know if it's normal for January and I'm sure weather played some part in elevated crowds, but I don't think there are any real "slow" times anymore. Our usual visiting time is mid Dec. and that has gotten more and more busy each visit. We thought we'd try Jan a few weeks ago and it was no better, just had a lot more large groups for sure. Disney is doing a good job at spreading the crowds out throughout the year these days.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

because EVERY single tour group brazilian had a bag with them.

As opposed to...? Your family which had no bags? I don't understand. If your family didn't have a bag why did they have to wait behind the tour group?


Aren't the Brazilian folks with bags supposed to go through the bag check like everyone else who has a bag?

Sorry to hijack the thread topic, I'm just confused.

 

[WhateverLolaWants]

Strange, I thought this trip was one of the slowest I've ever been on. Stayed from 1/28-2/4.

MK on Sunday with evening EMH wasn't too bad, and it cleared out at night because the majority of the people we came across had very young children.

AK/DHS on Monday for their magic hours. Walked onto the Safari and Everest was no more than a 10-15 minute wait. DHS was empty that night. Did Toy Story during the last American Idol show with little wait. In fact, we barely waited for Toy Story and rode it 4 times during our trip because they were pulling twosomes out of line to fill in cars.

Epcot on Thursday. Again, practically empty if you ask me.

At last minute, decided to do DHS and MK on Friday. This is the only day we saw larger crowds, particularly in the afternoon/evening. Saw multiple Brazilian groups with teenage girls who were well-behaved (only annoying when they would smack you with their matching backpacks). A lot of dance teams too.

Longest wait for a ride was about 40-45 minutes for Peter Pan, which was a fluke because the posted time was 35 minutes when we entered. All the other posted times were a tad exaggerated and we went through a lot quicker.

 

[Rags]

We thought the crowds were fairly light. Went to Epcot at 9:30 and walked on to Soarin twice. Magic Kingdom longest waits during the week were peter pan at 45 mins which is not bad for that ride. I would absolutely go at that time again. In fact hoping for a code to make that happen!

 

[Exp.626Stitch]

We go every year at this same time (Jan 25-Feb 4) and every year it seems to get a bit busier. The tour groups were definitely in abdundance and when they were heading to a ride it would change the posted 20 mins to 40.

The only factor that we felt really increased the crowds on the weekends was the Florida resident promo of 3 days for $99. The locals were out in force Fri- Mon. With the great weather and great price for admission, I really dont blame them. This is what really made the difference from all the other years we have gone.

That all being said, parks are manageable and the weather was fantasitic.