Just got back from WDW yesterday--prepare for crowds!

[crushonmickey]

We had a great vacation, but it was MUCH more crowded than we were prepared for. Lots of lines and lots of people everywhere. I thought we were sneaking in a trip in between spring break crowds and summer crowds, but it just wasn't so. From now on, we are only going during value season.

Having said that, I am glad we had priority seating for our sit down meals. They were turning away walk-ins at all the table service restaurants we went to. We took advantage of the late EMH the first day and ended up sleeping in the next day. We never seemed to be able to catch up on our sleep for early entry, so we did all the late EMH.

Pop Century was good, not great. A big difference between the values and the moderates. Next time, we are going back to POR.

The best meal we had all week was 50s Primetime (fried chicken-yum!). Or maybe Boatwright's (prime rib--mmmm!)

The Dining plan rocks! WAY too much food, though. We didn't even use all the snack credits.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

 

[Princess Wannabe]

We were there last week, as well. The crowds were definitely heavier than I expected...it seemed the entire Northeastern part of the country was there! I have never seen so many "Yankees" and "Red Sox" shirts!

I agree about the PS's - I was SO glad we had one every night, because we saw people turned away, as well.

And you're right about the Dining Plan - TOO much food! We left some snacks unused, as well, as we were so stuffed from our sit-down meals and counter service meals....

By using some smart strategy, and FP, we were able to ride most rides with very minimal waits...all in all, a good trip. A little rain & cool weather the first part of the trip, but by week's end, it was in the mid-80's and very sunny.

 

[Sleuth]

Pop Century was good, not great. A big difference between the values and the moderates. Next time, we are going back to POR.

We are having to switch our ressie to POP this August from POR due to our budget. Give me the goods on why POP was just good. Any details?

 

[JudithM]

We were at WDW during the Northeast spring break the week of April 17. I think everyone from NY & MA went to WDW! It was more crowded than the times we usually go to WDW - May & December., but we had a fun-filled week.

 

[Storminator]

We are having to switch our ressie to POP this August from POR due to our budget. Give me the goods on why POP was just good. Any details?

The difference, IMO, is the atmosphere. POR is a quieter, prettier resort. POP is bright and active. We actually preferred both the transportation and food court at POP, however POP was not a relaxing place. If you spend little time at the resort, you won't be disappointed. I think if you are someone who spends more time at the pool and just hanging around, you'd be better off in a mod.

We usually stay at the mods and stayed at POP in January. I was not looking forward to it, but we were pleasantly surprised. We'll stay there again, particularly if Disney doesn't offer discounts.

 

[mamaprincess]

We were there from the 24th to the 29th of this mont and yes it was much more crowded than we thought it would be but we strategized and got on everything wed wanted to pretty much with minimal waits. The longest wait we had was 40 minutes. The baby didn't like that so we strategized big time after that. It was still awesome, but we will try to avoid the crowds if we can from now on. Weather wise I loved it except for the one day of rain. We tended to need our jackets at night. But all and all the weather was beautiful. The girls swam 3 times in 3 different pools.

 

[shafke]

Yes it was crowded but only MK had any real crowds. On Sunday 4/24, MGM only had line for RnR and ToT. Everything else was a walkon. The same for Epcot... long line for TT and Soarin' and everything else was minimal wait. WE ahd no troubles a AK with the longest wait of 20 min for Safari (this was in the afternoon, about 2pm). Also, as the week went on it appeared that the crowds started to thin out.

 

[Greg K.]

Last week, the public school kids in New York City were OFF -- and parts of Long Island were on vacation, too.

It was also the week of Passover, which may have had something to do with both the vacation time, and the unexpectedly heavy crowds!!

 

[AladdinsPrincess]

We were up there just for this past weekend and I thought the crowds were surprisingly light. We went to AK, MGM and Epcot. The parks looked crowded, but we never waited in line for anything and only used Fast Passes for the Rock n Roller Coaster and the Safari. I couldn't believe at Epcot on Saturday that there was hardly a line for Soarin!

I guess it's true what they say about the weekdays being more crowded than the weekends!

