Recent Crowds

[TSMAMI]

look at the weather forecast High 80s for the week I am there 13-19. That is pretty good! Let pray the rain stays away

 

[Hoodie]

Hey all.

Returned last night. The fourth was insane. Magic Kingdom shut the gates early and Epcot had 60,000 people for the fireworks.

I've only been to WDW in July one other time and it was a madhouse. This year, it was a bit better. There were lots of people (and lots of Brazilian tour groups), but to me the crowds seemed similar to our Labor Day trip, as opposed to the last July trip we took. MK was the most crowded, of course, but manageable. We did fast pass one trip of Soarin' (did the first in EMH and walked on) and Aerosmith Rockin Rollercoaster, but that was it. Believe it or not, our longest wait was for Spaceship Earth at 35 minutes.

A lot of it is in the planning, but this was definitely more manageable than July 2005.

btw - the other place we REALLY noticed the economy effect was in the table service restaurants. When we were there in Sept, there were fairly long waits, even with ADRs, and the restaurants were packed. This time we walked into several withuot ADRs, got seated at checkin and there were many empty tables.

 

[sherabby]

look at the weather forecast High 80s for the week I am there 13-19. That is pretty good! Let pray the rain stays away

Great! Keep the rain away for our week! We are arriving on the 14th until the 19th. Where are you staying? Duh I should have read your sig....it says POP right in there! I'm at POFQ. We switched from Movies when my mom decided to come along with us.

 

[bub]

Subscribing...going in August...
Wonder if anyone has done evening EMH and how crowded those have been?

 

[marvali]

Lovin' this thread. We are going in August too and hoping the crowds continue to run below normal. We usually go this time of the year and don't have any problems (we've learned to just deal with the crowds) but since we had to cut our trip two days shorter, less wait times would be great.

 

[TSMAMI]

Great! Keep the rain away for our week! We are arriving on the 14th until the 19th. Where are you staying? Duh I should have read your sig....it says POP right in there! I'm at POFQ. We switched from Movies when my mom decided to come along with us.

HAVE A GREAT TRIP!

 

[harleyquinn]

Hey all.

Returned last night. The fourth was insane. Magic Kingdom shut the gates early and Epcot had 60,000 people for the fireworks.

I've only been to WDW in July one other time and it was a madhouse. This year, it was a bit better. There were lots of people (and lots of Brazilian tour groups), but to me the crowds seemed similar to our Labor Day trip, as opposed to the last July trip we took. MK was the most crowded, of course, but manageable. We did fast pass one trip of Soarin' (did the first in EMH and walked on) and Aerosmith Rockin Rollercoaster, but that was it. Believe it or not, our longest wait was for Spaceship Earth at 35 minutes.

A lot of it is in the planning, but this was definitely more manageable than July 2005.

btw - the other place we REALLY noticed the economy effect was in the table service restaurants. When we were there in Sept, there were fairly long waits, even with ADRs, and the restaurants were packed. This time we walked into several withuot ADRs, got seated at checkin and there were many empty tables.

Thanks for the report!!

I really think this thread should be a sticky...

 

[bell.of.the.ball]

Great! Keep the rain away for our week! We are arriving on the 14th until the 19th. Where are you staying? Duh I should have read your sig....it says POP right in there! I'm at POFQ. We switched from Movies when my mom decided to come along with us.

We will be there too at POFQ, 7/14-7/17

 

[Sophie_2003]

I'valready posted a short review, but to reiterate, crowds July2-3 were ... low by my accounts. MK AM EMH was pretty deserted, waits were decent all day, FP available, and PM EMH at DHS was a cakewalk (walkon ToT at 10h30 pm). Epcot world showcase was also soooo quiet from noon-2pm.

repeat after me: GET UP EARLY. Go take a late afternoon nap of you need one, but you can do so much more by being there close to opening!!!

oh...and LOTS of tour groups. Walking around like sheep. Baaaaaaa.

 

[pipervali]

This is a fantastic thread. We're going in the end of September, so a little ways off yet, but I'll certainly be keeping an eye on this one. I'm rather relieved to know that the crowds seem to be more manageable recently. Definitely has to be a result of the slowing economy.

 

[LouDisney]

Hey all.

Returned last night. The fourth was insane. Magic Kingdom shut the gates early and Epcot had 60,000 people for the fireworks.

I've only been to WDW in July one other time and it was a madhouse. This year, it was a bit better. There were lots of people (and lots of Brazilian tour groups), but to me the crowds seemed similar to our Labor Day trip, as opposed to the last July trip we took. MK was the most crowded, of course, but manageable. We did fast pass one trip of Soarin' (did the first in EMH and walked on) and Aerosmith Rockin Rollercoaster, but that was it. Believe it or not, our longest wait was for Spaceship Earth at 35 minutes.

