After our last trip, considering cancelling our Christmas 2018...

If you are only getting on 4 rides a day, you’re doing something wrong. I’m sorry, I don’t mean that to sound mean, but I have been there on extremely crowded days and between getting there early (rope drop or magic morning) fast passes (especially Max pass), we still get in plenty of rides. Heck, I can knock out 4 FL rides in the first hour or so. Did you have a touring plan in place? Did you use fast passes? Have park hoppers? Get there early? I’m trying to figure out how a person can only get on four rides in a day...

Totally agree. On the most packed days we at least get all the FL rides ( or the ones DD wants to go on which is at least 5). We have always gone when there is an 8 am opening and EMH/MM at 7 by 10 am we have done FL and HM, and jungle cruise , IASW and are over in toontown. All at a moderate pace enjoying our morning taking picture,s getting coffee inside. And that has been with 8 people every time. Although last time we went during a busy time was xmas 2013 and we did everything we did the time before.But i do understand it is busier now. But i would be pretty disappointed in myself if i only got my party to do 4 rides.I always have a plan. It does not always go accordingly and we can adjust to the flow of the day.

I am hoping the OP was just exaggerating and they didn't really only get 4 rides done.
 
I think a lot of the issue is perspective and expectations. My daughter and I were at DL Oct 3 - 11. There was definitely a difference in crowd levels over the weekend, but even then, the only time I felt uncomfortably "packed" was the evening we chose to do Fantasmic. The whole area between Pirates and HM gets ridiculous and dangerous when Fantasmic is showing.

As far as crowding and APs go... many seem to forget that first and foremost Disney is a business and as such, the primary goal is to get as many butts through the gate as allowed by law. There will always be arguments here about which guests are more important or better than everyone else. Honestly? Every guest is important in their own way. Disney will never tell a specific group of people that they aren't welcome in their park because it's crowded, nor should they.

Is it crowded? Yes. But let's face one very important detail... if the parks were always empty and the rides all walk on so that Johnny and Susie could have the perfect vacation of their dreams, Disneyland would not be able to keep the gates open.

Your vacation is what you make of it. Go with an open mind and be flexible. Are you going to be able to do every single thing you want? No. But you will still do a lot and have a great time if you allow yourself the opportunity.

Rude people: there are rude people EVERYWHERE. this is not a phenomenon unique to Disneyland. The only attitudes we can control are our own. If each one of us focuses on our own behavior and treating others the way we would like to be treated, the world would be a much happier place. It all boils down to how we handle it. Do we let it ruin our trip, or do we let it go and move on to enjoying our day? The choice is ours.

I saw a woman fixing her kids in a stroller and then literally just push it through a group of people without so much as a look or break in stride. She sent a young girl flying, as she was the most directly in the woman's path. I stopped to be sure the girl was ok. She said "yup, I'm fine" and bopped off with her family on their way. I thought this was a great way to handle it. Getting angry or starting a fight with the woman wouldn't solve anything, would only make your day unhappy.

Let's face it, people can be real jerks when they want to. That's not something that changes when they walk through the gates of Disneyland. The change needs to be within ourselves on how we will deal with unhappy circumstances.

At this point I'm rambling on and don't even remember where I was going... so I will shut up now. :)
 
If you are only getting on 4 rides a day, you’re doing something wrong. I’m sorry, I don’t mean that to sound mean, but I have been there on extremely crowded days and between getting there early (rope drop or magic morning) fast passes (especially Max pass), we still get in plenty of rides. Heck, I can knock out 4 FL rides in the first hour or so. Did you have a touring plan in place? Did you use fast passes? Have park hoppers? Get there early? I’m trying to figure out how a person can only get on four rides in a day...

I'm confused, too. Even when my kids were young enough that we left the park for naps, we still got more done in one day. I am also trying to figure out how you only get 4 rides done in an entire day....
 


Thanks everyone for your insights! Sorry I've been off for the weekend - DH came down with a nasty flu! I do want to clarify a few things - first, we still overall enjoyed our trip, I didn't come away hating Disneyland by any means, we simply were not prepared for the crowds. I had never even heard of Gay Days until about a month ago, so I didn't know to look into it - that is totally on me, and I accept that! :) Lesson learned and now we know World is our happy place for October! :) We did get to ride all of our favorite rides, so the concern wasn't really around not being able to do our favorites, it was about how packed it was and how rude the crowds were.

