What about Memorial Day weekend????

[angelat]

My DH, DD, DS and I all went to WDW in April of ’08 and stayed offsite. We are playing with the idea of going back to WDW in May of next year. My DH only gets 5 days of vacation for the year so he doesn’t really want to go for a full week. We are limited with dates since the kids are in school and have testing etc. So, at first I was thinking we could go the evening of Friday, May 21st to the late afternoon of Tuesday, May 25th. That would give us 4 nights and almost 4 days and DH only uses 2 vacation days. (Kids are off that Monday too – so they only miss 1 day)

Now, my other thought I need some opinions on. How busy is Memorial Day weekend?? I’m looking to know what the wait times for rides are and if it’s shoulder to shoulder. Also, I read something somewhere regarding Resort Guest get preference in entrance when the parks are closed due to capacity. Is this true??

I was looking at leaving for WDW Wednesday night May 26th and returning home on Monday evening May 31st. Am I crazy for thinking this??? It gives us an extra day.

 

[JUJU814]

My DH, DD, DS and I all went to WDW in April of ’08 and stayed offsite. We are playing with the idea of going back to WDW in May of next year. My DH only gets 5 days of vacation for the year so he doesn’t really want to go for a full week. We are limited with dates since the kids are in school and have testing etc. So, at first I was thinking we could go the evening of Friday, May 21st to the late afternoon of Tuesday, May 25th. That would give us 4 nights and almost 4 days and DH only uses 2 vacation days. (Kids are off that Monday too – so they only miss 1 day)

Now, my other thought I need some opinions on. How busy is Memorial Day weekend?? I’m looking to know what the wait times for rides are and if it’s shoulder to shoulder. Also, I read something somewhere regarding Resort Guest get preference in entrance when the parks are closed due to capacity. Is this true??

I was looking at leaving for WDW Wednesday night May 26th and returning home on Monday evening May 31st. Am I crazy for thinking this??? It gives us an extra day.

I have been twice on memorial day weekend and it was packed both times..*really* packed. This was three and four years ago.

 

[hstrickland]

We went Memorial Day weekend in 08. Yes, it was crowded, but we still had a blast. My husband and I lived in Orlando for 5 years. Disney, to my knowledge, has never closed down the parks on Memorial Day due to crowd levels. If you go knowing in advance that there will be lots of people, then you can plan accordingly. Last year we used touringplans.com and it worked really well. We did EVERYTHING at the parks even with the crowds. Guess it's all what you make it.

Happy Planning!

 

[angelat]

We went Memorial Day weekend in 08. Yes, it was crowded, but we still had a blast. My husband and I lived in Orlando for 5 years. Disney, to my knowledge, has never closed down the parks on Memorial Day due to crowd levels. If you go knowing in advance that there will be lots of people, then you can plan accordingly. Last year we used touringplans.com and it worked really well. We did EVERYTHING at the parks even with the crowds. Guess it's all what you make it.

Happy Planning!

Thank you for that info. It was helpful. I know I've heard that the parks have been closed due to crowd levels at Easter. I wasn't sure if it was as bad at Memorial Day.

Thanks again!
Angela

 

[tzolkin]

We've gone the past two years for 9 and 12 days with Memorial Day weekend in the middle of our trip.

It was crowded, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We took advantage of the morning EMHs (were able to get through most of our "must-dos" during that time) and also used FP for most of the major attractions. We regularly saw lines of two hours or more during the busiest times, but we never waited in any line more than 20 mins. If you're willing to get up in the morning and think a bit about using FP wisely you should be able to see everything you want. We went for long trips, but we didn't spend that many hours in the parks (we usually went back to the resort for 4-5 hours in the afternoon and only stayed out until 8:30 or so)

It was much less crowded before the weekend and crowds started to thin out a bit the following week (but were still larger than the previous week).

 

[Lakeside Pirate]

We went Memorial Day weekend in '05 and it also coincided with Star Wars weekend at Disney Hollywood Studios. It was the most crowed I have seen at DHS. After Saturday and Sunday the crowds went back down though. The other parks were busy but not horrible.