Touringplans.com. Subscribe to that and you'll have a much better idea of the crowd levels for each park on each day and the overall crowd level. If free dining increased crowds, it wouldn't be happening during the lowest crowded time of the year. That's why there is free dining, because it's not crowded. The program fills up the onsite hotels, not the parks. The goal is to get people to stay onsite rather than offsite.
Think it through some more. "the goal is to get people to say onsite rather than offsite." Well, yeah, exactly. But when you say "stay" you mean where your hotel room is. When disney says "stay" they mean "don't leave disney property." What you are saying is something like "free dining doesn't cause more people to travel to central florida during "off-season," it takes people who would already go and stay off-site and moves them off-site. There are a couple of problems with that, to me. First, I just don't agree that it doesn't encourage people to travel who wouldn't have already. Some people see it is a good deal and it encourages them. Second, the whole point of moving people on property is to "trap them." First, the have to buy park tickets as part of the package. Second, they have meals at wdw so they are less likely to go spend a day at universal, sea world, wet and wild, etc. Throw in magic express and the circle is complete and the trap is set. Third, some of the restaurants are in the parks. So it seems to me, even if it is only moving more people on property who would have stayed off-property anyway (which I don't think is accurate), it would still increase crowds in parks. Yes, the point is to increase travel during the off-season, and that is what it has done. Same thing as having the food and wine festival, and halloween decorations. Etc. They have had an impact. I can remember October 10-12 years ago having much, much lower crowds. So Disney did the smart thing and came up with ways to encourage people to travel during the off-season. And to keep those people on property. The "free dining" is really a great way to keep people at disney the whole trip. Also, you have to remember that so many schools are saving money by having fewer class days and having breaks in October, so there are more kids out of school than there used to be. The crowd right now is much more like a "summer crowd" in terms of age demographics than it is the "mostly preschool" crowds that used to be more typical in months like Sept. and May. A wider spread of ages.
Crowds always peak on the weekends and that is more pronounced in "off-season" and it is more pronounced on long holiday weekends, even if most people aren't off that holiday some are. The crowd now is sort of interesting. Yesterday at Magic Kingdom, if I had to rate it from 1-10, with 10 being the most crowded I've ever seen and 1 the least, I would only rate it a 6 or 7, not that crowded generally. but the line waits I would rate as an 8 or 9. In some ways, WDW management is treating this time (understandably) the way they treat off-season (refurbish rides, etc.), but the crowd levels are higher than in the past (due to multiple factors) which made for pretty big lines yesterday (Yes a holiday weekend day). So having things like small world closed (that holds a lot of people) makes bigger lines other places. Throw in a thunder mt. down time in the morning and a space mt. down time in the afternoon and the lines get bigger. That exacerbated on the weekend, it will go down during the week.
But even Friday at the food and wine festival was higher than weekdays last year, just subjective experience. Again, though, long weekend.
The fast food was another sort of goof. Remember there are all these free dining credits, and a large general weekend crowd. But pirate and parrot is closed for refurb, and tomorowland terrace isn't open either (usually these are open at high crowd times, which yesterday was). So habor house, pecos bills, cosmic rays, Pinocchio's were slammed. So they had to go to the holiday plan of keep-your-parties-together, you can't enter the seating area of pecos bills and columbia harbor house until you are all together and have your food. They try not to let people without food in to the dining area. So guests have to take their kids in line. Personally, I really don't like that, for a variety of reasons. They try to get it controlled by putting signs in the middle of the hall, positioning cm's on the left side to let people back "out" and lining people up to go through the right only to enter. Then they ask how many you've got, and will try to help you find a table.
At extreme crowd times, it helps in a way because it cuts down on "table holders" and hopefully people can find a table. But it isn't a great experience, because I don't like our kids having to wait in the line, it makes it a pain to go back to the "helpings" line and bathroom, etc. If you get there a little early for lunch or late, not during the peak times, it is less of a hassle, even during the more major holidays, because they haven't got that set up and going yet.
There is no need for something like "touring plans. com" for a basic understanding of crowd levels, just think about it a little.