I love DL but if the crowds ruined your trip I don't know that I would try the first couple weeks of Dec. What used to be a quiet time in the parks is now the last chance APs have to see all the Christmas stuff & crowds are bigger than they used to be. DL is especially magical at Christmas but WDW has a lot to offer as well and that way you don't have to worry about crowds ruining your trip. (Huh, surprised myself with this recommendation. As I said LOVE DL- but the crowds this weekend looked horrible, AWFUL tbh I would have miserable fwiw & I was there happy as a clam just a couple weeks ago... I really wish there was an AP count released somewhere! That would tell us if locals were the prob (more likely early Dec will be crazy) or out of state people on vacay (Columbus holiday, and Gay days? Idk if they coincide often, was the prob).

Can you plan for both right now? Refundable deposits on each option (if you're at that stage) and then make a call after you see reports from early Dec 2017?

We decided to go with World for Christmas next year. BFF and I are taking a girls only trip to Land in January, and while I know to expect closures, I am looking forward to a hopefully slower trip!

@monorailrabbit "when the app was working" OMG YES. It went down from 2pm to 7pm the Sat I was there in Sept- it kinda worked super intermittently. No wonder they can't raise the price yet. Felt so bad for CMs, people were upset, wanted refunds and had to be reminded refunds aren't a thing on MP. I feel like CMs should have a sign at each service location "even if MP is inaccessible, no refunds will be issued as per the terms and conditions" just to help keep the badgering of the CMs down to a minimum- it's not like they can fix it!

Yes!! I saw a family freak out around 3:00 one day because, like me, they were trying to snag the coveted Monsters FP and those go in a matter of minutes! I just sat and quietly festered as I hit refresh over and over, but this family was yelling, cursing, dad even threw his phone! It is maddening when it won't load, and I had to call IT a few times because my photos wouldn't sync and kept prompting me to re-buy them, but when it was working it was AWESOME! HUGE potential there! Although they are SO close to having MagicBands, I just wish they would do it. Way easier than fishing out a ticket at every ride. (I know they've said they will never do it, but I can still dream!)

I think the occasional out of town visitor does have different expectations from a local AP holder. They really have to since they can't just pop back in next weekend if they miss doing some things.

Yes, while I will be fortunate to pop back in in January, the next time DH and I will make it back is unknown. At least 2 years at best. And we are new to the world of Disneyland, Disney World is our "home" and we are much more effective at planning those trips it seems. I just felt so bad that I missed all of the perfect storms to create the crazy crowds. Totally my fault, but still disappointing.
 
Thanks everyone for your insights! Sorry I've been off for the weekend - DH came down with a nasty flu! I do want to clarify a few things - first, we still overall enjoyed our trip, I didn't come away hating Disneyland by any means, we simply were not prepared for the crowds. I had never even heard of Gay Days until about a month ago, so I didn't know to look into it - that is totally on me, and I accept that! :) Lesson learned and now we know World is our happy place for October! :) We did get to ride all of our favorite rides, so the concern wasn't really around not being able to do our favorites, it was about how packed it was and how rude the crowds were.



We decided to go with World for Christmas next year. BFF and I are taking a girls only trip to Land in January, and while I know to expect closures, I am looking forward to a hopefully slower trip!



Yes!! I saw a family freak out around 3:00 one day because, like me, they were trying to snag the coveted Monsters FP and those go in a matter of minutes! I just sat and quietly festered as I hit refresh over and over, but this family was yelling, cursing, dad even threw his phone! It is maddening when it won't load, and I had to call IT a few times because my photos wouldn't sync and kept prompting me to re-buy them, but when it was working it was AWESOME! HUGE potential there! Although they are SO close to having MagicBands, I just wish they would do it. Way easier than fishing out a ticket at every ride. (I know they've said they will never do it, but I can still dream!)



Yes, while I will be fortunate to pop back in in January, the next time DH and I will make it back is unknown. At least 2 years at best. And we are new to the world of Disneyland, Disney World is our "home" and we are much more effective at planning those trips it seems. I just felt so bad that I missed all of the perfect storms to create the crazy crowds. Totally my fault, but still disappointing.
How do magic bands work-wifi? Maybe that's why they'll never be able to do them!
 


