lowest crowds at Christmas?

[adznyfan]

hi

just got back from disneyland this past weekend and between the rides breaking and crowds - not the best visit

does anyone have any suggestions on when to visit for Christmas - is nov better or after Christmas for fewer people?

thanks for any help

 

[figment_jii]

It's hard to say if any weekend is going to be less or more crowded; the crowd levels fluctuate from year-to-year. I think that once the Holiday season has started there really isn't a uncrowded weekend. Pretty much every weekend either has an event or holiday associated with it.

This year's schedule:
11/15-16: Avengers Half Marathon
11/22-23: Weekend before Thanksgiving
11/29-30: Thanksgiving weekend
12/6-7: Candlelight Processional
12/13-14: Last weekend for lower tier APs
12/20-21: Weekend before Christmas
12/27-28: Weekend after Christmas

 

[adznyfan]

thanks for the info- just hope next year the rides don't break and crowds are less - hope i'm not asking the impossible

 

[figment_jii]

I don't know when you were there, but there was a thread a few days ago that talked about some of the ride closures that one poster dealt with. The general response was that it was probably a combination of actual issues with a rides, guest assistance needs, and safety requirements that result in ride closures and stoppages. So there is really no way to know if you'll have better or worse luck on your next trip.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3357938

If you can go on weekdays (Mon to Thu) you're much more likely to encounter lower crowds than on weekends (Fri to Sun).

 

[julesann]

hi

just got back from disneyland this past weekend and between the rides breaking and crowds - not the best visit

does anyone have any suggestions on when to visit for Christmas - is nov better or after Christmas for fewer people?

thanks for any help

I'm sorry to hear it wasn't the best visit--that is so disappointing. I was there this weekend also (with a big family visit) and I hear that the crowds were particularly large due to CP and a convention. However, we really minimized the impact of the crowds by staying in DCA on Saturday; using the monorail to exit/enter the park on Sunday when it was CP time; being at rope drop each day and using FPs (if a ride is down during your FP window you can return at any time later in the day). We were able to ride a lot of rides and had a great time!! I got all these suggestions on Disboards and found that they really helped navigate the parks during the more crowded holiday time.

 

[SweetAlex]

We just got back from this weekend too (well, Thurs-Mon) and other than Saturday, we thought the crowds were very manageable. Mornings were by far, the BEST time to go. We walked on many rides in the morning, often two or three times in a row. They let us ride BTMRR 3x before a line started forming on Sunday.

Even more shocking... we rode RSR THREE times in about 40 minutes Sunday night. I think it was a fluke because the board on Buena Vista said 60 minutes, we walked down there and their board said 15 and we walked right on! We finished, and ran right back, waiting 5 minutes, did it again after that, only waiting 10. By then, the Pixar parade crowd had broken up and filled it up again but it was an incredible experience. Even the CMs there said they have never seen it that quiet at that time of day. Only 2 hours before we had ridden it after waiting 80 minutes.

We made really good use of FP, which I think really helps. We pretty much always had one on hand. I don't think we ever waited standby for Space and road it at least 5x. Same with SOC.

Saturday was crazy though. Lineups for the big rides were 2 hours at the peak time (RSR and Space, etc). If that was one of your only days there, then I would have been a little frustrated too.

Hope next time is less crazy for you but honestly, it's pretty much always busy so you may need to modify what "quiet" means... it's like marking a term paper on a grade .

ETA: We did see a few ride closures but we didn't find it too bad. I think we just expect it to happen so if it does, we moved on to the next and came back later. I remember SOC breaking a few times, and I heard others talking about RSR breaking down one day but I don't remember seeing any others. I think this is also just a fluke (wrong place at the wrong time). We were however, thrilled to see they opened Goofy's Sky School unexpectedly our last day there. Kids were SO excited to get this one in.

 

[starjazz]

Seems like this is how it always goes. Crowd levels are partly perception and partly real experience and probably have a lot to do with where you are and when.

I figure that if what I'm experiencing is big crowds and rides breaking, I'm gonna move to another land or even hop parks to change the venue/scenery, or take a break and come back in a few hours, or something to mix it up.

 

[cherice95403]

We just got back from DL (Sun-Tues in parks). This was our fourth year in a row going during the Christmas holidays and each year it seems to get busier and busier. I LOVE this time of year at DL, but I am considering going another time next year. We are only able to travel to DL for one trip per year and usually stay 3-4 days. I have little kids (6,8) who don't handle lines beyond 20 minutes well so I try to avoid school holiday times, but that doesn't seem to be working!

I talked to a couple of cast members when I was there and asked the "best" time to go during the holidays. They said that in general, Tuesday-Thursday has the lowest crowds, but it's unpredictable. I did notice that Tuesday seemed the slowest so maybe there is something to that. We are always there at park opening and find it reasonably light until around 1:30ish. We try to do as many rides as possible in the morning and go to the shows when it gets too crazy.