 

[dcibrando]

I still feel good about May 14-21st... it may be more crowded than usual... but I'll be fine

 

[Magalex]

It was our 4 yr DS first time to WDW..It was fantastic..we are going thru the blues now and it feels like it was a dream! We arrived 4/22 and had a PS at Chef Mickey's at 6. We got there before it got busy but it was not overwhelming. We really enjoyed it with our DS. I think it was a great way to kick off the week. We drove from PA and it gave us a good meal.

We stayed at POP too and enjoyed it very much(not in the room alot). The Contemporary is too blah in color for me(noticed the difference at Chef Mickey's). I loved the colors and landscape at POP. We did stay away from the food court during busy hours. We stayed at the 50's bldg. Did not have a problem walking around the resort.

On Sat we got to MK early for the opening ceremony and loved it. Busy at the parks but went straight to Fantasyland and got rides in without any long waits.
I Remember all the tips on the DIS and had no problem with crowds and rides. The crowds reminded me of just being at the local parks in the middle of summer here. Patience and more Patience and laughter helps alot

Too bad that Tuesday It was raining. We were at Epcot and didn't get to see the countrys that much. But it was OK my DH and I were there before and DS is only in preschool. The week was special and magical
I would tell anyone to stay onsite and get the parkhopper especially with small children. It helped alot dividing days and evenings. Next time we are trying a moderate but POP is alot of fun!


Magalex

 

[crushonmickey]

Sleuth - to answer your question about Pop vs. POR. It is just a completely different atmosphere at Pop. The theming at Pop is really cute. The lobby with the shadowboxes of stuff from the different decades is great, and the Everything Pop store had a lot of good stuff in it.

However, the place is LOUD. The food court/Everthing Pop store is very open with nothing to absorb sound. The food court is very hectic and crowded at breakfast time and from 11 pm to midnight. POR is just so much more relaxing. POR has the beautiful landscaped areas with quiet benches to sit out and relax (no benches at Pop because there really aren't any quiet areas to hang out in). Pop has more of a "motel" atmosphere. POR feels more like a welcoming resort with the water running through it and the nice bridges and beautiful flowers.

There was one incident at Pop where it looked like a child had an accident and didn't make it to the potty, in the outside corridor on the way to our room. I told housekeeping about it and they cleaned up the major part of it, but there was a trail of it that we had to walk around for the last 3 days of our trip (sorry - I know that's gross).

We are glad we tried a value resort, but from now on it is moderates for us.

Oh - the transportation was great. We had to stand a lot on the buses because of the crowds, but the buses were timely, I thought. Just know that the bus stops at the parks are the farthest out for the values.

 

[KevinM]

I think the MYW ad campaign is really working for WDW. I personally know of at least 5 families that are headed down in May, none of them has ever visited before. I just hope that November/December crowd levels don't increase too dramatically this year - we have been spoiled with low crowds in December 03 and 04!

 

[estnh]

We have been during the last week in April every year since 1996, and just returned from this year's trip. We have NEVER seen it anywhere near as crowded as it was this year--we went during Christmas week one year, and this was almost as bad! We did not enjoy the trip nearly as much as usual, and will probably change our schedule for next year, abandoning our April philosopy for a slower time of year.

I agree with the previous poster--I think that the Disney advertising campaign (particularly the "family of four for only $1500 bit) is working.

 

[BostonRob]

We have been during the last week in April every year since 1996, and just returned from this year's trip. We have NEVER seen it anywhere near as crowded as it was this year--we went during Christmas week one year, and this was almost as bad! We did not enjoy the trip nearly as much as usual, and will probably change our schedule for next year, abandoning our April philosopy for a slower time of year.

I agree with the previous poster--I think that the Disney advertising campaign (particularly the "family of four for only $1500 bit) is working.

Maybe its all about expectations. We were there last week and didn't think it was crowded at all. As an example, At 6:00PM on Thursday night, the standby wait for Mission Space was 5 minutes. I asked the CM about it and he said it was just dead in the park that day. Curiously though, the stnadby line for TestTrack was 55 minutes. So I'm not sure what to make of all that. but we never felt crowded, exept during Spectromagic Wednesday night.

 

[cruiseonmagic]

I have worked a lot of mornings during the past few weeks, and once again the guests who got to the mk early had no lines. I think it's going to be like this for quite a while. I didn't even see full ferryboats coming over until after 1015-1030am--the possible exception was Monday (that's always the busiest).

