January 2017

[rdominy]

Because of New Year's being on the weekend next year, I am seeing conflicting predictions on crowd levels for the following week. I'm not sure if my family would rather go that first week of January through the 7th or wait until the summer.
Some sites are predicting 9/10 for crowd levels that week and some are predicting 4/10...that's a big difference. Does anyone have any perspective on those dates?

We are trying to choose between going the 12/26-1/7 ( I know the week between christmas and new year's will be crazy busy) or 5/27-6/7.

 

[famy27]

I just asked the same question a week or so ago, and it seems like it's still a question mark. Most replies indicated that crowds drop off after the 2nd, but I'm not sure if that's likely because of how the holidays fall this year. We dealt with 9/10 crowd levels over Thanksgiving this year, so I know I can do it, but boy would a 4 be fantastic!

 

[larryz]

The 2d is the official holiday for Fed employees/banks. I'm guessing schools won't start back up until the 3d. Some guests will just stay thru the 7th as the Marathon is the weekend of the 8/9th.

The Dr M.L. King holiday is the 16th. To me, that spells crowds, too.

The week between (9 - 13 Jan) would normally be a good week.

 

[anniemae]

I think the crowds drop off after the first. Everyone goes back home because school starts up for most. I would not go by the crowd calendars, they are just guesses, and they have different strategies and are targeting different things. so a 9 on one and a 4 on another could mean the same thing.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

I have been there that week 2 of the last 3 years. 3 years ago the crowds were moderate, trending lower every day after the holidays. This year the crowds were higher. I would call the crowds "high" through the entire first week after the holiday. They didn't really begin to thin out until the Monday after the Marathon. Not 9/10 high, but at least 6-8 high.

I have a feeling that crowds were higher that week this year in response to two special circumstances, though - last minute trips to see Osbourne Lights before they were gone forever, and the Soarin' refurb pushing more people to MK.

We will be there that week in 2017 and hope to see crowds more "normalized", but will have fun no matter how it plays out.

 

[snowman]

We are going Jan 8-21st for our son's birthday. Didn't realize it was marathon weekend but that's all right, we don't go to Parks on our arrival day anyway. I'll keep MLK in mind when strategizing for that part of our trip. TY OP!

 

[rteetz]

Marathon weekend runs January 4th-8th 2017. Marathon weekend usually isn't terrible if you plan well. I've gone the last two years.

 

[rdominy]

Would you go the busy week of Christmas to New Years plus the week after. Or would you wait and go Memorial Day weekend and the first week of June?

 

[HopperFan]

Live in Atlanta in one of the largest schools systems - we are out until January 9th. I think that first week, especially combined with the marathon weekend will likely be very busy compared to other years due to how the dates land.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

Our trip before last was 12/30-1/4ish and our last trip we were there 1/4-1/9 (this year).

On our 12/30-1/4 trip, NYE was on Saturday. There was a mass exodus on Sunday 1/1 and walked on everything after that.

This year, Tuesday 1/5 was weirdly crazy busy at MK but EPCOT, DHS and DAK were awesome and not crowded at all on the other days. MK was also not very crowded on Thursday 1/7. Still unsure what caused MK to be so so busy on 1/5 this year when 1/7 was totally fine.

We have traveled in this time frame after New Years many times and have had different results but never unbearable crowds.

This year, we left on the Saturday of marathon weekend but we have not found the marathon crowds to be much of an impact on lines in the week after NY but before the marathon.