Saturday nights - which park is typically more crowded?

[jina]

3 years ago when we had an AP, we once took the monorail on a Sat night from DTD into DL - around 8pm. Tomorrowland was wall to wall people and we miserably wandered around, stood in a 60 min line to ride Buzz, then pushed through the crowd down main street and left. We are coming back in Oct and I'm trying to decide whether to avoid Sat night entirely - we currently have a F! dinner package for the Sat night but I scheduled it before remembering our last Sat night experience. Anyway, is DL typically a zoo on Sat nights? Is DCA generally less crowded?

If DCA ever offers the WOC dessert party in Oct (still waiting for a schedule to show up) I'd like to do it but it would probably be for the Sun night unless DCA is better on a Sat, in which case I'd swap the F! for a Sun night package and do WOC dessert on Sat- but if both are miserable maybe I'll just give up and focus on rope drop to early pm only.

thanks in advance!

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Well, both are typically crowded on Saturday evenings, but the "miserable" part depends more on the time of year than the park.

Unfortunately, October is one of those times... with Halloweentime being so popular, it's generally nuts on the weekend evenings. We went two Saturday nights in October last year and both were some of the most crowded experiences we've had in years. We ended up over at Trader Sam's one time.

If you have a reservation somewhere, though, I'd do it anyway! DCA also has less of a "wall to wall people" feeling when it's packed because the walkways are bigger, so even if wait times are crazy, it's not quite as unpleasant to navigate.

 

[SMD]

Most people don't stay in one park. Crowds of people want to see the CL lighting, ride RSR at night, see WOC, F!, fireworks. And many people like to hop opposite night time shows to try to avoid crowds. You're better off picking a part of a park and staying in it than trying to move between lands and parks, those are the choking points.

 

[Athenaa]

I think Saturday night is a great night for a dinner package. We have a Blue Bayou package for September 30th. We're hitting the park at 7 am for EMH, staying until early afternoon, and then heading back to our hotel to relax. While we're there, we plan to rack up 2 or 3 fastpasses via Maxpass. We'll use our FPs, have dinner at 7:40 pm, and hit the late Fantasmic show. I like to ride Haunted Mansion and Pooh while I'm waiting for the first Fantasmic show to finish up. Sometimes we will hit Pirates if the wait is under 20 minutes. After dinner is also a good time to look around in the shops in that area. I've always stuck around that side of the park on Fantasmic nights, and I've never had any problems. I don't know if I've ever been in Tomorrowland on a Saturday night, to be fair. Usually we're doing Fireworks or Fantasmic because we typically go when those shows are only offered on weekends.

 

[smartlabelprint]

Avoid tomorrow land in front of buzz at all costs. Never walk through there as a means of transport. Go around the other way.

Avoide adventureland unless you're going on a ride there. If you need to get to the water go through frontierland.

 

[figment_jii]

I agree with the PPs; DCA typically feels less crowded because the walkways are larger even if the crowds were "roughly" the same. I'm anticipating that DL will feel very crowded on Saturday evenings in October because Sat and Sun evenings are the only chance guests will have to see fireworks and F! (they are not presented on weekdays and Friday nights are taken up by MHP). Even without an evening parade, I still expect to see large crowds in all fireworks viewing areas and over by the Rivers of America. So, I would also avoid MS, Small World Mall, and the Rivers of America in the evening if you're looking to avoid crowds.