Just back....FYI..... Park hours, crowds, etc.....

[cindyfan]

Just returned from a long weekend......never long enough......but........
Boy were we surprised by the crowds!!! Definitely more crowded than when we went at the same time Oct '99 !!!!
Not sure what it was.......maybe a combination of things......great rates, people getting "back to nomal" and the Columbus day holiday.
But I think even WDW was taken off guard.
Even though they had planned to shorten the hours, they anounced in the morning on Saturday that they extended the hours. They added a second Spectro Magic showing at 10pm and even though they anounced to close at 10pm the rides were still running when we tried to leave just before the 10pm parade.
The lines for ALL the buses were LONG !!! Never seen them that bad before!!! The longest line I think was for Port Orleans! But the buses were coming about 5 to 10 minutes apart!! It was just there were SO MANY people there that day.
The only park we felt was light as far as crowds was Epcot, for the whole time we were there.......Thurs through Sunday.
But still a 30 minute wait for Test Track. and still needed to find a "spot" early for the TOD parade.
The CMs were great everywhere.
The crowds at All Star Movies........WOW!! BUSY! If this was light ........I can't imagine what it is like in July!!!
We really wished they would have had the E-night!!!!!! They needed it!

 

[AKASnowWhite]

I'm glad to hear that attendance is up even if it did make for longer lines for you.. !!! It is my biggest hope that Disney will schedule e-nights for Nov. and I've also been reading that there are rumors that Disney is planning to nix their EE days Hopefully that will change also!

 

[cindyfan]

I don't think it would be beneficial to nix the EE.......there are still alot of people that use it!
We took advantage of it for MK and MGM. Yet it was still crowded.
It worked well for us because we were able to ride R&Rcoaster, TOT each twice then GMR. Then hit the 1st Indy show and Millionare show, and Backlot tour. Ate lunch and saw B&B show.
But decided to leave before the parade because it looked like a storm was coming and the parade was cancelled anyway because the storm hit right at 4pm.
The EE allowed us to see everything without rushing. It made for a relaxing day.
If not for the storm, we would have stayed the whole day and been able to do it all at a relaxed pace. And then make it to Fantasmic.
We also did EE at MK, which worked out great too. We were out of there by 1pm to swim and headed to Epcot for the evening. We saw the 3pm parade another day.

They really need to keep EE and E-ticket nights!!

 

[KirstenB]

Cindy thanks for the update. I've been imagining the parks/hotels/restaurants as totally empty. I'm so glad they aren't---it's a hopeful sign that lots of people have confidence in travel and vacation. I'm still nervous, but I'm glad to hear that others have gotten past that, and are getting back to normal.

 

[Barbruka]

Boy, it sounds to me like everyone has definitely taken to heart what the President told us to do!!!