Our latest Disney trip was just a few weeks ago. We were in the parks from Sunday, February 4th through Thursday, February 8th. We went to MK twice (2/4 and 2/8), Epcot twice (2/5 and 2/7), and DHS once (2/6). We don't go to AK, since we don't feel there is enough we would like to do again to justify one of our ticket days (we don't buy hoppers because of the cost.)
We had been to WDW recently twice before - from 29 Feb - 4 March 2016, and then the week after Thanksgiving in 2016. On this trip, Epcot was the most crowded that I have ever seen it. MK and DHS were also more crowded than the other times we had gone. We did not go to AK.
Just some impressions and random thoughts:
- We stayed offsite at The Fountains and booked out FPs 30 days out. When I booked the FPs each day, there were plenty of FPs available for the popular attractions, such as 7DMT, Peter Pan, Soarin, TT, FEA, TSMM, RnRC, etc. So many that I thought the parks weren't going to be crowded at all. Boy were we mistaken.
- Ride times on the popular rides got very high. Often times, I would check the wait times at the other parks other than the one we were at, and I would be stunned at how long the waits were. I remember seeing Space Mountain with a posted 190 minutes. TSMM was over 100 minutes at one point. Shows like Frozen and Indiana Jones were completely full!
- We arrived at Epcot on Monday at 8:30am. The crowd was being held at the tapstiles, and the lines for each were already butting up against the buildings directly in back of the tapstiles! I have never seen that kind of crowd at Epcot at RD! In the past when i've gone to Epcot at that time, the CMs are letting folks in early. The CMs started to let people in at 9am. We raced to Soarin at RD and at 10 minutes after 9, it was already a 40 minute wait. At one point, the line for Figment was out the door, in queue ropes leading out of the door and along the side of the building. I have NEVER seen Figment that busy. The FP queue at Spaceship Earth extended out into the park, out of the queue ropes, and the standby lines did so as well. We had to go by guest services, and there was a 20 minute wait at Epcot Guest Services. So many people were in line that the CMs set up poles and queue ropes at guest services!
- At one point, my 10 year old daughter told me "Disney used to be magical, now its like an overcrowded amusement park." She has been to other amusement parks, the state fair, et al, when its crowded. That speaks volumes when a 10 year old girl isn't having a great time due to the crowds.
- It was really difficult to walk around. The crowds could be pretty big, and some areas, like Mexico at Epcot and between Peter Pan and Small World, are choke points. There was a constant starting and stopping, people cutting in front of you, etc. Walking got to be frustrating at times.
- The South Americans were there in force, either in small groups or large tour groups. There were times you heard nothing but Spanish or Portuguese spoken around you. At the Indiana Jones show, which was packed (I'd never seen that before either!) when a person from Brazil was picked, the crowd roared. Totally unscientific, but it appeared that half the crowd was from Brazil! IMHO, if it wasn't for them, I think the parks would have been much less crowded.
- We had many problems with the South American tour groups. When they were going somewhere, they would barrel through an area, walking fast as a group, making you get out of their way. I finally had enough and stopped, making them go around me! One group of about 40 was singing some song in Portuguese very loudly while walking through Mexico in front of the pyramid. If we were in line with them, we would get jostled, hit, bumped and one of them almost knocked down my 10 year old daughter! They also would cut in front of us in line. We WILL NOT go back if the South Americans are there.
- It rained on us at MK on 2/4. The rain didn't seem to effect the crowds at all.
- There were some cheerleaders and dancers in the parks, but not in huge groups, maybe 5-8 in a group at at time, and there really didn't appear to be that many groups of them.
- I rode Mission Space Orange for the first time, and had a blast. I went by myself since none of my family wanted to. I didn't have any sensation of spinning, but I was pressed back into the seat. I loved it!