 

[2x_dis_dad]

We got home yesterday also. We also stayed at POP. I was surprised at how busy it was. There was also a ton of school kids there. I think every middle school in florida had a field trip there. POP didn't impress me much this trip, The pools were always out of life jackets, there were only 4 kids wearing them in bowling pin pool. I did see a guy and his kid taking one back to there room. I stopped him and asked for the jacket, he reluctantly gave it up. We were in building 3 in the 50's area. It was a long hike to a parking lot. It was so far that I went ahead and let luggage services bring my stuff to me. The parks were crowded. Soarin is a really great ride. The Land is back open. We had a pretty good trip.

 

[crazyj4488]

I'm not sure where the people that said it was NOT crowded were at these past couple of weeks. It was packed IMHO and I expect this trend to continue thru the Summer. I guess your opinion on crowds depends on when you usually go and how many times you've had the Disney experience. I haven't seen crowds like that since the summers in the 80's. I have always gone in the off season though.

Now a lot of the rides had wait times that were do-able. I don't rate the parks crowds according to simply wait times at attractions. Everything, even the simple things, were just crowded...simple walks turned into stroller dodges and people weaving. Lines for most street vendors were all, at least, a 10 to 15 minute wait. The marketplace last Friday had all parking lots marked full and the market itself was INSANE...the Disney Store was about to explode with people everywhere.

I never waited longer than 15 mins for anything, walked onto mostly everythng, and I rode just about everything over my 7 day trip. I did all the most populars over 2 times including Soarin...all with a 5 min to no wait. It all comes down to tour planning and timing...thank god for TGM and the UG. Arriving early was key during our trip. We woke up at 6:45 AM each morning, we at the gates skipped all EMH events, took a 3 hour nap / rest break each day during peak hours, and hit the hay as soon as we got back each evening.

Overall, it was an AMAZING trip and I'm suffering withdrawals. I just won't be doing spring trips anymore. I will be looking to take Fall and Winter trips from now on.

 

[pdarrah]

We were at WDW from April 20-26 (part of the week when New England was on spring break and part of the week when it was NY). The crowds were certainly heavier than when we have been there totally off season (Oct, early Nov, early Dec) but seemed about normal for our spring time trips. We usually go sometime between mid-April and mid-June and it always varies since our schedule changes a lot. Springtime trips are just more crowded than fall and we expect that.

The crowds really didn't effect us much - we make a point of getting up early and being at a park when it opens (EMH or regular opening). We are willing to do extra walking in order to ride our "must do" list first thing in the morning. We carefully plan our Fastpass use. We try and apply some crowd control logic on which parks we visit which days. If we do a morning EMH, we take a break in the hotest most crowded part of the day and then hop to a different park for the evening. If we are not going to a morning EMH, we often go to the park that had a late EMH the night before.

It was a wonderful trip, we did nearly everything we wanted to do (within the time frame - if we had more days, we could have filled them!) and we waited in very few lines. I think the longest we waited was about 25 minutes at BTM and about the same at TestTrack in the FastPass lane after it had been shut down for a short time and they were getting it started back up. Most of the time we waited 15 minutes or less for most rides. A couple of times we ate counter service lunch during noon hour and then we waited about 15 or 20 minutes for food - When we ate a little early or late, this wasn't a problem. (Since we live near Chicago, we would wait in the same types of lunch lines at home if we ate during the noon hour!)

Anyway - all I really wanted to say is that the crowds at this time of year are manageable -it takes some planning and organization and being willing to do some extra walking helps!

pdarrah

 

[BostonRob]

I'm not sure where the people that said it was NOT crowded were at these past couple of weeks. It was packed IMHO and I expect this trend to continue thru the Summer. I guess your opinion on crowds depends on when you usually go and how many times you've had the Disney experience. I haven't seen crowds like that since the summers in the 80's. I have always gone in the off season though.

Truth be told, most of my Disney experience is from July's and Augusts in the late '80s, early '90s, so I guess I'm used to crowds. Also, since we have a young daughter, we were able to be at the parks at opening, which allowed us to be out of the Parks by 1:00ish. We'd go back for a few hours after dinner. I guess this is the recipe for success, but I understand how some people are unwilling to do it. My last two trips with my wife (before my daughter), we spent out evenings at Pleasure Island and closing Jellyrolls. That sort of behavior is not conducive to being at the parks when they open. Solution? Have a kid! They'll get you up early.