No WOC 9-14? (Black hole week)

[graymatter]

After all the craziness, I'm glad to hear you had a nice last day!

 

[graymatter]

We were in the parks Wednesday-Friday. The first two days we seemed to be with the crowds, which was a bit of a challenge. On Friday we seemed to be ahead of the crowds, which ended up being our best day. Granted, we went back to the hotel at 7pm. DS was capital D done by then and we managed to end on a high note with one last ride on Mater (DS's favorite ride).

I'm glad we went, I wished the timing could have been better, but it also seemed like just when things weren't working out well, Disney could sense it and random things would happen that made everything better again. Mostly involving surprising character interactions. Like when we did Surf's Up breakfast, and Minnie had to leave right before coming to our table; she was only the second character to come around and it had been a long time. She ended up coming back and teased DS by moving her hand away whenever he tried to give her a high five. It was hilarious. And after they hugged and took a photo, she put her hand up to give him a fist bump, and then kept moving her hand around so he'd miss it. It really was funny and DS was laughing hysterically. Another time was when we had our photo taken in front of the big pumpkin. First as a family, and then just DS. Right as the photographer goes to take a photo of DS, Pluto comes running over, jumps in front of DS, and runs off. DS thought it was the funniest thing ever, and the photographer captured some great photos of DS.

 

[onlyoneash]

Morning into the afternoon today was fine! But yes, this evening (first day of Halloween) was insane. Couldn't even walk in adventureland + New Orleans area. At one point, Haunted mansion line wait was 120 minutes, but the line announcement said it was 150 minutes. The line was so long, they had to move all the strollers to even have this tiny walking path. Then they got the ropes out for Fantasmic and crap hit the fan. I have never in my life seen so many people packed into one space. We were trapped in front of Haunted mansion for 45 min just trying to get to a bathroom (not in line, just literally trying to walk to the nearest bathroom). My kid ended up peeing his pants. There was no path to walk. The people in front of us said they hadn't been stuck that long in a walking path since visiting Tokyo Disneyland. Good thing is we had a change of clothes and had Fantasmic dining seating to watch the show so that was a lifesaver.

Tomorrow we are spending a few morning hours before our flight to catch what we missed. A bunch of APs are blocked on Saturday I've heard!?!, so I'm hoping it will actually be slower tomorrow. The park really only got busy after 5pm all the days we were there, so just beware of that. The locals definitely come after work/school to check out the new Halloween stuff (because it is awesome!)

Good luck next week!

I just thought everyone would enjoy this little black hole week tidbit: So that 45 min I was in a standstill in front of haunted mansion? A few locals reported actually timing the HM line. It was 249 minutes. This was from several people now, so I totally believe them. Holy crap! No wonder we couldn't move to get to a bathroom! The line was enormous. I don't go to Disneyland enough to know the crowd levels, but this has to rank up there.

 

[Linkura]

Thank you so much for all the advice, everyone! I'm feeling a lot better now. I think we will do as much of Adventureland/Frontierland/NOS/CC as we can today, but have a hard stop in the area of around 6pm and likely do HMH another day. Sitting on the plane waiting to take off now!!!

 

[KBinCO]

Someone posted on FB that the HM line got to 300 min yesterday. Where on earth do you put all those people???

Again. We had FPs and waited about 5 mins and it was BARELY worth that wait.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Someone posted on FB that the HM line got to 300 min yesterday. Where on earth do you put all those people???

Again. We had FPs and waited about 5 mins and it was BARELY worth that wait.

Who in the world waits that long for an attraction? I love Haunted Mansion and I can't wait to see the Nigtmare Before Christmas version but I wouldn't wait more than 15 minutes if I couldn't get a fastpass.

 

[KBinCO]

And yes, park hopping is great... but even with the parks so close, we recorded 28,000 steps on Friday- 11.5 miles. And that's with maxpass that day so we weren't running around as much! This was our first time without a stroller and the kids didn't complain once but my poor mother was feeling it quite a bit!

 

[JeannieJay]

We were there all last week. We upgraded our parkhoppers and went to the parks every day from Saturday until Friday. Sunday night was probably the least busy night, and we were able to go on Pirates and Small World without fast passes.

