Are parks busier in the morning or the evening?

[richiejv]

Hi all,

I appreciate that we might be getting into crystal ball territory as this is a few months off, but it’d be good to get an idea of what things are generally like. Myself and the missus will be travelling to Florida next September (assuming a travel corridor from the UK is open by then), arriving the day before Labor Day and staying for two weeks. We’ll be doing all the Disney parks and the two Universal ones.

Generally speaking, are the parks busier in the morning (i.e. from rope drop) or in the evening (towards closing time)? I know that normally things like seeing fireworks would be taken into consideration, but we’re not overly bothered by those and I’d have thought the chances of them being on are fairly low.

We’ll be staying off-site at a hotel down International Drive so no EMH to take advantage of (though again, they might not be back). Any advice would be much appreciated!

Cheers.

 

[JIMINYCR]

Ive found it depends a lot on whether events are going on or when they have added extra hours onto the schedule. Right now theres nothing special being added to increase crowds. Generally Ive encountered the morning hours busier and gradually building as morning goes on. Evenings youll see crowds starting to decrease due to families getting done with the parks, kids needing to get settled back at the resorts for the night, and just everyone by later evening hitting their limit, getting worn down from the heat, crowds, lines and having a big dinner. As the hours pass you can get a feel of how the parks are getting easier to walk around and lines are easing up. I've always enjoyed the parks different night time atmosphere more and sometimes those last few hours can be more productive. The only thing is to be prepared for the crowds abandoning the parks at closing and the massive jamming up of the the bus, monorail, ferry areas.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Honestly, I think it depends what time the parks open. The earlier the opening time, the less crowded rope drop would be. A 7am opening at AK used to be less crowded than an 8am opening and MUCH less crowded than a 9am opening. I find people usually tend to roll in between 9am and 11am. Also, the later the park stays open, the less crowds there are. When MK used to have EMH from 10pm-1am we used to basically be able to do almost every single ride, some twice. Ahhhhh, the good old days.....

 

[Sandersfeld]

just got back from a 5 day vacation there and id say the morning was def more busy..id go back at night and walk on to some rides.. the exception would of been EPCOT,,