So NOW DL has low crowds.....

[Dudekiwi]

I was already considering rescheduling my 8/28 and 8/29 reservations, and recent reports here and other places have swayed me. Will be using up the last two dates from my CA resident tickets this weekend instead of the following one. I figured the post-Magic Key dates would be busier anyway, and now with Legacy AP discounts no more too, hopefully these low crowds (even on the weekend) will hold for another week!

This is what we did with the first day of our 3-Day CA Resident Tickets. We were initially set to go to DL on 8/28 but changed our reservation to this past Saturday 8/14. I figured that first Saturday after the Magic Keys go on sale is going to be crazy. It was actually a very good day. No rides had posted wait times over 35 minutes. Many were walk-ons. The crowd was not as light as what I am reading on this board about the past 2 Sundays but it was light compared to what I am used to pre-Covid. I actually prefer the attendance to be somewhere between light and heavy. An empty park would seem boring to me.

I can't move our other two days to this week/weekend because my wife wants to see the DL with its Halloween makeover and the Coco show at DCA so I will be braving the mid-September crowds I am sure will come with the Magic Key holders filling up the parks.

 

[laugard]

This is what we did with the first day of our 3-Day CA Resident Tickets. We were initially set to go to DL on 8/28 but changed our reservation to this past Saturday 8/14. I figured that first Saturday after the Magic Keys go on sale is going to be crazy. It was actually a very good day. No rides had posted wait times over 35 minutes. Many were walk-ons. The crowd was not as light as what I am reading on this board about the past 2 Sundays but it was light compared to what I am used to pre-Covid. I actually prefer the attendance to be somewhere between light and heavy. An empty park would seem boring to me.

I can't move our other two days to this week/weekend because my wife wants to see the DL with its Halloween makeover and the Coco show at DCA so I will be braving the mid-September crowds I am sure will come with the Magic Key holders filling up the parks.

That's funny you say that about an empty park seeming boring. That's almost how we felt our first visit back in May after reopening. The energy was a little low and my sister thought some of that was due to non-California residents not being allowed yet in the parks. In addition to it feeling a bit empty (but still with lines due to ride capacity restrictions), there wasn't the thrill of as many first-time or not there as often visitors. We went again in June and it was much busier, and I still haven't experienced the super light days others have. But it was definitely lively!

While I agree with the poster who pointed out that schools being back in session and the Delta variant have had an effect, I do still think the APs have been a big factor, and why I expect the first weekend after the Magic Keys go on sale to be crowded. (Guess we'll see!) This is anecdotal, so I'm not implying any actual wider conclusions can be drawn. But I have four colleagues, all previous passholders, none of whom have been back to the park since it closed down. They've been waiting as they can't justify the non-AP ticket prices for themselves. But they all plan to buy Magic Keys (either Believe or Dream) and start going back asap, especially with Halloween decorations just around the corner. I feel like a lot of AP folks have been similarly holding out, so the pent up demand has most definitely not yet burnt out. I'm sure Disney is hoping for/counting on that, as well!

Meanwhile, I'll still keep expectations low for this weekend, but if the lack of AP discounts and keys going on sale a few days later cause lines to be a little less busy, I won't complain.

 

[wabbott]

We were in DL yesterday until about 1 pm. Longest wait was about 20 minutes. At about 5 PM we went over to DCA and
walked directly onto the Little Mermaid. Grizzly River Run was maybe 10 minutes. Had about 20 minutes at the Pal-A-Round, as the Incredicoaster was down at the time. We had a 7:20 dinner at Blue Bayou, and after we finished at about 8:30 we loaded onto Splash Mountain with no wait at all.

 

[goldengate1]

I think we may have just had some bad luck in the morning yesterday and had been spoiled by the emptiness of the park on Sunday. Space Mountain was a zoo and we made the rookie mistake of going there first and then waited 30 mins for Splash and 15 for Big Thunder when we walked on the day before. It's a bit like swimming in a school of fish and thinking the ocean is full of fish... just that part you're in Nemo! Incredicoaster was 10 mins but Soarin would have been almost an hour so we skipped it. Radiator Springs was 30 mins in the afternoon with lots of switchbacks. One thing is the lines look really long but without Fastpass they do move much more quickly so you get in a line that in the old days would have been 45 mins to an hour and its 30 mins. When we left RSR we heard a young kid scream "THIS IS NOT A 30 MINUTE LINE DAD!!!" and we all laughed. Fireworks were packed but Indy was walk on at 7 pm.

Overall a great time to visit the parks.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Yesterday was definitely the best "overall conditions" day we've had since the parks re-opened (not necessarily the "most magical day," but the best combo of park conditions for sure). I was there from rope drop at DL to the "park closing" announcement at DCA (left DL at 6, dropped the kiddo and my MIL off at home, and came back with my husband to DCA at 7).

I have rarely witnessed such low crowds. The crowd level we experienced absolutely rivaled the grand re-opening day (April 30) crowd situation, but with more open and longer hours. In fact, we waited longer for Indiana Jones on April 30 (35 minutes) than we did for anything yesterday. We walked by Pirates four times, from 9am to 5pm, and we NEVER saw a line outside the building. That is just... unheard of!

The temperature was also better than opening day (it was 92 then and about 84 yesterday). The food situation was great - no wait for morning Starbucks (!), mobile orders were immediate all day, we were able to walk into the Lamplight Lounge bar at 8:15pm - everything was just humming along! I'm also happy about the "masks required indoors but not outdoors" situation, which added to the perfect conditions as far as I'm concerned.

Honestly, I was kind of bummed that we'd bought the CA resident tickets when they announced the Magic Keys, but getting to experience a park day like yesterday made those tickets worth it.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

It's a bit like swimming in a school of fish and thinking the ocean is full of fish... just that part you're in Nemo!

This can definitely be the case depending where you are in the parks. One major factor can be if a ride shuts down… suddenly everything around it will flood with people! It really is amazing how different things can feel depending when and where you go.

Glad you were able to get some more rides in later in the day!

 

[goldengate1]

WHOA..... today was much busier than Monday which was busier than Sunday. I made sure to take some photos this time. The Soarin line goes behind the building into an area I've never seen... 50 mins they say. Monsters Inc had the entire back queue full... and some big E ticket rides like Incredicoaster and Indy and Space have had significant downtime. Rise of the Resistance went down just as we boarded the final segment of the ride but is back up now. We are back in our rooms wishing we had gone into the parks earlier this morning.

 

[PippensMcGee]

Bummer. We're headed a week from today. I was hoping Tuesdays would be a little less crowded, especially with kids back in school. I wonder what is causing Tuesdays to be busier? The lower priced tickets? I know it's a bit cooler today, too.

 

[brentm77]

Bummer. We're headed a week from today. I was hoping Tuesdays would be a little less crowded, especially with kids back in school. I wonder what is causing Tuesdays to be busier? The lower priced tickets? I know it's a bit cooler today, too.

I think it's the lower priced tickets. Here today and it was light in the morning, but fairly busy now. Still better than our July visit, but not as light as I hoped given wait times yesterday and Sunday. Crazy.

 

[Epicnemesis]

I wonder what is causing Tuesdays to be busier? The lower priced tickets?

That’s the prevailing theory, but you would think that wouldn’t be the case so close to the magic key since single day tickets I would imagine are local.

 

[goldengate1]

We are trying to figure it out. There's been a paradox - Sundays are less crowded than Mondays. Our theory is that weekend staffing is harder to find, so they constrained the park reservations to reflect that. There's no comparison between Sunday and Tuesday for us this week. It's like a dimmer switch and they turned it up to 8/10 on the crowd-o-meter. Lots of adults - not a lot of school age children. Maybe they read the first few pages of this thread and changed their tickets? haha.

I would love some insight from an insider. It's difficult to figure this out given school's start.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

We are trying to figure it out. There's been a paradox - Sundays are less crowded than Mondays. Our theory is that weekend staffing is harder to find, so they constrained the park reservations to reflect that. There's no comparison between Sunday and Tuesday for us this week. It's like a dimmer switch and they turned it up to 8/10 on the crowd-o-meter. Lots of adults - not a lot of school age children. Maybe they read the first few pages of this thread and changed their tickets? haha.

I would love some insight from an insider. It's difficult to figure this out given school's start.

Man, what a difference a day makes! The app wait times alone are so much higher than yesterday. Wow.

I'm curious if any "insiders" have additional insight. These would be my theories:
1. The lower ticket prices, for sure. Many people simply go for "the cheapest option" and if they're going to go "sometime this week," they pick the cheap day. I actually intentionally took my MIL on a Monday even though it cost a little more so that we avoided the cheapest day for that reason. I would guess this is the main factor, honestly, as it's been pretty consistently the case all summer.

2. The perception of low crowds creates crowds (as often discussed here). This is currently hitting two ways: a) People look at the week and think, "The middle of the week will be least crowded" and pick that (plus, cheapest! Must be cheap because "no one is there" then!), and b) The low crowds recently have attracted people! Two people messaged me on IG yesterday and said they bought tickets for this week after seeing the low crowds and will upgrade them into Magic Keys next week. They can't be alone.

