Crowds REALLY large right now?

[lisa cameron]

I usually get around 10 FPs in a full day at MK, and I've gotten as many as 15 in one day, though that was 2 years ago. That number is lower at other parks simply because there are less rides, but I typically get anywhere from 6-8 or so during a full day at the other parks as well. And this includes multiple rides on E-ticket rides. I was there a few weeks ago and used 9 FPs in 6 hours at MK. I MUCH prefer the new system. Just as many if not more rides, and a lot less work with no running around from one ride to the next to then have to go back to that ride later in the day to ride it.

What time of day did you start using your fast passes, immediately or late morning after you got in an hour or 2 before lines start to pick up?

 

[disneygirlsng]

What time of day did you start using your fast passes, immediately or late morning after you got in an hour or 2 before lines start to pick up?

Park opened at 8 and first fastpass was at 9:30, so about an hour and a half after the park opened. We walked on to 4 or 5 rides in that time frame, I don't think fastpasses are necessary in that first hour or so.

 

[NJlauren]

Last week was a school vacation week for religious Jewish school all over the country. I’m not saying it had a huge impact but I know 3 family’s that went because of this. This may be playing a roll as well.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

But with the Legacy system, or the system at DL, I'm getting about 6 FPs a day. And that's getting multiple FPs for E-tickets like Space Mt or Indiana Jones. If all I got was 4 FPs, that would be like me showing up at the parks at Noon and leaving after dinner. Adding more FP machines just tends to mess things up. Seems like they broke something that didn't need fixing. But....I haven't tried it for myself yet, so I probably shouldn't judge yet. It just SEEMS awful. And perception is nine tenths of the law, right?

You do need to give it a try. I think over the last two years since they moved to getting additional FPs on your phone the system has really improved a lot. If you arrange your FPs well pps are correct that you can go from FP to FP most of the day pretty easily. Some people have great luck with headliners, other times getting them seems spotty. There was someone reporting yesterday that she saw Space Mtn come up 5 times but didn’t see it at all the day before so it seems to just depend. But if you pre-book the most popular rides early-ish you can then move from FP to FP on any of the less popular rides you want to go on in pretty quick succession. It really is a lot more efficient than it was with the FP+ kiosks (I never used paper so I can’t speak to that).

But it takes a different mindset than the old FP+ philosophy that lots of rides are not “worth” FPs. I have an afternoon planned where we will go from Buzz to TLSW to teacups to Dumbo to Barnstormer. The plan is to get FP for each of them in succession as 4+. Do I need them to be FP? No. But it makes them the almost walk-ons they used to be prior to FP+. I will shave maybe 15 mins off each mid afternoon which is over an hour saved in total. You can easily get things like HM and PoTC. You can pretty easily get TT and Soarin and EE. You may get multiple rides on headliners (YMMV though). And you don’t have to be separated from your family to run around the park.

If you use FP+ this way I think you’ll find that while maybe not as good as the pre-FP days when lower tier rides were walk on but a really nice balance of getting guaranteed headliners and then short waits on most other things with not very much effort.

 

[Mom2Stitch]

Last week was a school vacation week for religious Jewish school all over the country. I’m not saying it had a huge impact but I know 3 family’s that went because of this. This may be playing a roll as well.

A couple of years ago we went in early September with predicted low crowds. We got there and it was similar to the unexpected crowd issues this January. Found out there was religious holiday that also had kids out of school and it drove the crowd levels up.

 

[NJlauren]

A couple of years ago we went in early September with predicted low crowds. We got there and it was similar to the unexpected crowd issues this January. Found out there was religious holiday that also had kids out of school and it drove the crowd levels up.

Yup! When it falls Thursday Friday, and the whole district (public schools) are closed the non Jews go on weekend vacations. I have friends who moved to the area from areas with less of a Jewish population they were shocked public schools were close these days, but it’s pretty common up here.

 

[Dug720]

I think its a combination of the following factors:

• Consumer confidence is higher than in previous years and the economy seems to be turning for the better, especially in states like Florida. The latest passenger counts at MCO reflect this. For example, passenger counts in 2017 at MCO broke records with 43+ million passengers.. This means more people than normal are traveling to Orlando, part of this is due to the general growth of the city, but a big chunk of it is obviously also due to an increase in tourism..
• WDW is taking a more aggressive marketing approach in recent years in an effort to fill off-season dates by offering discounted rates on off-dates, special promos (like free dining), and other perks to draw people to dates that historically are less popular.. The strategy seems to be working well for WDW..
• As stated by pp, the new FP+ system, while beneficial for some, has created longer stand-by waits for those who do not have a FP+ .. This can lead to a feeling of bigger "crowds" especially around entrances of attractions..

With that said, as more attractions, new lands, and expansions open up it will lead the more crowds.. I cannot even imagine what a park like DHS is going to look like once both new lands are open..

I still think a fourth factor is there were a lot of cancellations and reschedulings due to hurricanes in the fall and part of these increased crowds may be from those - especially if people were not able to get fall time off after the cancellation and/or didn't want to deal with hurricane season again.

 

[sdomino11]

We were at MK today. Touring Plans projected a level 3 crowd. We waited 7 minutes to board the people mover and twenty minutes for our space mountain fast pass! Lines were long and most FPS were gone by late afternoon. Oddly enough, walkways seemed pretty open. We still had fun, we just cut out a third of our plans. We usually go in April or May and booked this trip specifically for “low crowds.” Ha. Joke’s on me!

