January 19-23 vs week before Thanksgiving

AndreaA

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 20, 2012
Messages
1,135
I have had the week in January booked for ages. Great ADRs lined up, good FPs, staying in deluxe garden wing room at the contemporary.

And yet now I am feeling very meh about the whole thing. It seems like crowds and lines are way up no matter what time of year you go, and tales of un magical experiences seem to be more and more common.

We were also planning on going the week before Thanksgiving, plus a few days the prior week, staying at Wilderness Lodge villas.

Now I'm thinking of skipping January and just going in November. I'm hoping some kinks are worked out of the new FP system, and CMs are able to get back to their cheerful selves. Anyone have reasons for me to reconsider? Are the crowds much better in January? The numbers on crowd calendars appear to be roughly the same. Is the weather in January warm enough to swim?

Blah. Wish I felt more "into" this trip!
 
If you're not excited about the trip then don't take it.

Not sure about your hypothesis that by November the "kinks" will be worked out of the "new" FP system. FP has been around for more than a year, well beyond the testing phase.

It is too cold for many people to swim in January, but some people don't mind swimming in those temperatures.
 
I went the last week of January this year AND the week before Thanksgiving. Both got cold and rainy. January had lower crowds. November crowds weren't bad, just not as low as January, especially mid-week.
 
Our favorite time to go is January. We find the crowds fairly low. One trip we were wearing short sleeves the whole time, the other trip we wore long sleeves and sweatshirts. We did swim on one January trip however, we aren't big swimmers anyway so it doesn't bother us that sometimes its just too cold.
We never wait long for anything, though i must admit we aren't roller coaster people.
 

Ive even both of those weeks, in fact, two November trips the week before Thanksgiving. I prefer November because it was quite a bit warmer and the parks were decorated for Christmas. Crowd wise it was about the same.
 














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