- We could have skipped DHS this time, but my daughter loves that park so we went. My wife and I can't ride RnRC or ToT because of back issues and we can now add Star Tours to that as well (it hurt my back.) IMHO, there's just not a lot left there for us to do that we would do again. The lines for TSMM got to be long at times. Even the FP line was a wait.
- Although they weren't running the 2nd instance of Dumbo, I saw plenty of cast members there. While they may be scaling down some cast members, the rides that were running had plenty of them, and the same with the gift shops. We brought our food into the park, so we didn't go to any QS restaurants. We did one character breakfast, and that appeared to be well staffed. To cut to the chase, most of the time, I don't think the "fewer" number of CMs really did much for wait times that week in the places we went and the things we did. We've heard that causes an increase in wait time, but it did not appear to me at least that this was the cause when I was there. It came back to having way more people in the parks at this time than people are used to.
- There were a lot of little kids there. Parents aren't hesitating to take their children out of school for a trip to WDW these days.
- From our first recent trip, until now, the crowd levels have grown with each trip. Its sad for us, since my wife and I feel "uncomfortable" in large crowds and we go places at times to avoid crowds. When will we go to Disney from now on? Who knows. We probably won't be going back for some time.
- Ride breakdowns were probably the least that we've had one any recent trip at WDW. I remember People Mover was down for some time on one night, as well as Space Mountain. Spaceship Earth broke down once while we were on it, and those were the only breakdowns that we saw or experienced.
- On our last day, it was very foggy that morning. So foggy that the ferries couldn't run. Everyone was directed by the CMs to take the monorail, with had lines going out into the TTC plaza. Sigh. I really wish Disney would start running buses during these times.
To be honest, I don't think that you could say that February and from what i've read, January, are slow months anymore. Again, from what i've seen on this board, January and February have turned into busy months. Like summer months, you've got to have FPs and a good plan. We got everything done we wanted, and then some, each day.
The large crowds did not keep us from having a good time, but they did make the vacation not as relaxing or as nice as we've had in the past. To be honest with you, going to Disney when it wasn't crowded was a plus for us, a plus we apparently won't have any more. Sadly, with the increase in crowds, regular price increases, and everything else competing for the family budget, we really can't go back for some time. Maybe also a little "don't want to go back" for some time.....
We had been to WDW recently twice before - from 29 Feb - 4 March 2016, and then the week after Thanksgiving in 2016. On this trip, Epcot was the most crowded that I have ever seen it. MK and DHS were also more crowded than the other times we had gone. We did not go to AK.
Just some impressions and random thoughts:
- We stayed offsite at The Fountains and booked out FPs 30 days out. When I booked the FPs each day, there were plenty of FPs available for the popular attractions, such as 7DMT, Peter Pan, Soarin, TT, FEA, TSMM, RnRC, etc. So many that I thought the parks weren't going to be crowded at all. Boy were we mistaken.
- Ride times on the popular rides got very high. Often times, I would check the wait times at the other parks other than the one we were at, and I would be stunned at how long the waits were. I remember seeing Space Mountain with a posted 190 minutes. TSMM was over 100 minutes at one point. Shows like Frozen and Indiana Jones were completely full!
- We arrived at Epcot on Monday at 8:30am. The crowd was being held at the tapstiles, and the lines for each were already butting up against the buildings directly in back of the tapstiles! I have never seen that kind of crowd at Epcot at RD! In the past when i've gone to Epcot at that time, the CMs are letting folks in early. The CMs started to let people in at 9am. We raced to Soarin at RD and at 10 minutes after 9, it was already a 40 minute wait. At one point, the line for Figment was out the door, in queue ropes leading out of the door and along the side of the building. I have NEVER seen Figment that busy. The FP queue at Spaceship Earth extended out into the park, out of the queue ropes, and the standby lines did so as well. We had to go by guest services, and there was a 20 minute wait at Epcot Guest Services. So many people were in line that the CMs set up poles and queue ropes at guest services!
