Not that it matters at this point, but how bad ARE the crowds?

[PHamrick]

I mean, I know it's Spring Break...because that is why we are going! I've been to WDW and USO/IOA all over Spring Breaks before. I know it will be crowded. But, is it ABNORMALLY crowded? I mean, if you prioritize what you want to do, rope drop, take long breaks in the afternoon, you will still have a fine time. It's the attitude you bring with you. At least that's what I think. If we ride 5-8 rides in a day and meet some characters, have a Mickey Bar or Churro or whatever, we are good!

I'm only there for the pictures, anyway

Just curious as to how people who are there are perceiving the crowds.

 

[TexasGalHolden]

Headed there in about a week and I'd love the know too! I have no frame of reference because I've never been (and have only gone to WDW on school weeks during off season...) I'm afraid I'm in for a shock...

 

[GatorChris]

There's a big difference from WDW to DL during busy times. DL is more of a ride-driven trip. They have so much shoved into two parks, it's about the rides. And with small spaces to walk in, it's really impossible to take in, much less enjoy, the ambiance. At WDW, it's so big, and the Icons are so large, you can take in a lot of the ambiance, even when it's crowded. So forcibly taking it slow at WDW is a lot more enjoyable than at DL. IMHO.

 

[dshimel]

Was there a week ago. pretty bad.

Do opening. Do closing. We were doing a dozen smaller attractions in the last 2 hours. Naps in the early afternoon.

Only place we got "jammed up" on schedule was the stuff that is only mid-day (Moana, Soundsational, stage shows).

 

[StageTek]

We were there yesterday (Tue4) and it was CRAZY crowded.

 

[PHamrick]

Was there a week ago. pretty bad.

Do opening. Do closing. We were doing a dozen smaller attractions in the last 2 hours. Naps in the early afternoon.

Only place we got "jammed up" on schedule was the stuff that is only mid-day (Moana, Soundsational, stage shows).

So, this is our plan, but we are also going to the parks on the day we are checking out of the hotel. How would you accomplish that? We are moving to a different part of LA (to stay with family) on Thursday when we are done with the park. Can we still hang out in the lobby and rest? (We are staying at GCH). Thanks!

 

[SMD]

Or just stay in the park that day. It's going to be crowded. If it's going to be an issue to be in the park midday on your last day when it will seem more crowded than opening and closing, you may want to adjust your expectations.

 

[dshimel]

So, this is our plan, but we are also going to the parks on the day we are checking out of the hotel. How would you accomplish that? We are moving to a different part of LA (to stay with family) on Thursday when we are done with the park. Can we still hang out in the lobby and rest? (We are staying at GCH). Thanks!

Didn't do park day of check out. I wonder if you could pay a little extra for late check-out that day.

 

[figment_jii]

I was there last week (Wed to Sun) and felt like there were crowds, but they were in line with what one would expect given the time of the year and how popular the parks have been in general. As others have said, the parks were still fairly quiet/manageable for the first few hours each morning, but the crowds picked up as the day progressed. Evenings were very busy, but we never felt like DL was so crowded that we couldn't move around or enjoy the atmosphere. We didn't do a lot of rides (we were there for the Egg-Stravaganza and the Food & Wine Festival), but it was still possible to get in a fair number of things in the morning and by making good use of FPs.

 

[Geemo]

So, this is our plan, but we are also going to the parks on the day we are checking out of the hotel. How would you accomplish that? We are moving to a different part of LA (to stay with family) on Thursday when we are done with the park. Can we still hang out in the lobby and rest? (We are staying at GCH). Thanks!

On our last day we check out, leave bags at Bell Services and ask for a special access key card that gets you into the pool area.

Don't forget to keep you swim suits in your backpack. Once we have done rope drop and all the last minute stuff in the parks and DTD, we spend time at the pool before heading to the airport. Ordering a pizza from Marris and relaxing on a cushy lounge at the pool is one of the grandkids favorite things to do. The pool areas have very nice restrooms for changing once we're ready to leave.

We have done this at all three DLR hotels. Never an problem. Except when the kids forget to keep out their swim suits.... Then it's an extra trip through Bell Services before hitting the pool.

Geemo

 

[PHamrick]

On our last day we check out, leave bags at Bell Services and ask for a special access key card that gets you into the pool area.

Don't forget to keep you swim suits in your backpack. Once we have done rope drop and all the last minute stuff in the parks and DTD, we spend time at the pool before heading to the airport. Ordering a pizza from Marris and relaxing on a cushy lounge at the pool is one of the grandkids favorite things to do. The pool areas have very nice restrooms for changing once we're ready to leave.

We have done this at all three DLR hotels. Never an problem. Except when the kids forget to keep out their swim suits.... Then it's an extra trip through Bell Services before hitting the pool.

Geemo

This is fantastic advice! Even just laying down for a while next to the pool would be great. I hope the GCH pool will be open. I heard it was closed still. It looks like we can use the other pools, so maybe it won't be a big deal. Thanks for the great suggestion!

 

[redman96]

I had the same worry. Was there last week. RD! Get there 40 - 45 minutes early. First 2 hours of the day - amazing. After that use fastpasses effectively. Avoid Adventureland & Pirates area mid-day. YIKES! Rest mid-day. Come back for evening parade/fireworks/WOC & then late night rides. Crowds empty out last couple hours. Hard to get up the next day - but it's worth it. Even with HUGE crowds - we rode everything and saw everything last week with a wait of no more than 30 minutes for anything. We were there 5 days - but used our time & fastpasses to avoid the insanity.

