When is it slowest?

[OneMoreTry]

When is the slowest time at WDW from mid-Sept to mid-Nov?

 

[Scoootch]

I've found it to be slowest in Sept. right after labor day until mid-Oct./early Nov. before Thanksgiving as you mention and then also Late Jan./early Feb. before Presidents day week and early May...there seems to be a 3week window or so between when spring break ends and the kids here in FL get out of school...then of course the rest of the country gets out of school in June.

But so far since I've gotten to visit all year round' those seem to be the quietest

 

[MiaSRN62]

We found it to be quite crowded (had 90+ min waits for most of the popular attractions) during the first week of Nov, 2004. This week hasn't always been like this though....I can remember it being pretty quiet during '99 and '01 when we went.
But in 2002, we visited during the last week of Sept and it was terrific. We walked on everything.

 

[Caskbill]

For the time you mentioned, September is definitely the slowest, and then it gradually picks up in crowds all the way to Thanksgiving.

For later dates, it slows down considerably after Thanksgiving, that's the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, then getting huge crowds after Christmas and through New Year's. In January it drops considerably.

The 1st two weeks of December is a great time, but I've noticed the crowds have been picking up over the years as more and more people discover this 'magical' time period....which is our favorite.

 

[JerJan]

We were there 10/05 to 10/12/03 and 01/15 to 01/22/05 and we were walking on to rides with no waiting!! We even walked right on to "Test Track" in January!

 

[MCO bound]

We found it to be quite crowded (had 90+ min waits for most of the popular attractions) during the first week of Nov, 2004. This week hasn't always been like this though....I can remember it being pretty quiet during '99 and '01 when we went.
But in 2002, we visited during the last week of Sept and it was terrific. We walked on everything.

2004 was unusually crowded at that time of year because of all of the hurricanes that happened just a few months before. All the August and September reservations were cancelled and rebooked for October and November when there is and was lots of availability to rebook. I'm going this October again and hoping that there won't be any hurricanes to cause rebookings again.

 

[Pa@okw95]

When is the slowest time at WDW from mid-Sept to mid-Nov?

Mid-Sept would be the slowest during that time period.

 

[ferastu]

In 2004 we went the end of Sept/beginning of Oct during the hurricane, Jeanne, I believe.

The first two days after the storm were pretty crowded due to schools being closed.

However, after that it was GREAT. We literally went through Space Mountain 5 times in a row without a wait. The only significant wait was for Test Track, and that is because it had shut down for a half hour.

We plan on making either that week or the beginning of Dec our regular time to go.

 

[ATCMickey]

Hi all,

We spent 2 weeks in Oct 04 at SOG and BCV. The parks were PACKED every day. About a week into the trip my DW and I looked at each other and remarked that it seemed that just about everyone around us seemed to have a British accent. We finally asked a couple next to us in line if there was some sort of special event or travel special going on from Britain. They said that Oct for them is equivalent to our spring break in March. Said all the kids are off school in Oct and it's a big travel time. Can anyone confirm?

Prior to this trip we've frequenly travelled in Oct and found the crowds manageable. The lines this trip were as long as any I've seen during peak summer months. Don't know if it's just a return to the pre-9/11 levels or if something else is affecting it, but we finally just put off the parks until later in the evening until the crowds thinned out. In spite of holding APs, we probably spent less time in the parks this trip than any before. Just got tired of rude people, in long lines, with little/no respect for those around them. Lots of line jumping and folks with no respect for anyone but themselves. Went to Blizzard Beach one day (packed). About 1:00 pm we tried to find just one (1) chair for my 5 year old to sit on (wasn't feeling too good). Saw an area with 20 chairs all sitting vacant (no towels on them). Went over to the area and politely asked a woman sitting nearby if we could use just one chair for a little bit. She barked at me that ALL of the chairs were theirs. I very respectfully commented that there was no one around and asked if we could use one for just a little bit for my son. She said they were being saved for people in their group that were in the pool and that they'd be back. 20 CHAIRS...all being saved and none could be shared for a few minutes for a 5 year old...my DW and I were going to just sit on the ground. My DW and I just looked at each other in disbelief. Is this really what things had come to. Our 2 weeks were consistently filled with very similar experiences.

We just finally tired of having folks cut in front of us in line and unsupervised kids with foul mouths that really scared the kids. In 30+ Disney trips, this was really the worst. IMHO, the combination of large crowds, dwindling CMs to keep order, and some folks with a "my vacation is the only thing that matters" mentality merged to create the perfect storm. I don't know that these factors are seasonal and we may have experienced this at another time. We love staying at DVC. This time we just ended up opting to spend a much larger share of our daytime activity off Disney property. I can deal with large crowds as long as folks can be civil to each other. Hopefully this was just an isolated experience. This Oct trip was really discouraging. We'll try it again next Oct but will definitely spend our daytime activities elsewhere if this continues to be a trend.

ATCMickey

 

[DebbieDVC]

We stayed at BCV the 3rd week of Oct 2004. We had been the previous year in Oct (first week) and the crowds were very manageable. This year we were amazed the first day in the parks how unbareably crowded it was (Sat).DH was incredibly annoyed with rude people and overcrowding. We had never been to MK while it was so crowded. We went away from tradition and went over to DTD for the remainder of our first day. Even DTD was incredibly busy. We asked some CM's on their take on why so busy....the hurricanes played a very large part as a lot of trips were indeed rescheduled. In addition, this was the beginning of the food and wine festival at Epcot. There was also a huge IT convention at the swan/dolphin which I believe was completely booked so other attendees were in other WDW resorts. We too were amazed how rude people were.

This year we will be going the 1st wk of October. Food and Wine festival is starting early this year. This could make things busier in October than September, along with the start of the MNSSHP. We are hoping that last year was a fluke and that the crowds will be much more manageble this year. Maybe all the rude people will stay home.

 

[ton80]

stayed last year at BWV the week before thanksgiving and was very
quiet all around no waiting for just about any ride we chose.
Going to SSR this year 11/13 thru 11/19 right after the F&W festival
ends and hopefully will be slow then too..

 

[spiceycat]

during the food/wine festavial plus that golf thing it can get crowded. Sept 30-nov 13.

so on your list mid sept, january is also a very slow time.