Epcot SO Busy! - Jan 25, 2020

[epcotty]

We where at Epcot today, Sat, Jan. 25, and the place was OVERRUN with guests!
You never know whether to believe the things that you hear from random CM's, but we heard one CM say that today was an Epcot attendance record for this date.

They even had Electric Umbrella open to help handle the food service for so many guests (and there was a sizable line in there.)
As far as I know, Electric Umbrella closed in November of last year.

We booked a Lyft back to our resort (I didn't want to try the buses with so many guests there) and the driver said that he'd never seen the Epcot parking lots so full.

Virtually all FPs were booked and nearly impossible to "change."

Wow, it's a busy, busy, BUSY late January at WDW!

we ate at electric umbrella december 9

 

[armerida]

Agreed, we were here this same weekend last year for my husband’s birthday, and it was dead. Yesterday, not so much! Haha I had someone in front of me at the Mexico food booth saying he’s a passholder and never seen it so crowded...I asked him if he’d ever been to Epcot on Christmas or NYE?!

 

[Brett Wyman]

Weird. Maybe a flood of locals returning after the cold snap?

Touring plans did have it predicted as a 8/10 overall and a 9/10 at MK. They predicted 7/10 for Epcot and rated it a 10/10 now.

 

[yulilin3]

Agreed, we were here this same weekend last year for my husband’s birthday, and it was dead. Yesterday, not so much! Haha I had someone in front of me at the Mexico food booth saying he’s a passholder and never seen it so crowded...I asked him if he’d ever been to Epcot on Christmas or NYE?!

not as bad as NYE

 

[emily nicole]

We went this very week in 2014 and it was the lowest crowds we had ever experienced. I guess there really isn't a slow time anymore.

 

[sghokie]

I was there Saturday last week and thought Epcot was as crowded between Christmas and New Years.

 

[armerida]

not as bad as NYE

Nowhere close! We did NYE for the first time this year and it was a blast. Waaaay busier than yesterday tho!

 

[loves to dive]

We were there last week MLK day through Fri, left yesterday and all the parks were crowded. I was really surprised since I expected Monday to be but not the rest of the week. There were a lot of school age kids there (American kids) and I was wondering how they weren't in school. Maybe home schooling? We walked over to Epcot Friday night to do some last minute shopping and eat and it was horrible crowded.

 

[Sarahslay]

We were there last week MLK day through Fri, left yesterday and all the parks were crowded. I was really surprised since I expected Monday to be but not the rest of the week. There were a lot of school age kids there (American kids) and I was wondering how they weren't in school. Maybe home schooling? We walked over to Epcot Friday night to do some last minute shopping and eat and it was horrible crowded.

I have a lot of friends whose kids schools took the whole week off, which seems silly to me since they just had Christmas break. My kids only had MLK day off so I would never take them out when they still have most of the week off, but I'm sure there are some people who were like "No one will be there, lets take the whole week to experience lows crowds!" and then everyone did it lol. Same thing happened to us December 2017, we had read that the first two weeks are always low crowds so we booked a trip, girls only missed a couple of days of school, but everyone else did the same thing and it was super crowded.

 

[WEDWDW]

That can't possibly quicker than walking with the shortcut through Boardwalk, can it?

It can be close and the few minutes maybe saved by walking are not worth the relaxing,fun flight of the Skyliner.

And on a rainy day,walking in the rain versus getting out of the elements in Skyliner is another advantage.

 

[hereforthechurros]

We where at Epcot today, Sat, Jan. 25, and the place was OVERRUN with guests!
You never know whether to believe the things that you hear from random CM's, but we heard one CM say that today was an Epcot attendance record for this date.

We booked a Lyft back to our resort (I didn't want to try the buses with so many guests there) and the driver said that he'd never seen the Epcot parking lots so full.

Virtually all FPs were booked and nearly impossible to "change."

Wow, it's a busy, busy, BUSY late January at WDW!

So glad someone else can corroborate those crowds yesterday. We were in Epcot on Christmas Eve and yesterday’s crowds were worse. Mexico was just pure madness. We waited 30 minutes for a beer in Norway then luckily walked into Spice road table. Every festival booth and QS line was a nonstarter. No FPs. Even Gran Fiesta was a 30 minute wait and looked longer than that based on the line.

We were at WDW this weekend last year and it was totally quiet and calm. Any idea what made this weekend so crazy?

 

[Sara_H]

We were there Thursday and Friday and it definitely felt more crowded than past years.

We saw one of the Property Brothers on Friday and I also heard that Paige O’Hara (the original voice of Belle) made an appearance at the new sing-a-long in France.