 

[DLgal]

We were there Monday of this week. We had to wait approximately 45 minutes just to enter the turnstiles. We arrived at 8:30am and got in at 9:13am. We left at 2:30. Here is what we accomplished:

Big Thunder Mountain waited standby 15 min, got a FP to come back again from 10-11am.
Autopia 10 min standby
Teacups: 15 min standby
Re rode Big Thunder with our FP around 10:50am
Lunch at Hungry Bear right at 11....took 20 min to order and receive food
Pooh Ride after lunch 20 min standby
Small World 30 min standby
Gadgets Go Coaster 40 min standby
Got Mickey Ice Cream and a cupcake for snack.
Left at 2:30

When we passed them, wait times for HM and Pirates were both 45min. Space Mountain was at 80min, Star Tours was 55 min, Nemo Subs 60min. Peter Pan 60min. Even the carousel had a LONG line.

We usually use a DAS but it was expired and the line at Guest Relations was INSANE and I've had issues renewing at the kiosks before so we just skipped it and my son chose which rides he really wanted to wait for. The only reason this was even doable was it was cloudy and cool all day and he didn't get overheated in the lines and the lines we waited in kept moving forward.

This is a just a snapshot of what you can expect. It was painfully crowded, IMO. My autistic son was practically running through the park because the number of people in the walkways was overwhelming him and he wanted to get from place to place as quickly as possible because he was feeling crowded in.

 

[Winnowill]

I just looked at the app - not quite 2:00 in the afternoon, the wait time at RSR is 225 minutes. That's almost FOUR HOURS. Holy cow. I know its FPs ran out before 11:00 - with a 9:00 open. I am becoming more concerned about our trip 4/17-4/22.

 

[las3888]

We are more WDW people, but have been to DL about 4 times, all in the summer except for this past trip. We were there a week ago and it was more crowded then compared to summer. Expect that everything will pretty much reach peak lines by about 11am, probably sooner. If you have early entrance, do as much as you can in that hour before the park opens. You will see a significant increase in wait times once the park opens to all.

Also I heard the pool at GCH won't open until 4/17 but I don't know if that's reliable. We were able to take a golf cart ride to the DL pool which was decent enough.

Here's where RSR runs into problems hence the 225 minutes. That ride was down a LOT when we were there (every day, sometimes several times a day). When that happens, it's usually down for hours. Then when it's back up, they will make an effort to accommodate people with fastpasses, so the standby time line increases dramatically. The ride was down during early entrance, and also note if you get a fastpass for an evening return, expect that it will go down at some point in the day, so your fastpass line will not be so fast. We walked up our first evening with fastpasses in hand and saw the line streaming all the way down the little street for Radiator Springs, and I thought, thank goodness we have a fastpass! Well, that WAS the fastpass line. However, since they then limit standby people severely, it moved FAIRLY quickly. Usually we were on in about 45 minutes.

I hope this info helps some of you out there! Have a great trip...

 

[las3888]

Also, Hyperspace Mountain was down when we arrived at our DL morning. It was up later and was very fun though!

I was quite surprised at the instability of the rides during our trip. Major rides were down repeatedly, seemingly everytime we wanted to ride them!

 

[2princesses*Mom]

I just looked at the app - not quite 2:00 in the afternoon, the wait time at RSR is 225 minutes. That's almost FOUR HOURS. Holy cow. I know its FPs ran out before 11:00 - with a 9:00 open. I am becoming more concerned about our trip 4/17-4/22.

I'll be there for the exact same dates. I'm anticipating large crowds, BUT, one plus is that the SoCal 3 day promotion is blocked during our time.

 

[las3888]

Also, DL was notably more crowded than the CA park. I think it's just not built to accommodate the large crowds like the newer parks. But ditto to what a PP said--avoid Adventureland area--difficult to move around because it was jammed with so many people! This was around 11-noon.

 

[Leopardstars]

Also, Hyperspace Mountain was down when we arrived at our DL morning. It was up later and was very fun though!

I was quite surprised at the instability of the rides during our trip. Major rides were down repeatedly, seemingly everytime we wanted to ride them!

I was there last week (March 26 - 30) and it was busy but that's what I expected and planned accordingly. As others said, get to the gates to line up at least 30 minutes (or earlier if you can). This will put you ahead of some of the crowds and allows for at least one, if not two, walk on rides. If you want to ride RSR, get FPs when the DCA opens one day. They were running out by 11am.

What did surprise me a little was also the number of rides that were down. Monsters Inc was down the first time we tried to ride on our last day. Then it went down again just before we were going to board and after a 30 minute wait in line. GRR and Splash also went down. I think Splash was down at least 3 times during our 5 days based on what I observed and what I read here. We just rolled with it because hey, it was warm, we were in capris/shorts and a t-shirt and away from the wind/snow in Alberta. As I said to my DD in preparation for the trip and crowds, "Any day at Disneyland beats a day anywhere else."

 

[dshimel]

What did surprise me a little was also the number of rides that were down.

I don't want to start rumors... but....

There may be something like norovirus hitting DLR. I couple times I saw cast members cleaning up puke from walkways. I got VERY sick the night/next-morning after our last day in the parks with many runs to the restroom. My grand-baby also got sick with vomiting and "soft" movements.

If so, the ride closures could be from bio-spill clean up.