 

[focusondisney]

Just back from a 3 night stay at POR. The food court was packed for breakfast every morning. And I mean packed as in, people walking around with trays looking for someone to get up. We ate anywhere from 8 - 10 am & it was like this anytime we we were there. Most seemed to be families, didn't see any groups. Not what I expected or have ever head about late January.

 

[evilqueenmindy]

I was at DHS Wednesday and MK yesterday, and I didn’t think the crowds were bad at all. We are at OKW, have not had a full bus yet, even leaving right after fireworks at DHS.
We waited about 30 min for pirates, maybe(?) 5 min for peoplemover, Space Mountain was down during our FP time, not sure if it came back, walkways and common areas were not congested at all. None of the wait times seemed outrageous when I would check them.

 

[nco91590]

But the two strategies in conflict I read are
1. Get and use your 3 early in the day, so you can get more before they run out
2. Don't waste FastPasses early in the day if you get there at opening. Use them for headliners later in the day. (BTW - the optimized Touring Plan seems to confirm this idea.)

I've always struggled with this. Last March we had CL of 8-10. Went at rope drop and was able to ride almost everything in Fantasy Land (FP for Peter Pan, 7DMT and HM) by lunch time. But then there were ZERO afternoon FPs available on the app. Nothing, nada, zip. So we did Philharmagic, walked around, watched some castle show and did a 60 minute standby for PoC with my 6year old on my iphone playing games and my 4 year old asleep on my husband's shoulders. We high-tailed it out of there by 2pm every day.

I guess because my kids are young and my tolerance for crowds is pretty low, I prefer to get everything done in the mornings. But yeah, if you're not a early bird you'll want to make your FPs for the afternoon before they all run out!

 

[ww52]

Sorry for not being up on all the abbreviations -
"CL of 8 - 10"?

 

[petrola]

Sorry for not being up on all the abbreviations -
"CL of 8 - 10"?

I think it means Crowd Levels is an 8 out of 10.

 

[bigbabyblues]

Wasn't last January more crowded than expected too?

 

[mamamelody2]

I've always struggled with this. Last March we had CL of 8-10. Went at rope drop and was able to ride almost everything in Fantasy Land (FP for Peter Pan, 7DMT and HM) by lunch time. But then there were ZERO afternoon FPs available on the app. Nothing, nada, zip. So we did Philharmagic, walked around, watched some castle show and did a 60 minute standby for PoC with my 6year old on my iphone playing games and my 4 year old asleep on my husband's shoulders. We high-tailed it out of there by 2pm every day.

I guess because my kids are young and my tolerance for crowds is pretty low, I prefer to get everything done in the mornings. But yeah, if you're not a early bird you'll want to make your FPs for the afternoon before they all run out!

How much refreshing did you do? There's no way there were absolutely no FPs at all, all afternoon.
We were at MK last November, crowd level 8, and were able to get 15 FPs that day. Sometimes it took a bit of refreshing to get something we wanted, but it always came up.

 

[nco91590]

How much refreshing did you do? There's no way there were absolutely no FPs at all, all afternoon.
We were at MK last November, crowd level 8, and were able to get 15 FPs that day. Sometimes it took a bit of refreshing to get something we wanted, but it always came up.

I don’t know. I mean, often enough for there to be nothing until 8pm. I’ve never had much luck with the 4+ FP situation. Maybe I just need to try harder lol. Usually I call it a day and grab a margarita somewhere

 

[N Shah]

FP+ ruins Epcot. I hate the 2 tier system. I had to use the first one for Frozen (have a baby with me). Was not able to get on Soarin or TT (Lines were 50+ min each). At 7:45PM, we were talking about it at a restaurant, and a couple next to us handed me their child swap for Soarin (which was really nice). However, without the FP+ tier, I think we would have had a much better experience.

For the other tiers, I didnt use FP after 11AM (nemo, crush, people mover, etc had no lines anyways <10min)

 

[N Shah]

MK had lines two days ago. 7DMT was over 2 hours at one point. Pooh, Pirates, Jungle Cruise also had long lines. Didnt go on space mountain (ride was broken for half the day). Other rides were quick <15 min - small world, afternoon princess meet. Crowd Level was probably a 4-5. Monorail to TT was a 40 min wait.

Epcot had light crowds, probably a 3. All the kiddie rides had almost no wait, but the "adult" attractions were mostly an hour+. The unfortunate thing was that there were so many people who were drunk by 6PM, especially near France. Dont think Ill go back during Festival of the arts.

 

[WEDWDW]

The unfortunate thing was that there were so many people who were drunk by 6PM, especially near France. Dont think Ill go back during Festival of the arts.

WOW!Didn't know Festival of the Arts was becoming the "Food & Wine Festival 2.0"!lol

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

FP+ ruins Epcot. I hate the 2 tier system. I had to use the first one for Frozen (have a baby with me). Was not able to get on Soarin or TT (Lines were 50+ min each). At 7:45PM, we were talking about it at a restaurant, and a couple next to us handed me their child swap for Soarin (which was really nice). However, without the FP+ tier, I think we would have had a much better experience.

For the other tiers, I didnt use FP after 11AM (nemo, crush, people mover, etc had no lines anyways <10min)

I think in the current state of MDE, the fact that Soarin and TT are Tier 1 makes them easier to get as 4+ FPs. I see them pop up regularly while refreshing. If they were not tiered they would probably all get snapped up and they would be significantly harder to get with less movement on them (adding and dropping). Or at least, that’s my theory. I would be interested to know why they didn’t put FP on the E&A M&G. Maybe when they open Ratatouille the tiering will change.

But between RD and 4th FPs we find Epcot to be pretty easy to do the headliners we want.