3. The fact that you can buy multi-day tickets and upgrade them into Magic Keys has worked its way across social media. Keep in mind that many local APs had "always" been APs, for many years, and wouldn't really think about buying a ticket and upgrading it. They'd only ever bought an AP. But there are, like, TikTok videos now advertising the "hack" that you can buy tickets and then turn them into APs (bolstered by the news that you could upgrade them "easily" in the app, which was reported for like a day and then retracted, but is still on all these cute social media videos). I saw a lot of posts about it this weekend.

4. Maybe the weather? A bit?

5. Also, ride breakdowns have been mentioned - those can significantly impact crowd levels. They funnel people around in weird ways. So if a few big rides have gone down, it's going to really change the feel of the parks.

Sunday's reservations didn't sell out, so it's not a result of Disney constraining reservations, though. It's just based on who wants to go, when.

Oh, to have access to Disney's data on park and ride attendance...

Hope everyone's having a good day in spite of more people. Definitely still looks lighter than most of last month.

 

[goldengate1]

Very insightful... we bought a 3 day california residents ticket.... I did not realize the one day tickets are less expensive on Tuesdays....

 

[Jason2015]

I wonder if it has to do with staffing-somewhat like a previous poster mention-but not that it's harder to get weekend staffing, but easier. With more staff they can run rides at a higher capacity. For example instead of one or two lanes at the autotropia they can run all four, both sides of Soaring can be loaded, they can direct and load RSR faster with greater staff. The less staff for the park, the less ride capacity, thus longer lines.

 

[Nonsuch]

...The Soarin line goes behind the building into an area I've never seen... 50 mins they say...

A Soarin CM told me one theater would soon be closed for refurbishment (then the other theater), so perhaps that work has started.

...Our theory is that weekend staffing is harder to find, so they constrained the park reservations to reflect that...

Park reservations are not currently constrained, all days are available

 

[Skyegirl1999]

I wonder if it has to do with staffing-somewhat like a previous poster mention-but not that it's harder to get weekend staffing, but easier. With more staff they can run rides at a higher capacity. For example instead of one or two lanes at the autotropia they can run all four, both sides of Soaring can be loaded, they can direct and load RSR faster with greater staff. The less staff for the park, the less ride capacity, thus longer lines.

Interesting point. They also schedule people in advance, so it could be that it took them awhile to lower staffing when crowds started to drop. So maybe they're intentionally staffing less people now/running rides at less capacity.

I was surprised yesterday to see Storybook Land had a ton of boats going by 8:30 - most of them were launching half-full; one boat went out with two guys on it all alone! I've been there when they're literally running four boats and you see them all repeatedly while you wait. So they clearly had that highly staffed.

I actually commented on it because I was like, "Huh, I thought reservations would end the days of overstaffing; I'm happy to be wrong!" But maybe it just took staffing awhile to catch up?

 

[PippensMcGee]

Hmmmmm, we're booked for this coming Tuesday (the 24) and now I'm wondering if we should switch to Monday....

 

[PirateBrigade]

3. The fact that you can buy multi-day tickets and upgrade them into Magic Keys has worked its way across social media. Keep in mind that many local APs had "always" been APs, for many years, and wouldn't really think about buying a ticket and upgrading it. They'd only ever bought an AP. But there are, like, TikTok videos now advertising the "hack" that you can buy tickets and then turn them into APs (bolstered by the news that you could upgrade them "easily" in the app, which was reported for like a day and then retracted, but is still on all these cute social media videos). I saw a lot of posts about it this weekend.

I loved this "hack" in the AP days (oh kids these days, it's not really a hack, just a known feature available based on the upgrading rules), it let you get into the parks on blackout days if they coincided with your pass start.

I remember intentionally letting my AP lapse and then buying a brand new one with tickets during blackout times, especially after they killed the renewal discount in the mid-aughts.

If it weren't for Delta var. (and school starting next week for my little one), we would have purchased 3 day tickets and upgraded into a pass. Heck, we were debating ditching the kids and taking advantage of the low crowd situation!

 

[brightlined]

Hmmmmm, we're booked for this coming Tuesday (the 24) and now I'm wondering if we should switch to Monday....

Might be worth noting that Tuesday is also the first Tier 1 (cheapest) one-day ticket day since the park re-opened.


(No idea if that'll make a difference - you could argue it either way - that it's expected to be dead, hence a Tier 1 day, or it'll be slammed because it's Tier 1.)

 

[PippensMcGee]

Might be worth noting that Tuesday is also the first Tier 1 (cheapest) one-day ticket day since the park re-opened.


(No idea if that'll make a difference - you could argue it either way - that it's expected to be dead, hence a Tier 1 day, or it'll be slammed because it's Tier 1.)

Yeah exactly. I didn't even choose that day because of the price per se, I just figured midweek was less likely to be crowded. I don't think I've been to DL since they introduced the tier system so I didn't really think of how it influenced crowds.