Just got back--light crowds

YankeeMouse

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Just got back last night. Attendance was VERY down. One cast member told us the MK usually has 100,000 attendance on the first day we went there...it was a Saturday, and they were expecting 40,000. We were able to make last minute dining reservations, the SAME DAY, at Le Cellier, Hollywood and Vine for the Fantasmic package, and O-Hana.

The only fastpasses we had to use were for Toy Story Mania and one for Big Thunder later in the day. Since it was 95 degrees, we never stayed for the afternoon with the height of the crowds, but have been to WDW in the summer at this time before, and have never seen the crowds so light.

We also got a double upgrade at Wilderness Lodge to pool view, plus king bed, so their occupancy was obviously down as well.

This all made for a great vacation for us, but it proved to us first-hand that people are not going to WDW as usual.
 

rainfully

Well-Known Member
I don't know exact numbers or anything... but I'm pretty sure that MK doesn't usually have 100,000 people. I think that number is close to capacity and those numbers are only reached on holidays and such.

But I'm glad to hear you had a nice trip and avoided the crowds!! :wave:
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Nah - the MK is in phases by the 90,000 mark.

You must have got lucky. All last week (and the previous week) wait times for E Rides were 40-90 minutes every day at all parks. Fant! needed seating an hour before the show not to be in the wings, the same for RoEs best spots too, and the first Spectro actually had bums on sidewalks 90 minutes before showtime each day.
 

MicheleK

Member
Nah - the MK is in phases by the 90,000 mark.

You must have got lucky. All last week (and the previous week) wait times for E Rides were 40-90 minutes every day at all parks. Fant! needed seating an hour before the show not to be in the wings, the same for RoEs best spots too, and the first Spectro actually had bums on sidewalks 90 minutes before showtime each day.

Yes, they must have got lucky. I was there last week and MK was super crowded as was Epcot. DHS and AK were crowded but we did those in the mornings. Fastpass needed for all E ticket rides. I was expecting attendance to be down also, but to my surprise, IMO, it wasn't. Even on Thursday when we had a massive rain storm and I was wading thorugh six+ inches of water in MK, crowds were still really up there. :wave:
 

sknydave

Active Member
I think you were at Shijingshan Amusement Park (the Chinese rip-off) because wdw crowds were massive when I popped in last week.
 

holleyb

New Member
I was at MK last week - Wednesday 7-16 - and it was EMPTY!! we litterly walked on every ride w/o using any fast passes! By 7pm we had ridden every ride at MK!! and when the afternoon rainstorm hit, we pushed a double stroller through the main street shops w/o running into anyone - even the stores were empty. I usually go to WDW in january to avoid crowds, but last week was much less crowded than january.
 

RiversideBunny

New Member
Yes, they must have got lucky. I was there last week and MK was super crowded as was Epcot. DHS and AK were crowded but we did those in the mornings. Fastpass needed for all E ticket rides. I was expecting attendance to be down also, but to my surprise, IMO, it wasn't. Even on Thursday when we had a massive rain storm and I was wading thorugh six+ inches of water in MK, crowds were still really up there. :wave:

I was at MK last week - Wednesday 7-16 - and it was EMPTY!! we litterly walked on every ride w/o using any fast passes! By 7pm we had ridden every ride at MK!! and when the afternoon rainstorm hit, we pushed a double stroller through the main street shops w/o running into anyone - even the stores were empty. I usually go to WDW in january to avoid crowds, but last week was much less crowded than january.

OK. Who's right?

It's Walt Disney World. In July.
:)
 

wickedfan07

Member
OK. Who's right?

It's Walt Disney World. In July.
:)

Well, sometimes the corwds run in cycles. any given park may see different crowd levels each day; it just depends on a lot of different factors. (Touringplans.com would argue this.) I don't think crowd patterns are so drastic that MK would be nearly empty, but I guess anything is possible. :shrug:
 

miles1

Active Member
I was at MK last week - Wednesday 7-16 - and it was EMPTY!! we litterly walked on every ride w/o using any fast passes! By 7pm we had ridden every ride at MK!! and when the afternoon rainstorm hit, we pushed a double stroller through the main street shops w/o running into anyone - even the stores were empty. I usually go to WDW in january to avoid crowds, but last week was much less crowded than january.

According to Touringplans.com, MK was the "best" park for crowds on 7/16, DS and AK were the "avoid" parks. I don't know if you were following their plan, but you (or they) hit it right regardless.

I'll be arriving at WDW this Saturday and plan to follow their recommendations as usual; we usually find the waits pretty reasonable when we do. I'll post my observations as well when we get back.
 

LudwigVonDrake

Well-Known Member
I was there from 7/11 to 7/18. The first three days crowds were light. Then the tour groups showed up and wait times got very long. I will say this though: every night of my trip Tomorrowland was a ghost town with the exception of Space Mountain and that was running at about 30 minutes. So I guess it depends on where you were???

