When do crowds clear out after New Year's?

[Snoozan]

I'm trying to plan a trip for next January 2016. With Jan 1st on a Friday, will the bulk of the Christmas visitors leave on that Saturday or Sunday? If we come in on Saturday, I'm hoping that our first full day in the park would be Sunday, 1/3/16 but am trying to avoid heavy crowds.

Also, does anyone know when Christmas decorations/Osborne Lights come down? I'm going with DS & family, who have never seen them.

 

[Robo]

I'm trying to plan a trip for next January 2016. With Jan 1st on a Friday, will the bulk of the Christmas visitors leave on that Saturday or Sunday? If we come in on Saturday, I'm hoping that our first full day in the park would be Sunday, 1/3/16 but am trying to avoid heavy crowds.

Also, does anyone know when Christmas decorations/Osborne Lights come down? I'm going with DS & family, who have never seen them.

The crowds don't "clear out" like they used to a few years ago.
Also, schools have recently delayed return to the classrooms for an extra week into the new year.
That can make a big difference.

We just got back from a Jan. 6-15 trip.

The crowds at MK were H U G E nearly every day of our trip.
The other parks were quite busy for that first week (Jan. 6-11, too.)
The crowds (especially at the non-MK parks) fell off after Jan. 11 (the marathon,)
but it was not exactly "low crowds" even after that.

Most Christmas decorations were up through Jan. 11 (some even later.)
Expect the Osborne Lights last night to be Jan. 4-6, or so.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

We were there for 2 weeks around the marathon in 2014 - arrived the Wednesday before the marathon. Crowds were not "September" low, but they were comfortably low. We were very happy with the crowd levels, and we are a family that would rather not go to WDW at all than fight crowds.

Those of us who have been going regularily for decades remember times when there were many "September" crowd level times of the year. Those times appear to be gone. But January is still a great time to go.

 

[GovieMom]

The week after New Years draws tons of foreign visitors (South America and the UK). Colleges and universities are still on break then as well. Add to that schools that have extended break, plus people there for the upcoming marathon, and you should find, at the least, moderate crowd levels.

 

[justme0729]

We were there 12/31-1/8 and towards the end it was definitely less crowded than 1/1-1/3 but it was still pretty busy. Very manageable if hit the parks for rope drop though!

 

[suzzzze]

Here now and Animal Kingdom was packed today. Hope crowd levels go down

 

[Micca]

We've been going to WDW since the late 70s, and things have definitely changed. There used to be some "there's nobody here" days, but those days are either gone, or so few & far between that they're tough to find. Now there's mostly just "busy", "really busy", and "OMG we could hardly move."

To Disney's credit, this is what's behind all the FP+ implementation. It can make busy days palatable. No matter how crazy it gets, there are ways to get on the most popular rides without waiting for 100 minutes. Well...at least that's the idea, there may be some kinks in the system.

Upside: Look at all the data available to make your trip special. You learn the advantages of rope-drop, avoiding EMH days, etc.

 

[SuperTink]

We were there Jan.12-16. The only park that wasn't busy on any day was AK.