As far as crowding and APs go... many seem to forget that first and foremost Disney is a business and as such, the primary goal is to get as many butts through the gate as allowed by law. There will always be arguments here about which guests are more important or better than everyone else. Honestly? Every guest is important in their own way. Disney will never tell a specific group of people that they aren't welcome in their park because it's crowded, nor should they.

If you take this as face value...then yes you're correct and every guest is important to Disney. But the reality is, its the people who plan their trip and spend several nights and several thousand dollars that are the most important for Disney. Yes, they love catering to the local APs, but we're not gonna spend large sums of money at the park on each visit. In fact, I always challenge myself and my wife try spend under $100 when we all for a few hours and under $50 when I go with just my daughter.
Disney is there to make a profit and APs are not their target.
 
If you take this as face value...then yes you're correct and every guest is important to Disney. But the reality is, its the people who plan their trip and spend several nights and several thousand dollars that are the most important for Disney. Yes, they love catering to the local APs, but we're not gonna spend large sums of money at the park on each visit. In fact, I always challenge myself and my wife try spend under $100 when we all for a few hours and under $50 when I go with just my daughter.
Disney is there to make a profit and APs are not their target.

agreed, I think their model (and it's the most profitable) is that APs are the low-hanging fruit and that profit fills in the gaps, but the $10k vacationers who stay onsite and eat every meal onsite and go home with tons of souvenirs are their target.
 
Let me start off by saying we still love Disneyland. We had lots of great experiences this trip (OMG GotG!!!!) We went last year for the 60th and loved every second of it! However, we were not prepared for the crowds this past week. It really took the fun out of it for us. We did a week at WDW, then 4 days at DLR. DLR was so packed most nights we could barely move in some spots. I know there was Gay Days on the weekend we arrived (I didn't know about this until it was too late to change dates), but we were hoping it would slow down Monday & Tuesday and it didn't. While we were able to take advantage of MaxPass for most rides (when the app was actually working, but that's another issue), the park atmosphere was more chaotic than fun for us.While World was crowded, it wasn't like this. Not sure if it's because of the park layout and bottle neck areas or what exactly. We also noticed a lot more un-friendly people this trip. Lots of line cutting, pushing and shoving, rude and inappropriate comments, really surprising to us. We tried to enjoy the party, but we were so tired and burnt out we just didn't enjoy ourselves much. We were going to plan a vacation in early December 2018, but if it's worse than this, I think we might just stick with World for our holiday fix. If we go in December is it like this? How do you guys enjoy yourselves with a park this packed?
We were at the parks about the same time as you. We also thought the crowds were a bit much, but maybe we weren't as affected by it since we are used to the DL crowd levels as of late. Maxpass was amazing and I loved being able to book a FP from the line, or not have to run across the park to get a new one. We have never been to WDW and are seriously considering it. The amount of planning involved freaks me out a bit, but it would be nice to be able to not feel the push of the crowds like you do at DLR.
 
We were at the parks about the same time as you. We also thought the crowds were a bit much, but maybe we weren't as affected by it since we are used to the DL crowd levels as of late. Maxpass was amazing and I loved being able to book a FP from the line, or not have to run across the park to get a new one. We have never been to WDW and are seriously considering it. The amount of planning involved freaks me out a bit, but it would be nice to be able to not feel the push of the crowds like you do at DLR.

DLR always has a different feel than WDW. I like aspects about each, but am more familiar/comfortable with World. Honestly I liked MP better than FP+ with the exception of missing Magic Bands. While it's nice to lock in your FP 60 days out at World, we were able to do so much more on the fly with MP and I loved that! Also, WDW app is MILES above DLR app as far as reliability. There is definitely more to plan for WDW, but I am one of the odd people that actually enjoy that. I get stressed out waiting for DLR to release their calendars because I'm used to grabbing my ADRs 180 days out. I think WDW just has more open spaces to gobble up crowds so even if it is more crowded, I don't feel it as much if that makes sense? I love both, and I love that they are different, I just need to adjust my planning for Land in the future :)
 
We went ON the 4th this year and it was DEAD. So enjoyable! I highly recommend coming that week. Many locals head to the beach.
I am agonizing over which week to choose for July of 2018! Everything I read says to avoid the first week in July because of the 4th except for Touring Plans crowd calendars don't look that bad! Were you there in July of 2017 and what dates? Would love some advice and recent personal experience! Thank you
 
I am agonizing over which week to choose for July of 2018! Everything I read says to avoid the first week in July because of the 4th except for Touring Plans crowd calendars don't look that bad! Were you there in July of 2017 and what dates? Would love some advice and recent personal experience! Thank you

This year was the first year we actually went ON the 4th but we live 15 minutes away so we go a lot. I have never found July to be crowded. At all. We always go once or twice a week in the summer to have something to do. We moved back to this area from the East coast in June 2015. So, for at least the last 2 years we have visited the parks throughout the month of July.

I have a Signature Pass, my husband and kids have Deluxes. I often go solo or with friends on Saturdays and the ones in July are my favorite because the Deluxe passes are also blacked out. It is practically dead on those days. It's wonderful.

Oh, and for the record, Touring Plans is NEVER accurate for DL anymore. Don't rely on that data at all. It is so off it's ridiculous.

I would recommend the first week of July.
 
I am agonizing over which week to choose for July of 2018! Everything I read says to avoid the first week in July because of the 4th except for Touring Plans crowd calendars don't look that bad! Were you there in July of 2017 and what dates? Would love some advice and recent personal experience! Thank you
I was in the parks this past year on July 1, 4, and 8 and it was not crowded at all. On July 8 space mountain FPs were only 40 minutes out in the late afternoon for reference.
 
After feeling like sardines yesterday...now I get what everyone was saying about the crowds. Yesterday I got there late afternoon and Main Street felt packed!!! Lucky for us, we were only there for a couple of hours.
I've gone almost every other week or so and it was the first time I felt the crowds being really bad
 
After feeling like sardines yesterday...now I get what everyone was saying about the crowds. Yesterday I got there late afternoon and Main Street felt packed!!! Lucky for us, we were only there for a couple of hours.
I've gone almost every other week or so and it was the first time I felt the crowds being really bad

Yesterday was HORRIBLE! I was having an anxiety attack the whole time. We only went to ride Big Thunder and the Teacups. Lunch was a freaking circus...lines were unbelievable and of course my kids wanted different things than me and my husband. I'm glad we could just bail out after a few hours. I don't understand how they can justify packing the people in like that. It was ridiculous.
 
After feeling like sardines yesterday...now I get what everyone was saying about the crowds. Yesterday I got there late afternoon and Main Street felt packed!!! Lucky for us, we were only there for a couple of hours.
I've gone almost every other week or so and it was the first time I felt the crowds being really bad

Yesterday was HORRIBLE! I was having an anxiety attack the whole time. We only went to ride Big Thunder and the Teacups. Lunch was a freaking circus...lines were unbelievable and of course my kids wanted different things than me and my husband. I'm glad we could just bail out after a few hours. I don't understand how they can justify packing the people in like that. It was ridiculous.

This is exactly why we avoid UEA weekend! After going through the same experiences several years in a row (and the worst was the year Utah, Arizona, and Nevada all had their school breaks the same weekend! NOS was really scary that weekend), we now mark our calendars so we know to avoid the parks during UEA. For us, it just isn't worth the stress.
 
This is exactly why we avoid UEA weekend! After going through the same experiences several years in a row (and the worst was the year Utah, Arizona, and Nevada all had their school breaks the same weekend! NOS was really scary that weekend), we now mark our calendars so we know to avoid the parks during UEA. For us, it just isn't worth the stress.

I feel stupid asking this, but what's UEA?
 
I feel stupid asking this, but what's UEA?

Utah Educators Assoc. They hold a state-wide teachers convention every year so it is a long holiday weekend for all Utah schools and many head to DL. Usually the 3rd weekend in October.

WDW has its own version, called "Jersey Week," in early November. Also based around a state-wide teachers convention and also a long weekend, a lot of people stretch it into a full week off. It also coincides witr5h Fall breaks throughout parts of New England.
 
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