Plus on my last night and I didn't understand this at all, the line for Winnie the Pooh was only 10 minutes.
 

WildLodgeFan

New Member
According to Touringplans.com, MK was the "best" park for crowds on 7/16, DS and AK were the "avoid" parks. I don't know if you were following their plan, but you (or they) hit it right regardless.

I'll be arriving at WDW this Saturday and plan to follow their recommendations as usual; we usually find the waits pretty reasonable when we do. I'll post my observations as well when we get back.

I am definitely interested in that follow-up. I've been curious about how accurate they are with that crowd calendar.
 

YankeeMouse

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Well, maybe the cast member was wrong on the numbers, but we always go this exact week in July. Usually when we go to an extra hours park in the a.m., after two attractions, the place is packed and walking is difficult. Never had that problem. Walked through Fantasyland on a straight course. Peter Pan was only 30 minutes at around 10 a.m. I can't comment on it being packed later in the day, because we generally avoided that 1:00 to 6:00 time, when people are pouring in. I just know from personal experience that it was definitely less crowded, and getting into Le Cellier for a same day reservation has always been impossible at that time of year. I'm sure people have different versions of "crowded" and "uncrowded", I'm just comparing to my own experience exactly a year later, and it was definitely light crowds.
 

Trishnh

Active Member
wow--I guess you lucked out! we just got back last night and we only hit 2 parks this time--MK on Wed ( I think!) and DHS on Sat and they were both very crowded! It is the first time I have ever seen Fantasmic closed because it was at capacity. We also hit blizzard Beach on Fri and it was crazy..We ran into the tour groups EVERYWHERE!! I couldnt believe how many of them there were:eek:!!

On a side note, we finally got to see Toy Story Mania and it was awesome!! We all loved it!! The weather definitely could have been better!
 

MicheleK

Member
wow--I guess you lucked out! we just got back last night and we only hit 2 parks this time--MK on Wed ( I think!) and DHS on Sat and they were both very crowded! It is the first time I have ever seen Fantasmic closed because it was at capacity. We also hit blizzard Beach on Fri and it was crazy..We ran into the tour groups EVERYWHERE!! I couldnt believe how many of them there were:eek:!!

On a side note, we finally got to see Toy Story Mania and it was awesome!! We all loved it!! The weather definitely could have been better!

We hit TONS of tour groups too... I wanted to slap them. They were SOOooo rude. Though my husband did lodge a complaint agaist a CM at Sorin. She held back the "regular" fastpass people at our given time to let, I'd say, about 50 to 75 of them on the ride. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. Everyone was in an uproar. When my husband confronted the CM, she was rude also and of a foreign nationality, barely speaking Englsih. So he complained to another CM closer to the ride. And she was floored. She held back the whole group so the rest of us could go on before them :sohappy::sohappy:. Good for her, I was impressed with that particular CM and very disappointed in the first one. :mad:
 

rbrower

Well-Known Member
I was there that same Saturday and I thought that there were very light crowds as well. It was the last day of my trip and by far the least crowded. Most rides had very short lines, if any lines at all. Even the fastpasses seemed to be going slower than normal.:shrug: I enjoyed the smaller crowd though.:D
 

rbrower

Well-Known Member
We hit TONS of tour groups too... I wanted to slap them. They were SOOooo rude. Though my husband did lodge a complaint agaist a CM at Sorin. She held back the "regular" fastpass people at our given time to let, I'd say, about 50 to 75 of them on the ride. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. Everyone was in an uproar. When my husband confronted the CM, she was rude also and of a foreign nationality, barely speaking Englsih. So he complained to another CM closer to the ride. And she was floored. She held back the whole group so the rest of us could go on before them :sohappy::sohappy:. Good for her, I was impressed with that particular CM and very disappointed in the first one. :mad:
Yeah, I found that many of the tour groups were very rude this time. Most of them left their trash on the tables whenever they would finish eating at a quick service restaurant when they could clearly see most of the people eating around them getting up and throwing away their own trash.
Also, when I went to Soarin' at the beginning of the day (when the park first opened), there was a tour group waiting outside of the land (I think that they had gotten in somehow before regular guests). There were cast members out there trying to hold them until most of the other guests got into the building but the tour groups started running and ended mixed up inbetween all of the other parties waiting in line for Soarin'. They also kept trying to pull themselves up to the first person in line from their group.:rolleyes: Luckily, the cast members inside of Soarin' sent all of the people from their tour group in one direction and sent everybody else in the other direction.
 

jonnyc

Well-Known Member
We hit TONS of tour groups too... I wanted to slap them. They were SOOooo rude. Though my husband did lodge a complaint agaist a CM at Sorin. She held back the "regular" fastpass people at our given time to let, I'd say, about 50 to 75 of them on the ride. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. Everyone was in an uproar.

O dear god, you might have to wait another 15 minutes for a ride.

Won't somebody please think of the children! :p
 


Write your reply...

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom