Just returned....HUGE crowds

[harvey]

We were in Disney for our 17th trip from Feb 9-15th. This is normally a low-crowd time (Presidents week is the exception), and we were completely taken off guard by the crowds. Every park was crazy busy, and my friend who is a manager in the MK said they're all scratching their heads over the enormous crowds. She said there has been no down time in Disney since last October, and Christmas was completely 'nutty'.

We waited 20 minutes for the People Mover. There was a 20-40 minute wait for Spaceship Earth all day long. Moving around in Fantasyland was nearly impossible....you just get swept up in the throng, then when you need to stop, you are stepped on (or in my case, cursed at). Fast passes in all parks were usually given out completely. My friend also makes the announcements over the main speaker in MK as well, and I heard her all three days we were in MK announce that park hours were being extended.

We have always gone in January or February because of low attendance, so the crowds were such a surprise to us. We still had fun, but that's because we know what we want to do, and skip what doesn't thrill us. If it was our first time, I doubt we'd go back for quite a while. I witnessed several parents in epcot who had hoped to get pictures of their kids with characters and such, but lines were crazy long. And the new fast pass enforcement and rules about holding 2 at a time make it difficult to do everything.

And BTW, the line for the new Enchanted Tales with Belle is killer. Half of it has no cover from the sun, and the line only moves every 15 minutes as they let a new group in. We waited an hour for that one. On the plus side, the new Ariel ride has a pretty constant moving and interesting queue. Wait time was listed at 50 minutes, we were in within 30. Couldn't get near the Be Our Guest restaurant.

So....be prepared with your touring plans. Even this fairly seasoned Disney tourist was overwhelmed. I think Disney would do well to build itself a new park instead of more resorts/dvc.

 

[JDUCKY]

Several reasons:

Fantasyland Expansion
Warmer weather
More South Americans (and not just huge Brazilian tour groups...many, many families or smaller groups from the southern hemisphere)

 

[dalayney]

Hope it slows down a little next week. Oy!

 

[marybaby08]

People are vacationing again, the economy is getting better (at least in northeast Florida), house market is getting better also.

 

[DSLRuser]

Several reasons:

Fantasyland Expansion
Warmer weather
More South Americans (and not just huge Brazilian tour groups...many, many families or smaller groups from the southern hemisphere)

You forgot reason #1

Disney has a very talented, very well funded Marketing department and their sole job is to keep the hotel rooms, restaurants, and park full.

I laugh at all the "crowd level ratings". Just plan on it being an 11, and be happy when it is less.

 

[Planogirl]

I'm so glad that we enjoyed a nice long visit last year. I keep hearing that it's continually packed and personally I would hate that.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

We were there the 10th-16th and besides Monday afternoon, we didn't find it bad at all. By that evening we didn't wait for anything. We didn't do any parks with extra magic hours since we were staying offsite, not sure if that helped.

Just saw the OP ticker, we were in Emerald Island also!

 

[JDUCKY]

You forgot reason #1

Disney has a very talented, very well funded Marketing department and their sole job is to keep the hotel rooms, restaurants, and park full.

I laugh at all the "crowd level ratings". Just plan on it being an 11, and be happy when it is less.

Marketing isn't what's doing it. Unless they're REALLY marketing in South America. They expanded free dining like mad and gave big hotel discounts back in '09 and '10 to keep their own occupancy rates up (but non-Disney hotels weren't so lucky then). I can remember a weekend in May 2009 where Soarin' barely got to 30min. Barely any crowds at all. I remember the parks being dead in most of Jan/Feb and late April/early May even in the last two years.

Not so now. The FLE is a huge part of that, I'm sure. That's not marketing, per se.

 

[rsleleux]

We were there the 10th-16th and besides Monday afternoon, we didn't find it bad at all. By that evening we didn't wait for anything. We didn't do any parks with extra magic hours since we were staying offsite, not sure if that helped.

Just saw the OP ticker, we were in Emerald Island also!

We were there same week and we were able to do everything we needed and we didn't wait long for rides, but we planned accordingly. The only wait we had was for ETWB and that was an hour, right at park opening. On our first MK day, which was a Monday a projected heavy crowd day we went to adventure land and frontier land and walked onto all the rides with no wait while everyone flocked to the new fantasyland. The 2nd MK day was supposed to be less crowded so we hit the new fantasyland that day and other than ETWB we didn't wait at all.
I did see a huge crowd for spaceship earth which I would never wait for, we walked right on spaceship earth at night. We were prepared and nervous about big crowds but we were pleasantly surprised at how it didn't affect us thanks to all the tips from the Dis!

 

[anniemae]

that week was also school vacation for many states.

 

[Mac4life30]

I sure hope these crowds die down by April 11

 

[GraceMonica]

I think anyone planning to vacation in WDW should plan for it to be super crowded. I was there over Christmas week and my expectations were to be squished by the hoards of people...when I was able to walk freely and do everything I wanted I was pleasantly surprised. Just expect the worse crowds so when you go in and its not wall to wall people you'll be relieved. That's what I do.

As if Christmas week was a crazy enough time to go, I've opted to go back during 'spring break' times (only because that's when my birthday is)

But seriously. If you're planning on going to Disney, expect crowds no matter what time of year it is. I personally HATE crowds, yet I go back to Disney year after year...Disney is the only place I tolerate the crowds because it is my happy place. I don't let the crowds put a damper on my big vacation.

