Theme Parks are Empty!!!!!

[Dmcuth]

The reason is simple. Sunday was an EMH at MK and you went the next morning. A friend of mine went for the first time this week and asked for my advice. I gave him an hours guide and told him the formula, go early and hit the parks with EMH the night before. Forget all the tour guides and overplanning, do that and you will be fine. He texted me from MK yesterday giving me a big thanks, reporting also that there were no lines. Plus with the heat you can't beat getting so much done before lunch (his wife is 4 months pregnant too).

By the way, I really don't think Free Dining increases the crowds greatly. We were there last year the last week of August and into the 1st week of Sept. when it started and the crowds were as light as they usually are that time. Of course as the word spreads we'll see.

 

[SHISHI]

May this be so next week!!!! thanks for the report.

I'm with you!!!!!!

 

[alleghator]

The reason is simple. Sunday was an EMH at MK and you went the next morning. A friend of mine went for the first time this week and asked for my advice. I gave him an hours guide and told him the formula, go early and hit the parks with EMH the night before.

I sure hope this works. I just double-checked the hours, and five of our six parks days are the day after evening EMHs. Excellent!

 

[xApril]

I was at Magic Kingdom this Sunday. We got there around like noon time because my dad's friends were driving up from wherever they lived. It was pretty busy. It might be dead in the morning, but it definitely wasn't dead later on. The crowds weren't too bad but we still had 40 minutes for Jungle Cruise, 20 for Pirates, 50 for Thunder, 80 for Splash, 20 for Haunted Mansion, etc. I guess now that I think about it, the lines weren't too bad.

Went to Epcot yesterday. Mission Space was 50 minutes for orange.. line was outside and was longer than 50 minutes. Waited 20 minutes for a fastpass for Test Track. 70 minute wait for Soarin' around 7:30pm. 20 minutes for Maelstrom, 20 for Spaceship Earth, etc. Once again, we arrived later, but we'd have eventually gotten to that point where it was busy anyways..?

 

[dairyqueenmom]

I hope this continues for the next week. I did read somewhere that when they came out with free dining everyone who had vacations booked this week and next moved them to after Aug 16th(when free dining starts). We are DVC, so ineligible for free dining so it didn't affect our traveling plans. We have never traveled in the summer so I am hoping for lower crowds.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Is it just me, or do the parks seem really empty this week?


We were at Magic Kingdom yesterday when it opened, and walked right onto Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Phiharmagic, and Small world. We were at the park less than 90 minutes and rode all of these attractions with absolutely NO wait time whatsoever.

Were we just extremely lucky, or are the parks empty for a reason? School doesn't start back for another week or so.........at least that's what I thought.

This is where I come in and say that yesterday was a great day to be at MK, because they had an evening EMH the day before. Generally, crowd levels in a park are lower the day after an evening EMH.

 

[WiscMomof2]

Great news

Crossing my fingers for next week to be the same!

 

[jdd]

I sure hope this works. I just double-checked the hours, and five of our six parks days are the day after evening EMHs. Excellent!

Us too! Didn't do that on purpose but 4 of our 6 days are the day after evening EMHS, and one that isn't is DHS, which we don't really care about. We'll be in and out of there by lunch time

There's another thread going about how crowds are down - hope this keeps up....

 

[the chick & the duck]

This is the first time my family has been here in August so I'm not sure how it compares to past years. MK was pretty empty on Saturday even though we didn't get to the park until almost noon. Disney Studios seemed pretty busy to me on Sunday and we arrived at park opening. Would have worked out better if I hadn't went straight to Toy Story Mania to get fast passes right out of the gate. Stood in line nearly 20 minutes for the fast passes and return time was after 11, which kind of set us back on fast passes and/or stand by lines for Aerosmith and Tower. Toy Story was pretty neat, but I must say I really don't understand why its popularity is so tremendous. I have two kids, ages 6 and 3 and my advice to parents similarly situated is not to let this ride shape your day. The kids are too small to understand the game and so you end up trying to help them out and basically nobody gets the full fun from the ride. I'd skip it all together if I had it to do over again. Animal Kingdom magic hours were nice last night and Expedition Everest line went really fast. The line looked really long, but really moved. Less than 20 minutes both times we did it. On a final note, my guess is that if you get to the parks for opening, you'll be in great shape for doing lots of rides with little wait.

 

[n2mm]

We arrive August 20 and I hope we see some of this... but I bet the crowds return soon with free dining plans in hand!


Anyone know what is the first day of free dining?

Free dining starts August 16th.

We arrive August 14th, but not doing free dining. (DVC)

 

[TracyK]

We arrive August 20 and I hope we see some of this... but I bet the crowds return soon with free dining plans in hand!


Anyone know what is the first day of free dining?

Has already started on August 2 for people from the UK

 

[danalea10]

I am glad you didn't have much of a wait and I too hope the crowds are low in a couple of weeks we arrive the 16th and we did move our vacation back a week because of free dining. what site do you check emh for the parks I am interested to see if we will be at the parks on those days!

 

[flip.daddy]

We did Epcot today.

Due to checking in at Bay Lake Tower, and hanging around for a while looking at everything, we got there pretty late (like 12:30 or so).


From the monorail, the crowds looked AWFUL!!! However, once we got into the "crowd", it really didn't seem bad at all. Nemo (like always) had a 150 minute wait, and Test Track had an 80 minute wait. Other than that, everything was very manageable.

 

[rainbows]

I hope it stays quiet all of August !!

 

[gatorchinsky]

I am so happy to hear this. I hope everyone there right now is having a great time. We are going to try and hit the parks with AM EMH because we always get up early, even if we are on vacation, and then leave early afternoon to go back and rest. We leave Saturday for our 7 night stay and are very excited. I have been looking on Disney's website to see if there was any availability at the Value or Moderates for my same week and they all have availability except for CSR. I then looked for the week starting the day we leave (which is beginning of free dining) and the only availability were very expensive suites in the Deluxe resorts. It appears that most people decided to wait for free dining.

 

[supersuperwendy]

We are DVC and had originally booked Dream Season but wanted to save on some points so we switched to Aug. 16 thinking free dining wouldn't be till later in the month...haha silly us! Crossing our fingers for no crowds!

 

[DisneyDoc1895]

We did Epcot today.



From the monorail, the crowds looked AWFUL!!! However, once we got into the "crowd", it really didn't seem bad at all. Nemo (like always) had a 150 minute wait, and Test Track had an 80 minute wait. Other than that, everything was very manageable.

Huh? 150 minute wait for Nemo? Typo?

 

[whitneyNC]

Huh? 150 minute wait for Nemo? Typo?

Exactly! I've never seen 150 minutes for Soarin'! We walked on Nemo in '08.

 

[mom2taylorandemily]

I hope the crowds stay low, we check in on the 15th and are so looking forward to our first summer trip to the world.

 

[flip.daddy]

Huh? 150 minute wait for Nemo? Typo?

I promise you it was 150

We were SHOCKED

I've walked right on a few times. Maybe it was because it was so darn hot and folks were trying to avoid the sun, but it was the craziest thing......


We didn't go to the ride to find out, I'm just quoting what we saw on the monitor in the park.