Labor Day weekend

[scoker]

It has been 14 months since our WDW trip and I am getting the Disney itch. This will be trip number 4 to DLR for us. I've always used touring plans to help choose dates. This time we have a little less flexibility with travel dates. I looked at the "historical" crowd levels and they seem pretty low but this years predictions are very high. I was thinking of an early morning arrival on Saturday and returning home late on Wednesday.

Who has experience with this weekend? I know it is half marathon weekend this year but I believe it has been in the past as well.

 

[chrisaman]

Yes it is always half marathon weekend on Labor Day. The parks are really busy Friday Saturday Sunday and Monday. However, the mornings are dead. The parks don't pick up till about 11 on the marathon weekends. People do t rush to the parks after the run. So if you use the mornings well you shouldn't have any problems. Tuesday and Wednesday are great times to be in the parks. Also keep in mind haunted mansion will not be open that weekend.

 

[SMD]

The race weekends are always crowded, but by mid-morning Tuesday those crowds should be gone. There is a race Saturday morning, so you may want to leave a little extra time for parking if that's the plan. Also, if you're planning to stay on site they do reserve a lot of those rooms for race packages.

 

[figment_jii]

In terms of Touring Plans, it's worth noting that they aren't always the most accurate when it comes to Disneyland and they recently revised their prediction system (mostly because they've been way of since the start of the 60th Anniversary Celebration). I think people are expecting high crowds on Labor Day weekend this year because it is the Half Marathon weekend, plus DLR has announced that the 60th Anniversary Celebration will official end on September 5 (Labor Day Monday). I agree that race day crowds aren't too bad in the morning (although, getting into the parking structure was awful when I was there during the Avenger's Marathon weekend), but the crowds will steadily pick up during the day.

 

[SMD]

And race weekend crowds can behave differently than regular holiday weekend crowds. Actually, you have both types because many people will be there because it's a holiday weekend too. But with racers you tend to see more people focused on celebrating their accomplishments with ADRs and looking for photo ops with their medals than you might on another non-race weekend.

 

[figment_jii]

This would also probably explain why Touring Plans had moderate crowd "levels" predicated for Marathon weekends, but reports back indicated the parks felt very busy to folks that were there. From what I understand, Touring Plans only uses attraction wait times when predicting crowds, so if there are a sizable number of guests not going on rides, but still in the parks, the Touring Plans predictions won't take that into account. I thought it was fun to see all the guests proudly wearing their medals in the parks during the Avenger's Marathon weekend, so I would guess it's the same during other marathon weekends.

 

[scoker]

Maybe I'm better off with a shorter trip on a non-event weekend. Or talking myself out of it completely. I think we are going to London and Aberdeen sometime over the summer so we won't be hurting for a vacation. Maybe a day trip to Disneyland Paris. I've done the Eurostar train between London and Paris before and would love my daughter to have that experience.

 

[SMD]

Doesn't Touring Plans also depend on users to report the wait times? If no one is updating wait times, they're not predicting on accurate info either.

 

[wickedstepmom]

We've gone the last 2 years Labor Day weekend. The first year the crowds were low, last year the seemed much higher. The Sunday of Labor Day mk was predicted to be a 4; it was really a 7.

 

[wickedstepmom]

Sorry wrong forum!