 

[Sarya]

I hope they die down by the 26th...but I am prepared. I honestly just can't wait to get there

 

[The V Gang]

We were in Disney for our 17th trip from Feb 9-15th. This is normally a low-crowd time (Presidents week is the exception), and we were completely taken off guard by the crowds. Every park was crazy busy, and my friend who is a manager in the MK said they're all scratching their heads over the enormous crowds. She said there has been no down time in Disney since last October, and Christmas was completely 'nutty'.

We waited 20 minutes for the People Mover. There was a 20-40 minute wait for Spaceship Earth all day long. Moving around in Fantasyland was nearly impossible....you just get swept up in the throng, then when you need to stop, you are stepped on (or in my case, cursed at). Fast passes in all parks were usually given out completely. My friend also makes the announcements over the main speaker in MK as well, and I heard her all three days we were in MK announce that park hours were being extended.

We have always gone in January or February because of low attendance, so the crowds were such a surprise to us. We still had fun, but that's because we know what we want to do, and skip what doesn't thrill us. If it was our first time, I doubt we'd go back for quite a while. I witnessed several parents in epcot who had hoped to get pictures of their kids with characters and such, but lines were crazy long. And the new fast pass enforcement and rules about holding 2 at a time make it difficult to do everything.

And BTW, the line for the new Enchanted Tales with Belle is killer. Half of it has no cover from the sun, and the line only moves every 15 minutes as they let a new group in. We waited an hour for that one. On the plus side, the new Ariel ride has a pretty constant moving and interesting queue. Wait time was listed at 50 minutes, we were in within 30. Couldn't get near the Be Our Guest restaurant.

So....be prepared with your touring plans. Even this fairly seasoned Disney tourist was overwhelmed. I think Disney would do well to build itself a new park instead of more resorts/dvc.

I didn't know there is a new rule about holding two fast passes at a time. Can you please tell me about it.

 

[Masonmj84]

Funny.

We went Dec. 8-16 of last year, did all the big ticket attractions (except ETWB), and didn't wait more than 10 mintues for anything (it helped that we always arrived before RD with a touring plan, had 7 days to visit 4 parks, and generally only stayed in the parks until around 1-2 pm).

We also went the week before President's Day last year (which was during a free dining period) and had about the same experience.

 

[harvey]

I'm sure all the things mentioned created the 'perfect storm' for the increased crowd levels. For me personally, the most difficult part was simply walking from point A to point B. In the past 16 trips we've taken there, I don't remember seeing the walkways so completely filled. Someone mentioned not having to wait much for stuff in other areas of MK....this is true, although the waits were still longer than what we were used to. Again, I'm glad we're familiar enough with the parks and the rides/shows we like....had this been our first trip, I would have felt we'd wasted a ton of money waiting in lines for everything from the rides to the bathroom (yeah, there were lines there too).

I suppose because my past experience has always been to expect low crowds, this was difficult for our family. We weren't used to it. I forgot to mention earlier that the cheerleaders were there the first half of the week, which was beyond annoying as they walk as 'one' in a crowd and make it really difficult to get around them. We saw a few groups from S. America, but very few other internationals other than UK folks....which was also strange as we normally encounter a bit more international diversity at Disney.

Everyone's different, just wanted to share our experience. Knowledge is power, and if you're planning a trip in the winter months expecting low crowds, you'll need to make some adjustments. We don't like crowds, so unless Disney recovers their 'down' time again, we will be heading to the beach for our future winter vacations.

 

[Texas Barbie]

We were there the 2 thru 9 of this month. We had plenty of fun, but the crowd levels were much higher than predicted. I think the tour guides may have to do some revising.

 

[Bummbok]

Pretty much the enitire of state of Louisiana was off for Mardi Gras and subsequently at WDW. (Tuesday 2/12 was Fat Tuesday)

 

[bluezy]

I didn't know there is a new rule about holding two fast passes at a time. Can you please tell me about it.

Unless something changed in the last few days, you can have more than one fastpass at a time. The current system does not limit how many FP's you're holding at one time. You're only limited by the time constraints.

When you pull a FP, it will clearly state at the bottom of the ticket what time you can pull your next FP. That time will be either the start of your return time window for the FP you are holding *or* 2 hours from the time you pulled the FP -- whichever comes first. For example: You might pull a FP for Space Mountain at 9:05 a.m. For the sake of this example, we'll say it gives you a return time of 12:15-1:15 p.m. The time that you can get another FP will be 11:05 a.m. (and will be printed at the bottom of the ticket). So, at 11:05 you can be standing at Peter Pan and pull another FP which might have a return time of 5:00-6:00 p.m. and you will be eligible for another FP 2 hours after you've pulled the FP for Peter Pan (in this example it would be approximately 1:05). Depending on your return times, you can be holding a few FP's at once.
.

 

[harvey]

Pretty much the enitire of state of Louisiana was off for Mardi Gras and subsequently at WDW. (Tuesday 2/12 was Fat Tuesday)

AH! I wondered about all the green, gold and purple! We were at MK on that Tuesday (which was probably our worst crowd day other than Monday at AK) and couldn't figure out why everyone had either LSU gear on or were wearing beads.