***Official August 2023 Thread***

[StacyStrong]

We arrive a week from tomorrow. I'm watching wait times and anticipating our wait times being similar to this week as I'm pretty confident that schools that are not in session yet will not go back until after Labour Day.

FWIW the schools in my area go back in the next 1-2 weeks. My nephew starts the 23rd and the high school nearby is starts next week.

 

[madzy]

Please please please give a quick update on how that went if you can. We are at HS tomorrow. Today, the pool is calling!!

Hoping it was great and you had a magical day!

We arrived at HS at about 2:15. We went to see Darth Vader at the Visa character meeting greet at Launch Bay. From there my youngest spotted Fancy Nancy and we stopped to see her outside the Disney Junior area. 3:00 my older kids and husband got in line for TOT with a 35 minute wait. I waited with my younger son outside the gift shop in the shade. By the way, the heat is pretty bad. About 15 minutes in an announcement as made that one side of Tower was not operating and wait times May increase. Sigh. At 3:30 a charaterpalooza happened right in that area with Max, Eyore, Piglet, Meeko, Captain Hook and a Penguin. It was great for my son. At about 4:00 the others came off TOT and at that point my two youngest were done. We decided to leave to do the pool and my husband and older kids stayed. I spoke with my husband after I returned to the hotel and he said They rode Star Tours with minimal wait. They were 40 minutes into the line for Rise with a posted 55 minute wait last. I wasn’t expecting much today since today was our arrival day. Tomorrow I plan on hitting the parks earlier.

 

[MommaKetch]

We were at MK on Sunday

I’ll comment about EPCOT next, we were there yesterday.

Yes, thank you so much for your report!!! Our plan is the same for this upcoming Sunday, 8/20 @ MK, and similar for Monday 8/21 @ EPCOT. Would love to hear how yesterday went there. We plan to hop between HS & EP

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

Sorry for the delay- my phone is done for (but DH brought an ancient backup and so we trudge forward). As promised, my EPCOT commentary.
We did not rope drop- we arrived maybe 10 minutes before official park open at 9 and *just* beat the rope drop crowd for non resort guests to SE which was walk on. The RD crowd seemed much heavier to the left than to the right (the crowd on the right was so small that DH thought it was a very large family having a photo taken, for perspective). We did purchase G+ again and make good use of it.

The entire day did not feel particularly crowded until we reached the WS around 5:30. It was more so because of people stopping every 2 feet to check menus or figure out where they were than it actually being super crowded. Food & Wine booths had lower waits than I expected especially considering we were there at dinner time (1 or 2 had full lines, another 1-2 had maybe 8-10 people in line). The shops were practically empty. Longest line was for ice cream in France (we skipped it) and maybe Les Halles but that moved very very quickly.

Boarding Group 2 for GoG and we got there around 9:30 and were riding by 10:10. The line moved pretty continuously so this ride obviously moves a lot of people in a short time. The area outside the ride entrance was packed and chaotic but I think that was a lot of people thinking they could rope drop this and not understanding the virtual queue.

We visited the seas right after GoG with no waits at all (typical for morning time). Aquarium was a little busy but not so busy you couldn’t walk around and enjoy it. My local aquarium gets more jam packed. Went to the Land and by 11 Soarin had a 65 minute posted wait and the people we saw in it did not look happy so I’d believe that was accurate. Living with the Land was down part of the morning and had a 25 minute wait around 11:30 but down to 15 when we finished lunch.

Figment was walk-on but around 2 pm it went down and I’m not sure when it came back up. FEA had a 65 minute wait almost all day- sometimes more but rarely less. I don’t know what the actual wait was but posted was 65 consistently. TT was 75 minutes pretty consistently. I believe it had 2 closures including one longer one around 3 pm due to weather.

The LL line for Remy was backed up to the stroller parking around 7 pm. The ride went down and took about 40 minutes to reopen. When we were approaching the ride around 6:45 it was a 140 minute posted wait. It climbed to a 360 minute wait at one point but came right back down to 140 after 5 minutes. I am guessing that one is very inflated because the line was not looking long enough to support that (or maybe people had already exited the line because of the closure). My guesstimate is about 60-90 minutes was an accurate wait at that point.

We flopped down on a bench in Canada around 8 pm while DH and DS16 scarfed down some poutine and we decided to just stay parked for the fireworks. Two minutes before showtime there was still room along the fence there.

The heat was slightly less but the humidify was worse. So much worse. I felt like I was swimming on land. Yesterday was a pool day (not crowded, no trouble getting chairs even though we missed rope drop). Today is HS and now that I’m back in action with a phone I’m happy to try and answer specifics if anyone has any questions.

 

[MommaKetch]

my phone is done for (but DH brought an ancient backup and so we trudge forward).

I’m so sorry to hear that. It must’ve been stressful! Smart to have a back up. Never considered packing that, but now I will.

Thank you for the excellent report! I hope the rest of your trip has been smooth sailing.

 

[han22735]

After seeing how low wait times have been at MK during party days we decided to switch a few days around to be able to take advantage of that. Hopefully it continues this way. 24 hours till we take off for Disney!

 

[LindaOwl1]

heading to WDW 8/26. Looking at the hours for that week through Labor Day I am only seeing AK opening at 8 on the weekends. Do we really think weekdays at AK won't open til 9? Never saw it that late. Also HS goes from 8:30 opening now back to a 9 AM opening that week.

 

[Justrose]

We leave in less than 48 hours and my every day anxiety has been replaced with fancy vacation anxiety!

We are all packed and ready to go, groceries ordered and Magic Bands charged.

 

[austinalexander]

We leave on August 26th and come back September 2nd! I keep checking online for any possible hurricanes as I have anxiety a hurricane is going to occur while we are there and shut things down lol

 

[QueenofPrideRock]

heading to WDW 8/26. Looking at the hours for that week through Labor Day I am only seeing AK opening at 8 on the weekends. Do we really think weekdays at AK won't open til 9? Never saw it that late. Also HS goes from 8:30 opening now back to a 9 AM opening that week.

I'm there right around that time as well and have been watching this like a hawk. Either they're anticipating SUPER low crowds or those hours haven't been updated yet? Maybe this is the new off-season normal?

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

I’m so sorry to hear that. It must’ve been stressful! Smart to have a back up. Never considered packing that, but now I will.

Thank you for the excellent report! I hope the rest of your trip has been smooth sailing.

Luckily DH is an engineer and very tech savvy. I never would think to pack a backup but I will from now on. Getting the backup up and running meant opening my phone which terrifies me, and using the laptop (I like to process and backup the day’s photos in the evening if we’re in the room relaxing). Even if it sits in the room, it’s better than nothing. If I wasn’t running G+ for all of us I honestly might not have missed it because I can text from my watch if we separate to different attractions or there’s an emergency.

But, it gets better. The backup phone got to live out my lifelong dream to spend the night in the Haunted Mansion. It bounced right out of my purse (that I always, always zip before getting on a ride but didn’t this time) onto the track and couldn’t be retrieved until park close. I did G+ from DH’s phone for the rest of Thursday and Friday and then we went to Disney Springs to pick it up. My watch wouldn’t text/ call as a result and so we had to be really old school and set specific times to meet if we split up but we did fine.