Least crowded, Thanksgiving week or New Years?

[bradpga]

As you may have seen, I have posted many questions trying to plan our next trip. I t will be an extended family trip with 8-10 people. We were at Disney for Thanksgiving in 06 and loved it although the crowds were high. How does New Years crowds compare. Looking at Dec.30- Jan. 4th. If the crowds are comparable, I would prefer the Tgiving week. I know both of these dates are busy but we are trying to arrange this trip around school children and work. Thanks

 

[dianeschlicht]

Since Jan. 1, 2008 is a Tuesday, it could be a crap shoot. If most schools are off through that whole week, the crowds will stay up during the whole week as well. Here, most of the schools would be going back on the 2nd, but I know that's not the case everywhere. I do think the crowds will thin out more after New Years. We will be doing Thanksgiving for the first time this year. I'm expecting the crowds to be bad from Thursday through the weekend.

 

[Deb & Bill]

This year the MK closed to all guests at least three times between Christmas and NYs. Some of the other theme parks closed each day as well. Your days will probably be worse than Thanksgiving.

 

[starbox]

I'm in Georgia and we have until the 7th of January off next year. I'd be willing to bet that more schools will have off till Jan 7th than will give an entire week for Thanksgiving. There also seemed to be alot of international visitors after the 1st this year.

 

[dis-happy]

We went both times this year. It's about 50/50. Thanksgiving week will be bad the latter half of the week, NY's week will be worst the first part of the week. Overall I'd say that Thanksgiving is slightly less crowded. But if you avoid a park on NYE (someone posted here about the great evening they spent at SSR on NYE---we went to Epcot which was absolutely packed) you might enjoy that Jan. week more. Because of the demand Disney got smart and added an extra park hour and extra Spectro at MK Thurs. night (Jan. 3rd)---it wasn't announced until that morning. Jan. is definitely becoming a busier time.

Alternate times if you can swing it in the schedule: week after Thanksgiving or 3rd week in Jan.

Also to note: by the middle of the first week of Jan. some of the Christmas decorations were starting to come down. One night the gingerbread displays in the resorts all disappeared. Also, if you want to do CP or MMVCP you'd want to go the earlier time. Plus, that non-stop Christmas music in Jan. starts to get to you after awhile.

Pro to going Dec: getting to see Holiday Wishes. Our timing caused us to miss it this year.

 

[dvc guy]

Your question does not have a real good answer. We were at WDW 12/27-1/1

We have been going over the Christmas holiday for the past 7 years and this had to be the worst of any year I can remember. We did AK on EMH and the line for Everest at 7:20 AM was already 20 minutes.
We did Epcot on NYE and almost every fast pass was gone by 2 PM. If you are OK in getting up early to do rides, you should be fine. I was not thrilled in getting up a 5:30 AM for get to the parks by 7AM, but that is the price you pay to have fun

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

We did both Thanksgiving and New Year's this past year and we have no doubt that New Year's was more crowded and for a longer period of time. We have done quite a few New Years and Thanksgivings (usually not in the same year though) and have generally found this to be true.

Both are great times of year to go but make sure you plan as much as possible in advance.

HBC

 

[Demosthenes]

I have done Thanksgiving at WDW a half a dozen times or so. The first part of the week, while still busy (think summer crowds) is bearable. It is awful from Thursday through Sunday in the parks (and frankly at DTD, but I actually like that hustle and bustle). I have done New Year's twice at WDW. Both times it was awful for crowds in the parks. We still had a good time, but we wouldn't want to do it too often. If we didn't own DVC, I'd never do it. The cost is high, and before I owned, I felt obliged to do every attraction every time I was at "the world"; knowing I'll be back with frequency has cured me of that, so I could have a better time over New Year's now.