New Year's Day

[iluveeyore]

Just booked for week after New Year's Eve, starting the 1st - are the decorations still up and is there anything special that goes on that week? Or is it just nice and slow around the parks?
This trip is especially exciting for us - I just booked my DSIS for that week on rented points and she is surprising their four kids at Christmas with their trip. What she doesn't know is that DH and I decided to take our daughter and her BFF (who will turn 18 on the 2nd), using our points and stay the same week, and we are surprising her when they arrive at OKW (we arrive the day before them).
Just wondered if DD would be able to show her friend some of the great Christmas displays before they take them down.

 

[bobbiwoz]

The decorations are still up, but there isn't anything special, not even the Epcot storytellers. Wait! Check the end dates for the Osborne lights, they may get to see that! We stay that week, and I stay through most of January, with a break for the Members Cruise and Vero Beach.

I don't remember the crowd level, we don't necessarily do parks every day, it's a slow time for us!

Yes, I checked, the Osborne lights are there!
http://www.wdwinfo.com/holidays/osbornelights.htm

 

[hakepb]

Not really slow. It may not be as crazy as the prior (busiest week of the year) Christmas- NYE week, but EasyWDW shows crowd level 9 on the 1st and only dropping to a 7 on Saturday. Sunday the 6th drops to 4's:

http://www.easywdw.com/category/calendar/01-january-2013/

 

[tomandrobin]

The days after NYE are less crowded then the week prior. The crowds start departing on Jan 1st. The Christmas decorations start coming down a few days after NYE.

 

[hakepb]

The days after NYE are less crowded then the week prior. The crowds start departing on Jan 1st. The Christmas decorations start coming down a few days after NYE.

Anyday would have to be better than NYE I'm not sure how accurate the following week predictions will end up. School kids will still be until the following Monday or so.
This is easyWDW on Dec 31:
This is the busiest day of the year at Epcot, by far.* We’re talking 200+ minute waits at Soarin’ and Test Track, 60+ minute waits at Spaceship Earth, 100+ minute waits at Maelstrom, 30+ minute waits at Journey into Imagination with Figment, and capacity crowds at The American Adventure all day.* World Showcase will be PACKED from 2pm through 1am.*

This should be the busiest day of the year at Magic Kingdom.* If you’re interested in seeing the New Year’s Eve Fireworks, you’ll want to arrive by 10am and stay put for the entire day.* Otherwise, you run the risk of finding the Park closed to capacity.....
.* Crowds will be incredibly heavy from 10am through 12am and it will be very difficult to get on anything other than the Carousel of Progress and Liberty Square Riverboat.* Expect waits of 150+ minutes at Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight, and other major attractions in the afternoon.* Visit Animal Kingdom or Hollywood Studios unless you’re prepared to deal with crowds of this magnitude.

 

[kdzgon]

The days after NYE are less crowded then the week prior. The crowds start departing on Jan 1st. The Christmas decorations start coming down a few days after NYE.

It's less busy, but far from "slow" those days following Jan 1. Our schools are not back in until Jan 7 - a trip to WDW is a great end to a holiday season!

Decorations come down really quickly after the 1st; I think 2 years ago by the 4th other than some of the landscaping there was almost nothing in sight at the parks!

 

[drusba]

Have been there that time of year every year for about 15 years now. Patterns have changed somewhat and there are differences depending on day of week Jan 1 falls. In 2013 it is a Tuesday and here is what you should expect:

Crowds: HUGE Jan 1 through about Jan 4. The holiday crowd will still be there. Soarin' can get three hour stand-by lines and popular rides at MK can be two hours or more. Beginning Jan 4 crowd will start to move out but crowds will be heavy through Jan 5 and then lighter after that. In other words if you were thinking you were going to hit very light crowds, you need to start thinking otherwise. This also means that if you intend to eat at any park buffet or sit down restaurant you need to make those reservations now.

Decorations: decorations will be up when you get there; usual pattern is that overnight between Jan 3 and 4 or Jan 4 and 5 all the hotel decorations will come down. You go to your room at night and they are still there and you wake up in the morning and they are all gone. Park decorations then come down over about a three day period thereafter. There was one year, 2010, during which that pattern was not followed and decorations everywhere stayed up until Mid-Jan. That was also the year when WDW had one of its worst cold periods ever, about two weeks in a row where the lows were in the 20s and the highs in the day seldom reached 50, and apparently it was too cold for the workers to take down decorations outside so they left everything up.

Weather: be prepared for variations. It can be in the high 70s and even low 80s or you can have highs in the 40s or low 50s, and both of those can happen in the same week. As noted above, it was cold everyday in 2010 hardly getting to 50. In 2012, it was consistently mid-70s. Usually little rain but you can get a rainy day now and then.

 

[iluveeyore]

Thanks for all of your replies! I didn't expect it to be too 'slow' that week, but like everyone else who is likely there, our kids are still on vacation from school, so it was a good time to get away from the Canadian winter blahs after Christmas. We are at OKW all week and DH and I might not even bother with passes, so the parks don't concern me that much - I'm sure DD and her BFF will have fun no matter how long lines are! I was happy to hear the decorations will still be up, will help carry my Christmas mood even further, and I really wanted the girls to be able to enjoy the Osborne lights, even if for one night.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Deleted, I meant to start a new thread!