Other than Sunday night and early mornings, we found it REALLY busy. A couple of times we left the park because it was so busy. Many times, it was so busy that the crowd was almost at a standstill, and once they put up the ropes for Fantasmic viewing, the crowds WERE at standstills.

We did have a great time. It was our 20th anniversary trip, so we stayed at the Grand Californian, which we loved. We thoroughly enjoyed the WoC Dessert Party. We had a "food bucket list" and tried a bunch of those items. We weren't impressed with the monte cristos at Cafe Orleans, but the pomme frites were amazing. I think my favourite treat was the raspberry macaron at the Jolly Holiday Baker, with the caramel chocolate apples and english toffee running close seconds. I'm a real ride chicken, so in the past have only gone a few rides, but this time, I sucked up my fears and went on a bunch of others. Most of them I loved. Thank goodness for max pass. It was worth every penny.

Our previous visits were all in October - in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and it was nowhere near as busy during those visits as it was this "black hole" week. Our plan was to go back from Dec 9-12 this year, but we're reconsidering now, if the crowds will be worse than the past week's. We were originally holding off on booking because we didn't know if spending a full week at Disneyland would have us "disneyed out". It didn't, but we are now holding off because we aren't sure if we want another visit as busy as this past week. I know they say there are no slow times any more, so I expected busy, but really, this was far, far busier than I expected.

 

[onlyoneash]

We were there all last week. We upgraded our parkhoppers and went to the parks every day from Saturday until Friday. Sunday night was probably the least busy night, and we were able to go on Pirates and Small World without fast passes.

Other than Sunday night and early mornings, we found it REALLY busy. A couple of times we left the park because it was so busy. Many times, it was so busy that the crowd was almost at a standstill, and once they put up the ropes for Fantasmic viewing, the crowds WERE at standstills.

We did have a great time. It was our 20th anniversary trip, so we stayed at the Grand Californian, which we loved. We thoroughly enjoyed the WoC Dessert Party. We had a "food bucket list" and tried a bunch of those items. We weren't impressed with the monte cristos at Cafe Orleans, but the pomme frites were amazing. I think my favourite treat was the raspberry macaron at the Jolly Holiday Baker, with the caramel chocolate apples and english toffee running close seconds. I'm a real ride chicken, so in the past have only gone a few rides, but this time, I sucked up my fears and went on a bunch of others. Most of them I loved. Thank goodness for max pass. It was worth every penny.

Our previous visits were all in October - in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and it was nowhere near as busy during those visits as it was this "black hole" week. Our plan was to go back from Dec 9-12 this year, but we're reconsidering now, if the crowds will be worse than the past week's. We were originally holding off on booking because we didn't know if spending a full week at Disneyland would have us "disneyed out". It didn't, but we are now holding off because we aren't sure if we want another visit as busy as this past week. I know they say there are no slow times any more, so I expected busy, but really, this was far, far busier than I expected.

Yeah, it was miserable busy unless you were there early morning. I think if the same amount of people were there in the summer it would have been fine! Summer has more staff and longer hours. Unfortunately, the park last week was packed and with low staff and short hours plus a lot of refurbs, that combination made it so bad. I mean the 3:30 parade in DL was ridiculous (it was the only parade going) Busiest parade ever. Hands down beat crowds on most nights of the MSEP!

Even if there are the same amount of people at DL, your December trip should be much better. Park hours and staff increase! The flow of the park is maintained better. I think this past week's crowds were so unexpected that it was just a mess, especially in NOS.

 

[JeannieJay]

Thanks for the advice on December. I will talk to DH about it again.

 

[tnzzz]

We have found that it's best to avoid Adventureland and NOS, if not DL altogether, in the late afternoons/early evenings. On the days we started at DL we hopped over to DCA when the crowds made it difficult to move, usually around 4-5. We did do a fantasmic dining package Saturday night and actually found the area manageable until after the show ended, which is expected. Honestly, I think we prefer DCA these days, and spend more time over there.
As far as crowds went this week, I will say it only felt 'slow' mid week, Sunday and Monday were pretty crowded, but not nearly as bad as when we were here in March.