- At one point, my 10 year old daughter told me "Disney used to be magical, now its like an overcrowded amusement park." She has been to other amusement parks, the state fair, et al, when its crowded. That speaks volumes when a 10 year old girl isn't having a great time due to the crowds.
- It was really difficult to walk around. The crowds could be pretty big, and some areas, like Mexico at Epcot and between Peter Pan and Small World, are choke points. There was a constant starting and stopping, people cutting in front of you, etc. Walking got to be frustrating at times.
- The South Americans were there in force, either in small groups or large tour groups. There were times you heard nothing but Spanish or Portuguese spoken around you. At the Indiana Jones show, which was packed (I'd never seen that before either!) when a person from Brazil was picked, the crowd roared. Totally unscientific, but it appeared that half the crowd was from Brazil! IMHO, if it wasn't for them, I think the parks would have been much less crowded.
- We had many problems with the South American tour groups. When they were going somewhere, they would barrel through an area, walking fast as a group, making you get out of their way. I finally had enough and stopped, making them go around me! One group of about 40 was singing some song in Portuguese very loudly while walking through Mexico in front of the pyramid. If we were in line with them, we would get jostled, hit, bumped and one of them almost knocked down my 10 year old daughter! They also would cut in front of us in line. We WILL NOT go back if the South Americans are there.
- It rained on us at MK on 2/4. The rain didn't seem to effect the crowds at all.
- There were some cheerleaders and dancers in the parks, but not in huge groups, maybe 5-8 in a group at at time, and there really didn't appear to be that many groups of them.
- I rode Mission Space Orange for the first time, and had a blast. I went by myself since none of my family wanted to. I didn't have any sensation of spinning, but I was pressed back into the seat. I loved it!
- We could have skipped DHS this time, but my daughter loves that park so we went. My wife and I can't ride RnRC or ToT because of back issues and we can now add Star Tours to that as well (it hurt my back.) IMHO, there's just not a lot left there for us to do that we would do again. The lines for TSMM got to be long at times. Even the FP line was a wait.
- Although they weren't running the 2nd instance of Dumbo, I saw plenty of cast members there. While they may be scaling down some cast members, the rides that were running had plenty of them, and the same with the gift shops. We brought our food into the park, so we didn't go to any QS restaurants. We did one character breakfast, and that appeared to be well staffed. To cut to the chase, most of the time, I don't think the "fewer" number of CMs really did much for wait times that week in the places we went and the things we did. We've heard that causes an increase in wait time, but it did not appear to me at least that this was the cause when I was there. It came back to having way more people in the parks at this time than people are used to.
- There were a lot of little kids there. Parents aren't hesitating to take their children out of school for a trip to WDW these days.
- From our first recent trip, until now, the crowd levels have grown with each trip. Its sad for us, since my wife and I feel "uncomfortable" in large crowds and we go places at times to avoid crowds. When will we go to Disney from now on? Who knows. We probably won't be going back for some time.
- Ride breakdowns were probably the least that we've had one any recent trip at WDW. I remember People Mover was down for some time on one night, as well as Space Mountain. Spaceship Earth broke down once while we were on it, and those were the only breakdowns that we saw or experienced.
- On our last day, it was very foggy that morning. So foggy that the ferries couldn't run. Everyone was directed by the CMs to take the monorail, with had lines going out into the TTC plaza. Sigh. I really wish Disney would start running buses during these times.
To be honest, I don't think that you could say that February and from what i've read, January, are slow months anymore. Again, from what i've seen on this board, January and February have turned into busy months. Like summer months, you've got to have FPs and a good plan. We got everything done we wanted, and then some, each day.
The large crowds did not keep us from having a good time, but they did make the vacation not as relaxing or as nice as we've had in the past. To be honest with you, going to Disney when it wasn't crowded was a plus for us, a plus we apparently won't have any more. Sadly, with the increase in crowds, regular price increases, and everything else competing for the family budget, we really can't go back for some time. Maybe also a little "don't want to go back" for some time.....
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