new years at disney?

[kaylajr]

we always go spring time but this trip the kids wanna do New years so i have a few questions for any one who has been there

how are the crowds?

do all parks stay open or just some?

which park do you think is the best to be in at midnight?

thanks in advance

 

[Mouseteacher]

Parks are VERY crowded. I was there about 10 yrs ago for NYE. We were told to choose one park to go to and stay since the parks will probably close due to being at capacity. All were open late with fireworks at midnight. We chose MGM because they had live bands performing throughout the park. The bands performed music from all the eras. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

We just returned yesterday from a New Year's trip. Yes it was very crowded but if you use ee and fast pass, it really was no big deal. It was all part of the whole fun of being there. One thing to consider was the fact that it poured on New Year's eve this year so the parks emptied out.

We are already planning for new year 2004.

HBC

 

[peachgirl]

We also just returned from a trip that included Christmas Day and New Years. I agree, the parks were extremely crowded. From the information I got from a couple of cm's and bus drivers, the MK closed to outside guests by 11am and Epcot was on the verge of closing. MGM never got close. I can't guarantee that to be true, it was just the "talk". We went to MGM as well. We didn't go until noon because we knew once we were there we weren't leaving. It was very crowded, but if you used the fastpass system wisely, it was manageable. The rain wiped the crowds out fairly early and while we may have been wet, we had the run of the park for most of the later evening. If you can adjust yourself to crowds, it's not a problem. We stayed from 12/19 thru 1/01 so we did the "must do's" before the holiday crowds arrived. I wouldn't recommend going that time of year if you want to be able to do everything, but if you want to experience the holidays at WDW, it's wonderful!

 

[dbond]

Just got back from our NYE 2002-03 trip as well. We had been warned about possible park closings and started our day early at Epcot. We had 10:00 PS at the Storybook Princess Buffet and spent the whole day at Epcot. We made our PS at the 120 day mark and had no problem getting the time we wanted. Fortunately, we thought to get our Test Track Fast pass when we came into the park because the fast pass distribution for Test Track was sold out by noon and the wait time got up to over 200 minutes in the mid afternoon! We also were able to get PS for the NYE buffet that was served in the building used for the Millennium country celebration. We had previous PS at Teppanyaki that we cancelled when we found out about the buffet. They didn't advertise the buffet much and the WDW-DINE CM's didn't know anything about it, I heard about it on these Boards and the CM's found it in their computer by trial and error searching. I assured them I knew what I was talking about and they eventually found it and were surprised. I didn't make the PS for the buffet until about 2 weeks before we left. It was very nice. But, be sure and make PS somewhere else at the 120 day mark and you can always cancel if they do the NYE buffet again. We didn't hear anything about capacity crowds nor did we see any warnings anywhere in the park or receive any notices in our resort about possible capacity. It was crowded, more so than we've ever experienced, but it was manageable and we were able to see all of the shows we wanted to see at Epcot during the afternoon. It started raining cats and dogs about 7:00 PM and didn't stop, the park really thinned out after that. They had a live band and dancing in the millennium building, we heard from friends that it wasn't very crowded. Too bad we didn't go over there, we would have been dry but we thought it would be too crowded so we stayed in the World Showcase area and danced with the DJ's in the rain. They showed Illuminations at 11:40 PM and then showcased with fireworks the countries that had already reached 2003 then the USA firework celebration began. It was an awesome show, even in the rain. Epcot was open until 1:00 AM, we left immediately following the fireworks. NYE is a great time to go, we stayed until 1/06.

 

[minnie56]

for Christmas and New Years....

I haven't seen Disney this busy in some time! I have to say...the crowds kind of 'got to me' this time and we came home for the first time not having been able to do some of our favourite things due to long, long waits ..... but all in all it is a beautiful place to be during the holidays and that in itself is a big consolation!

We have been every New Years for the last 5-6 years and what we always do is choose our park...head over early in the day (around 9:00-9:30 a.m) stay long enough to get a fast pass (this year Epcot....and Fast Track) then leave and return around 4:00 p.m. We could never last the whole day I'm afraid! For resort guests...I am told...they allow you to leave once and return to that same park ...but I did hear this year that some people were park-hopping all day despite the apparant crowds.