A lot of it is in the planning, but this was definitely more manageable than July 2005.

btw - the other place we REALLY noticed the economy effect was in the table service restaurants. When we were there in Sept, there were fairly long waits, even with ADRs, and the restaurants were packed. This time we walked into several withuot ADRs, got seated at checkin and there were many empty tables.

I was there from June 28th until July 5th. I have been in July before, but this was my first holiday trip. I was expecting the crowds to be really bad. I was totally shocked at how less crowded it was, than what I expected. We went to AK on the 4th to avoid the crowds and it was dead. We loved it. Everest never had over a 25 min. wait. I may have choose the right days to go to each park, but the waits were never really bad at all. We did use fast pass a few times and the crowds were never bad to me. We went to MK on the 3rd and during the day it was not bad at all. Now, that night, it was very crowded, but it was only towards parade and firework time.

We had ADR's, but we totally got a couple last minute or made them the day of. I was shocked at that. I would go again around the 4th. It was not bad at all to me and like you said, it could be because of gas prices or the economy. Regardless, it was a great week and we had a great time.

 

[TheresaNY]

I am here right now.... ...and DHS was crazy. Decided to skip even trying to go back for EMH tonight. Went for a swim and just watched Fantasmic from our balcony through the trees. Can hear the soundtrack so well! We are here every summer and this summer seems just as crowded as last year and does not seem to be tapering offf after the 4th of July. Weather has been great but is suppose to get quite hot for the next 2 days. Any questions?

 

[hollisterluva92]

I went from June 16th-21st and here is what I gathered.
Soarin-90 minute wait, no fastpasses avaliable.
Toy Story Mania--we had a big ordeal with this ride. It was a 90 minute wait and there weren't any fastpasses left. By the time that we got into the main line room, it had gone up to a 120 minute wait. We asked people who were bailing how much further we had to go and how long they waited. Everyone said that there was still another room to go and they had been waiting for almost 2 hours. We decided that we would skip that ride.
Splash Mountain-Only a 20 minute stand-by wait. We rode it twice
Big thounder mountain railroad-20 minutes

 

[geauxdisney]

We were there July 2nd-8th and thought it was fine. We've been before in the summer and I didn't find much difference. We did Epcot for the 4th of July but I heard the AK was very quiet that day, because there were no fireworks at the park that night. (a CM from AK told us this when we went on the 5th to AK)
We ate in Germany the night of the 4th and there were many empty tables.
All in all, we did everything we wanted, several things we did twice or three times (Soarin', Everest, ToT, TSM, RoR, etc).

There were lots of tour groups, but it was not too bad. The longest wait we had was in the FP line at SM because the ride was having technical difficulties that night. Other than that, the waits were not bad and the FP strategies everyone gave me really paid off.

We got to ride TSM 4 times and the last night, we gave our FP to a family as we were leaving because we were tired and they were from 9:30 - 10. They were just walking into the park as we were leaving and by that time there were no FP left for TSM. So even though we didn't get any wishes while we were there, we gave sort of a wish to someone the last night we were there. It was a good feeling.

 

[pmcneff]

we will be at the house of mouse 7-15 stayin at the POP! Can't wait!

 

[harleyquinn]

I am here right now.... ...and DHS was crazy. Decided to skip even trying to go back for EMH tonight. Went for a swim and just watched Fantasmic from our balcony through the trees. Can hear the soundtrack so well! We are here every summer and this summer seems just as crowded as last year and does not seem to be tapering offf after the 4th of July. Weather has been great but is suppose to get quite hot for the next 2 days. Any questions?

I'm guessing it was crazy BECAUSE of the evening EMH. Were you there early?

Enjoy the rest of your trip!!

 

[toostsmom]

My sis and her fam are there right now (7/10) at DHS and staying at Pop - they say it's much less crowded than usual for July.

 

[sherabby]

My sis and her fam are there right now (7/10) at DHS and staying at Pop - they say it's much less crowded than usual for July.

That is good news for us....4 days to go!

 

[Brena]

I live in the area and I've heard on the local news that parks aren't as busy and that tourism is down due to the economy. There have been some job cuts in the tourism industry (I haven't heard of any at WDW though).

 

[jezebella]

My mom just called me from the MK (we have family in town). It is totally dead today. They got there at 9:30 this am, and have pretty much done every ride except for splash, which they have a FP for after lunch.