What really struck me this year was how early the streets booked up for the parade in DL. You used to be able to go in 30-45 minutes and find a decent place to sit. No more! The streets will filling up 90 minutes before the parade.

I need to put together my plan for next year.

Cherice

 

[tvguy]

We are just back too, there December 4 through 7, Thursday through Sunday.

I'm not sure there really is an off season anymore at any Disney Park. As evidenced by posts here on the DIS boards, a big chunk of the current generation of Disney fanatics with school aged kids don't give a second thought to taking their kids out of school for a Disney vacation.
My trip was a perfect example, most schools took the week before off for Thanksgiving, so most school aged kids who were at the park HAD to be skipping school Thursday and Friday.

 

[disneycat321]

I agree - there isn't really an off season anymore. We had passes for 5 years, and really it's just crowded much of the time. You get used to it, though.

Least crowded time for Christmas stuff is probably between Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving week, in our experience. Followed by the first week of December, and maybe right now (weekdays). It never seemed that bad to us during this time...but then, our perception of crowded is probably different than many people's. We spent our time with APs going 98% of the time on weekends and got used to at least moderate crowds most of the time.

Weekends (and Friday nights) are always, always worse. Plenty of locals have premium passes.

 

[999DoomBuggies]

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[TheDoleWhipper]

I am sorry you did not enjoy your visit very much! It is true that week-ends are simply always more crowded than weekdays because of all those AP holders. (during the week, they are at work, the traffic is crazy, and cannot easily make it to DLR unless they live REALLY close, like in Anaheim or something). Ride breakdowns are really annoying, and it does not help not knowing when (or if) they will eventually be back up. It is kind of a luck thing... Just go to Disneyland expecting that a couple (or more) rides will be down at any point.

 

[Sherry E]

The holiday season is hugely popular, and it will attract many people from near and far. There are plenty of people who frequent my Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread who are not AP holders and/or not locals, and they go to DLR for the holidays too. Lots of people go. That's why school breaks in other states matter for us in terms of crowds at DLR as well -- because out-of-state/non-local people go to DLR, sometimes in large numbers.

Also, the 2 lowest-tiered AP holders (the SoCal APs) are generally blocked on weekends in December. There are only a couple of Sundays in December available to one of the levels of SoCal Annual Passes. The Deluxe AP Holders have access until mid-December or so, and the Premium AP folks can go anytime. There are a lot of people with Premium passes, but there are a lot of people with regular SoCal passes as well - because the Premium price is too prohibitive.

So, the crowds were/are not solely due to AP holders.

The OP was at DLR this past weekend -- which was the Candlelight Processional/Ceremony weekend, and there are always crowds for that. On Saturday, 12/6, there was a previously unknown (prior to 2014) event called RaverDay going on, which probably involved some participants staying for the full weekend. There was a pharmacist Midyear Meeting in town that involved a lot of the attendees staying onsite at the DLR hotels -- which would inevitably mean that some of them went into the parks before their Midyear Meeting events began offsite.





adznyfan -- There are no low crowds during the holiday season anymore, unless it rains. You can go in early November -- immediately after Halloween Time ends and before the holiday season officially begins -- and there will be fewer people in the parks, but the hours will be shorter and some of the holiday stuff will not be up and running yet. Once the holiday season officially starts, the crowds start piling in and, as detailed in the dates that figment_jii listed above, there will always be something going on.

Your best bet is to go on weekdays. I've had good luck with Mondays-Wednesdays in the first or second week of December in terms of slightly lower crowds (sometimes the Mondays have been delightful!), but there were still a lot of people in the parks because, again, the holiday season is extremely popular! Also, when word gets out about the 'less crowded' times to go -- as it already has -- then lots of people move their trips to those dates because they want to avoid crowds. However, when a lot of people move their dates to avoid crowds, what ends up happening is that the formerly super-crowded times become less crowded, and the formerly less crowded times become more crowded! It's the "crowds causing crowds while trying to avoid crowds" effect that I often mention on this board.

Weekends during the holidays will always be busy -- and the crowds between Christmas and New Year's are notorious for being huge.

Even the time frame after New Year's Day and into the first week of January has become a much more crowded time than it used to be, according to most reports.

 

[ashleysev]

We went the day after Christmas (actually the 2nd day OF Christmas!) and had a wonderful time.

 

[Fivers]

I'm here right now as well, and we've been surprised at how busy it's been this week. We haven't been during December for a long time, and it has definitely gotten significantly busier pre-Christmas than it used to be. I agree with the PPs, the mornings are pretty manageable, but by early afternoon it's crazy to the point of being difficult to walk around in some areas of the parks. I'm at the point of looking forward to the rain tomorrow, lol!

 

[minniecarousel]

We're here now too & it's much busier than I thought it would. We didn't pay attention to when the parade was yesterday and entered Disneyland just as it was ending. I had never seen Main St so packed! We shall see what tomorrow brings. The big storm rolls in tonight and it's supposed to rain pretty much all day. (fireworks tonight were cancelled due to high winds aloft!)