The Kardashians were also spotted around, there’s the Pro Bowl, and yesterday was the Disney Parks Blog live stream of the Broadway Concert Series.

I’m not sure exactly what’s bringing all the crowds but there sure was a lot going on.

We were there last week too! Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Tuesday I’ve never seen the park so dead at night! It was pretty cold but for the fireworks you literally could have found a great place to watch at any point. Unfortunately we didn’t see any famous people...or we did and were completely oblivious.

 

[Sara_H]

We were there last week MLK day through Fri, left yesterday and all the parks were crowded. I was really surprised since I expected Monday to be but not the rest of the week. There were a lot of school age kids there (American kids) and I was wondering how they weren't in school. Maybe home schooling? We walked over to Epcot Friday night to do some last minute shopping and eat and it was horrible crowded.

We pulled our kids out of school to go last week. They were off Monday and had a late start on Wednesday. We don’t pull them out much so we didn’t even think twice about it.

 

[randumb0]

I stopped in Epcot for an hour or so and it was much more busy than I expected

 

[RememberWhoYouAre]

We were there Thursday and Friday and it definitely felt more crowded than past years.

We saw one of the Property Brothers on Friday and I also heard that Paige O’Hara (the original voice of Belle) made an appearance at the new sing-a-long in France.

The Kardashians were also spotted around, there’s the Pro Bowl, and yesterday was the Disney Parks Blog live stream of the Broadway Concert Series.

I’m not sure exactly what’s bringing all the crowds but there sure was a lot going on.

Paige O'Hara was there several days for the Arts Festival, signing her artwork. But that would have been so cool to be at the sing-along and have her make a surprise appearance!!

 

[midnight star]

We were there last week MLK day through Fri, left yesterday and all the parks were crowded. I was really surprised since I expected Monday to be but not the rest of the week. There were a lot of school age kids there (American kids) and I was wondering how they weren't in school. Maybe home schooling? We walked over to Epcot Friday night to do some last minute shopping and eat and it was horrible crowded.

Interesting. We were there Tuesday-Friday and didn't think the crowds were bad. Tuesday at Magic Kingdom was busy, but we had no issues navigating through crowds, finding places to take breaks, and even scored fastpasses by refreshing. Epcot on Thursday seemed to be the least crowded out of the week.

There were a lot of school groups and tours going on, and we also wondered why they weren't in school lol.

 

[PaladinButters]

We went this very week in 2014 and it was the lowest crowds we had ever experienced. I guess there really isn't a slow time anymore.

Did this week in 2013 and 2017 - nice and slow! May try bumping down a week for our next winter trip.

 

[Haley R]

We were just at Epcot on Friday and talked about how it didn’t feel crowded at all. Normally Dh gets mad about crowds and people running into him but we didn’t have that issue. We were there from 12-6.

 

[sponica]

I wonder if there were people doing a quick WDW trip before the super bowl festivities kick off in Miami.

 

[GoofysGal67]

For the past ten years or so, late January has been my go to time because of fewer crowds. My kids have off due to the end of their quarter/semester, and I've usually tagged on a day or two to that to make it a long weekend - we are in reasonable driving distance as well, lower prices for the hotels/ AP specials, cooler temps. etc. I have NEVER seen it as crowded as this year. My daughter was sick of me saying "Why is it so crowded?" I thought it might be because of RotR but it wasn't just DHS - all the parks had crazy wait times. We were there from Wednesday(pm) - Sunday(am). I thought we might pop in to Epcot before we left on Sunday to do Spaceship Earth and when I tried to snag a FP - there were only evening times available. I don't know what was going on - a perfect storm of events perhaps? All of the rides, except Triceratops spin, at AK were 100+ wait on Saturday - Dinosaur was down, Primeval Whirl wasn't open and Kali is being refurbed. The FP lines for both the Safari and EE were way beyond the normal queue. And the parks closed at 8:00PM or 9:00PM. (MK at 10:00 on Sat) We missed out on evening EMH, and while tempted - I didn't want to pay for the after hours event at either MK or AK. We were at Epcot on Friday and it wasn't that crowded - they have certainly put more into the Festival of the Arts since it's inception - which is nice! We also went to Epcot to get lunch on Saturday and were blown away by how crowded it was - the weather was absolutely perfect so I'm sure that had something to do with it as well. And I agree with some of what was said here about the Skyliner - it's so easy to just hop from park to park. (I did it!!) I did notice a lot of teenage tour groups - which I don't think I've seen this time of year before. I don't know what made it so crowded but I'm sort of obsessed with it though!